PodiumRender™ for SketchUp

Chrome, water, glass, and girls. All the textures required for a great pool party and a wicked render. SketchUp Pro and PodiumRender are a sweet team. I designed this patio scene in about an hour. That included dawdling and screwing around... Click to enlarge image

Brands...

[click on image to enlarge]

a sample page of some past designs. Willie ran out of money, and Carole ran short of votes. Good fun was had by all, regardless. Everything on this page sold.

ICON ART

The Harley is an American icon and artform... the only artform that can wake me up at 4 a.m. thundering past my home. I catch and immortalize this American Dream in rich HB pencil on 3M™ Herculene drafting film. The surface is like sandpaper, and the pencil "grinds" into it in a thick layer that drawing-paper can't achieve.

I've always loved bikes and chrome, and could draw just about any production cycle from memory, back when I was a teenager (remember Hodaka?). Riding has been a different story. Unfortunately, I have the innate ability to put a bike on top of myself whenever I try to do the opposite. I can lay a moped down on an empty Cozumel beach without a drop of tequila in my system. again and again. Some of us were seriously not meant to ride. only appreciate. Not that I haven't wrecked a lot of 4-wheeled shit, but I digress...

I'll be showing some pieces at an upcoming exhibit where there will be no spring-rolls, merlot, or light Baroque quartets. The WorkingMan's Motorcycle and Art Show will feature bikes, music, art, and vendors. Art will be hung on the chainlink fence, and wine will only be served from the brown paper bag. See details at: http://theworkingmansmotorcycleandartsh.blogspot.com and pray for the skinny artboy. My last bike-art show was in 1973 at Laguna Gloria Fiesta. I actually sold a few pieces. with avacado-green mats. damn.

New online shop...

click to enlarge, then again to go full size.

Mensa gathering at the Texas State Fair?

Eat a big fat plate of nachos and watch your phone charging. All part of the festivities at the big fat state fair in big fat Dallas. I designed these stations for people who talk too much, and/or don't think to charge their nokia before a 12-hour waddle through the land of frying fat, twirling rides, and colorful vomit.

I reviewed a lot of these stations from China to Burger King, and except for the coin-operated chargers that lock, there is no security other than to stare at your phone. I suggest a hinged plex cover to make it more difficult to grab a phone, and we may end up blacking-out the plex, totally hiding the phone. My feelings are that if you leave your expensive phone and walk off to look at the goats and chickens, someone SHOULD take your phone and drop it in the nearest toilet. [there's gonna' be a real clutch of winners around these tables.

There's an animation of the complete setup and signage on it's way later tonite. Gotta burn avi's for Blogger. They can't process .mov files (from my mac). It's a sloooooooow burn...

The Market at the Forum... get the lions.

Another poleandcan monster on 35 in North San Antonio. Greco-Roman eeycccch.

American Legion...Huzzah!

The Texas Dept. of the AL needed to augument their existing granite-and-soldier monument (the soldier is masked out of this animation sequence). I designed a concave monolith with internally illuminated push-thru graphics and granite face. It's a go. Huzzah!

Klingon Empire to land in Atlanta's new airport...

Here's my 3d build-out of the planner's design for Atlanta's newest airport's entry pylons. Lots of LED, power supplies, push-thru plex graphics, and steel. The realtime rendering of the 2d plans revealed a "misunderstanding of the form" on the part of their design. Their drawings didn't indicate it would look like a freaking Klingon battleship when constructed. They still like the way it developed, and as of this date, it looks like we have the contract.

These 30' craft sit on 35-degree inclines... ready for battle.

NASA staff will have to look at two of these everyday, from their main driveway exit...

Marriott, and some other guys got up against a build-out deadline by shopping unqualified companies. I ripped this monument out in 2 days w/ 3d renderings, animations, and an animated site-study. Dual layer plex cabinets w/ programmed full-color LED lighting: stainless steel lettering, and no logo-crap from the tenants...just names in Century Gothic.

Man, it's nice to have a client with no time left to screw around with my design.

UPDATE: This set of 28 monuments is done and paid for. The City of Nassau Bay had to have one, too. Just like the others...yay.

boyz

BAD ECONOMY = REFURB CITY

From the same folks that are refurbing Northcross, comes a new look for Anderson Mill and some other similar pylons in Temple. This image was created with a demo-rendering plug-in for SketchUp, thus the watermarking all over the place. Twilight works within SketchUp and is fairly versatile. Full size images to come, as I flesh this out in the next few days ( just wanted to see the render on blog-screen). And, Hey!, where's my Northcross WalMart? Is it on the same schedule as the CapMetro LiteRail thing?...

Jennifer montage

Dottie,

I took the image from your facebook, and removed the image-frame on the lower right. Then I added an end to the rail Jennifer is posing against. Several passes through Photoshop filters, and some composing, and we're done.

stained-glass progression

Dottie/Paul,

just double click on the image, and it will enlarge to a hi-res image you can copy and save.

ALL MALL.

Just another Premium Mall from Chelsea Group. They're ALL Premium. That's kinda' like DeLuxe. The first two of these were a walk in the park, but this one in Cincinnatti has been an exercise in stupidocracy. I don't know where to start, so I won't. Here's a SketchUp spin through the xray guts of their main pylon. The railroad-tunnel effect is a chamber of LED stripping inside formed transparent blue plex. The blue plex has a backing of white plex spaced-off about 1/2" inch, giving an illusion of a solid acrylic structure.

small art

GROVE-Y NEW SIGN AT SOUTHPARK MEADOWS

Retro is such great fun. The Grove at Southpark Meadows was a perfect candidate for old school signage. I took a design direction from the gas-pumps of the 30's with the bubble cabinet at top. Deep green and sunset-fade with lots of reveals and exposed neon. But the cowboy don't care none...he just wants a beer.

AMLI'S ON 2ND... AND HE'S OUT!!!

No, it's not the bottom of the ninth at the Dell Diamond... It's another AMLI project, this one in downtown Austin on 2nd st. Okay, downtown on 2nd... So, this marketing team spends a week in Nassau determining the best name for the project is Amli on 2nd. That's creativity in action.

Signs: A takeoff on the Hill Country Galleria directionals. Client liked the Galleria stuff, but needed a techie-cleanup, so I smoothed the designs out a bit, added some vertical elements, and glass. My animation program has already anticipated that the glass "lens" over the logo at top, will probably fog-up and look like crap... That's technology in action.

SMOKE, IF YOU'VE GOT 'EM...

When I say "Cuban", I don' t mean Ricky Ricardo. A logo for an importer here in Texas. Liquid gold and chiseled type. Yum. All you need now is a scotch/rocks and a lighter.

MY CAMPAIGN LOGO FOR TOUGH GRANDMA

Me, Carole and a photo-op baby. We ended up with a very clean, straightforward graphic with an out-of-the-can process blue. A no-bullshit graphic for a no-bullshit candidate.

[these images are screen-captures from KXAN's website/ click to enlarge]

SHACK CHIC

In early 2008, I was asked to do some "lickety-split branding" and a signage proposal for Willie Nelson's new venture, Willie's Place: a mixed retail-entertainment-truckstop with an actual jail on the premises. I went with a Victorian banner-design with Cameo-caps, corrugated aluminum, and period gooseneck lamping. Looks like this project (and the money) is back online. Drove past it last month, and they have one single lonely sign on the buildout...