mbaldwin's CGPortoflio Gallery

Factory

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 22:17:58 +0000

Howdy all.
I designed this illustration for the splashpage of my website(in the works). On the site, it's meant to be viewed small, around 300px across, so I was trying hard to make it a quick read.
I liked the atmosphere it lives in, to the point that I thought it would be nice to make it work bigger too--the final poster size being about 7000px across.
any/all comments are appreciated.
thanks!
-m.

The Birthday Party

Sat, 26 Feb 2005 22:20:53 +0000

This is the image I sent into this year's Expose. Ultimately, I don't know how successful it is--I've lost the ability to see straight with it. It's a scene I would drag out every few months and tinker with. I guess I was influenced by Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party, and a bit of the mad tea party and the last supper thrown in to boot. I was going for a shallow diorama-like environment. I mean what's not to like about good dioramas? The American Museum of Natural History is one of my favorite places. I was there again today with my family.
-m.

Dragon Wagon

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 16:14:33 +0000

Much like a real Hot Rod conversion, This personal project has been taking spare cycles of my time--a bunch of spastic fiddling in my 3d garage over a series of months. I finally whipped up an environment for the vehicle, so here it is.
Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, Odd Rod stickers, Shirley Muldowney, Coney Island freak shows, and growing up in the 70's all inspired the design of this vehicle.
For inspiration I invented a backstory: Here's a poster I came up with to put me in the mood:

I'll post a few shots of different angles if anyone's interested.
Thanks in advance for your comments/critiques.
-m.
>> Hi resolution image <<

Monkey Takes A Trip

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 04:33:21 +0000

I started this one as a project for my kids. but in the end the piece has as much to do with my childhood as anything else.
We had an old Fisher-Price toy train, the HuffyPuffy 999, that made it's way through four older brothers to me and my twin brother. Those old wooden toys could take a lot of lovin' abuse!
We also had a pet monkey. Jimmy stuck around for a few years before excaping into an excruciatingly beautiful spring day, never to be seen by us again--though the Wibel's discovered it hiding out in their barn later that summer. Unable to coaxed into their farmhouse, he ran off into the fields.
Minnesota is a long way from South America, and I don't give good odds to a Squirrel Monkey making it through midwestern winters. Though growing up, I half-hoped to discover some tiny log cabin in the woods. Real tiny. monkey sized.
Jimmy, wherever you are, God bless.
I'm a sucker for long, landscape formats. So the preview might be a little small. I've included a few close ups to pad out this post! The left side of the composition is fairly empty. I wanted to convey a sense of open possibilities. I'd love to get feedback, so have at it.
right side:

middle:

left:

>> Hi resolution image <<

Fathead

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 04:25:47 +0000

head study. even though this head wound its way into some other finished piece, I liked this sketch cause it was on it's own. It makes me appreciate it's sculptural roundness. big and fat. I also did it to play around with SSS using Worley's G2 for Lightwave. I also thought the scatter effect was interesting.

More of a design-y one-off.