Here are a couple of buildings destined to be obliterated by the attack ships. The one above is based on a design by Buckminster Fuller, who designed this prototype apartment building back in the 30s or 40s for the Harlem area of New York. His design featured only the glass encased conical tower. I added the adjoining elevator tower and walkways.

Here's another victim of the ship attack. It's faced with beige granite with black and red granite trim and tall vertical windows. It's a pretty solid building, ought to be able to take quite a punch.

So far about a dozen hero building have been modeled for close-up demolition and I'll post them as they get test rendered.

Here are the first renderings of defender ships that will be fighting it out with the big dumbell ship posted earlier this month. All are based on retro pics found on the web, reposted here.

This is a photo of Nicola Tesla's Wardencliffe Tower, designed to broadcast electricity wirelessly. There are several images of its prototype on the web and this one inspired the alien vs human battle sequence I'm building. In my story, the tower is a weapon used to shoot energy beams to destroy attacking ships. There's something about the blimps in the pic with their search lights that inspired the idea. To me it looks like they are attacking.

So I modeled the tower and put it on top of the Civil Defense building. This will be in the opening shot. Between the W and M is a large stained glass window made of the wild Maus logo which will be the first image in the shot.


It turns out that the Wardencliffe Tower is a favorite subject for 3D modelers and several of them can be found on the web. I changed the tower design to look more art deco (early art deco.) The sphere on top is covered with copper pyramids.

For the past several months I have focused on learning Cinema 4D. It's fun to learn and use and I find it more user-friendly than Lightwave, which I have been using for the past 11 years. As usual, I'm contextualizing my learning around a project: a science fiction action sequence of alen ships attacking a city and being counter-attacked by a defending force. What else? This will compel me to learn C4D for modeling, texturing, lighting, camera movement, and effects creation and animation.

So far I have built he attack ship, pictured above, about a dozen hero building destined to be blown up, the city layout, and have started building the defender ships of various designs. For this project, I've chosen Raygun Gothic style, from the futuristic designs of the 1920s-1940s. This is my first foray into art deco scifi and it's been a learning process. When I was younger I didn't really care for this visual style and lately I've been warming up to it.

The attack ship, rendered above, is based on a concept drawing for a Russian space ship, circa 1949. I discovered the images here.This image (I think) shows two ships being built in space and the small sphere in the tubes is to carry work crews from one ship to another, and the whole assembly rotates end-over-end. The ship I've modeled is one ship and rotates end over end, and the small sphere will slide in the tubes between the larger spheres as it rotates. For this ship, the small sliding sphere is an energy pod and when it makes contact with either end od the ship, it fires a death ray from the pipe at the end of the top. Thus, the barbell shaped ships spins, the energy sphere slides from end to end, firing death rays as the ship revolves.

This is about the fifth model I've built in C4D, the first being Marconi and Edison light bulbs, which will also find their way into this action sequence.

The alter is finished. It actually only took two full days spread over a few to build, paint, and finish. It got a base coat of primer gray then sponged with dark green, brown, and dark purple.


Now that it's done, I have a couple more projects to clear up, then back to play time! I found this pic of a TV while doing some research awhile ago. I want to model in in 3D as an exercise to learn Cinema 4D. I like it's modeling tools better than Lightwave and think I may migrate over to it.

Here's some shots of the altar in progress. Avery provuided the upper part built from guitar boxes. I added to them a bit in the front, then built the base out of boxes gleaned from dumpster-diving around Burbank. Ah, the joys of dumpster-diving! It took the better part of an afternoon to build it. It needs to hold a lot of candles and dressing, so it required some structural bracing.
Then it got paper-mache-ed, using red roofing paper and flour paste. In the tradition of Italian, shell makers, I like to cook the flour paste in a ratio of one to four flour and water, by weight. This makes a gelatinous glue, and after soaking the paper in it thoroughly before applying, makes a wood-hard object.

The paper was laid down in large sheets, overlapping half by half, making a skin of about 6 layers. Not very thick, but still, hard as wood. After 3 to 4 days of drying, it'll be ready to paint.

Welcome to The Domain of the Wild Maus. This blog is a pictorial diary of projects from the past and in current production. I am a Production Designer and graphic artist in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. I work in both live action and digital worlds, designing the overall look of digital videos, sets, props, fabricating them, and creating motion graphics and 3D animation. Visit my facebook page, Wild Maus, to view galleries of my work.

It’s great to work in both live action and on the computer: you experience the joys of live action building - splinters, solvents, glue-gun burns; and on the computer, the joys of spending endless hours in front of the screen until your butt turns to mush! The best of both worlds, truly.

Right now I’m building a live-action Mayan altar for friends Russell Welch and Avery Smith, who are out shooting a personal project, a short film. They love H. P. Lovecraft and their script, Invaders, is a Lovecraftian spin on the film Panic Room. That’s my take on it, anyway.

I’m building it at Travis’s, who with Victoria, host An Artist’s Pride. Check them out. They have some shots of some mechanical man-in-flight wings we recently built for a short film. Travis fabricates but usually works as a cam op and Victoria works in the art departments in television, but they love to fabricate, too, because building is fun!

Here’s a concept sketch by Avery and the guitar box structure it’ll be framed on.