Kubo

i made this little guy last semester, but recently re - rigged him because I wanted to learn how to do a facial rig. all the facial articulation is bone - driven, there are no blend shapes on him right now.

Untitled from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

train parts

Untitled from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

the wheel rotation on this automated piston system is accurate to a user defined speed in MPH. all motion is derivative of the middle wheel's rotation. modeled in maya, rigged in houdini, with driving expressions done in python.

a painting

this was a painting i did recently just for fun, based on a sketch i did during my english class.

homeless mutt

i modeled and rigged this dog for a student film. it is the pet of a vagrant - hence the sorry, starved build.

Untitled from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

Untitled from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

pen n ink

i've been doing some gesture drawing lately with a sweet leaky pen and a 50% grey prismacolor marker, and it's been a lot of fun.

tool belt

This was for my shading class. The assignment was to build, texture, light, render and composit an object into a photograph. Hopefully its not too obvious...

Bradypus tridactylus

Sloths are obviously aliens.

Aliens, yes, and aliens of the time-traveling sort; their time-suits allow them to explore three parallel universes and yet retain a singular consciousness (there are no surprises when a sloth bumps into itself in the future).

As the sloth probes the vastness of the universe, a supercomputer in its suit triangulates its location across the time-space continuum and projects the output onto a planet as a physical manifestation of the sloth. This projection preserves a link to linear time – preventing disaster should all three universes simultaneously unravel.

The sloths we know are but anchors in the sea of time. How poetic.

Such mathematical calculations are almost impossibly astronomical, however, and the effect is similar to playing a fancy new game on an old computer: severe lag and total lameness. That is why sloths on earth are so slow – why they are able to lounge about in utter and singular defiance of "survival of the fittest."

Pretty clever for looking so stupid.

(click the image to see it larger)

neck beard

Demo Reel October 2010

here's my latest demo reel.

Demo Reel Oct. 2010 from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

mr. model

its been a while since i posted anything, so i'm posting this figure drawing to let you know i'm still alive. its pencil on paper, and i did it at a studio in Provo called the Bridge Academy. good place.

dino

my final for intro to 3d animation. CG dinosaurs may be old news, but it can be fun to beat a dead horse.

dino from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

black jack

that he doesn't blink is a little creepy, but i had fun modeling and animating this talking grey head.

blendhead from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

work from figure drawing this morning. special thanks to metcalf for proposing 'space' and 'space pig' themes for a non-competetive draw-off.

if you skinned a lion

this is what it would look like. sort of. this run cycle was an anatomical study of a cat's muscles, at least the basic groups. it feels jittery because it's just the key frames.

Untitled from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

binky

this was my first shot at 3d animation. i havent learned to rig yet so the animation was done by rotating and translating the parts of the model. inspiration for the baby's little finger roll came from my roomate joe, who does it occasionally when presented an idea he finds pleasing.
"joe, its taco tuesday."
joe (while doing the finger roll) "ooh. excellent."

binky from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

pinata rights activist

this rough little animation was for my illusion of life class. the idea was to show the character acting to a sound clip. sorry the image is so dark.

Untitled from Jared Merrill on Vimeo.

just for fun

i spent a day in my fleece pants drawing in photoshop. i reccomend fleece pants to everyone.

"flea"

this little parasite was fun to create. i put the title in quotes because its design is roughly based on a flea, but it really looks more like a flea/tick/alien mix. it was a lot of fun and a great learning process.

teapot

here's my first finished piece of work in 3d computer graphics. the assignment was to design a teapot, teacups, and environment, build it, texture it, light it, and compose a scene. it was a lot of fun work to do. click the picture for larger view.

large mammals

usually i dont give up in figure drawing when i'm not in the groove, but yesterday i did when someone mentioned sumo wrestlers. i spent the rest of class drawing these two fellows, much to my enjoyment.

for a dime

jimbo the rodeo clown

the monkey/rodeo panel above was for my storyboarding class. original layouts of the composition had the monkey in the ring behind the action, and the caption was about how the cowboy wishes he had realized earlier that the rodeo clown was a monkey. then i asked myself why a monkey couldn't be trained to be a rodeo clown,images of monkeys gleaning tasty bugs from eachothers hair came to mind, and the result was this comic. i thought i was pretty clever for using the word 'behemoth' in the caption since it describes both the object and intensity of his fantasy, but in retrospect (and with some criticism from the teacher) i realize that it makes the whole thing too wordy. not too clever after all.

so basically all ive posted thus far are sketches, hopefully more finished works will follow. im just trying to get a few things up so its not blank.

These unsuspecting folk were busy reading at barnes and noble

these are a few of the gestures that were in my applicatio portfolio

its a boy

a blog was born. to me.
being unfamiliar with blogging protocol or practice, this might be an ugly child for a while.
my intention is to show art here, mostly art specific to the animation program im in, to keep family and friends up to date on what i'm working on, and to collaborate with my fellow artists.