Dragon Ball to me is one of the most important manga and anime of all time. Not only did Akira Toriyama incorporated Son Goku (孫悟空) and Ki (氣), well known East Asian culture, he also invented Power Levels, inspiring and sparking a whole new generation of Shonen Jumps such as Naruto and One Piece.

I started off sculpting him in Zbrush, paying attention and combining anime with 3D animation shape language. I also wanted actual hair and not just geometry, since that resembles more of a toy. I sculpted the base mesh of the hair in zbrush, and converted the edge loops to guides in Xgen interactive. Each chunk of hair per description. There's even tiny fuzzes on his shirt! The clothes are done in Marvelous Designer and then brought into Zbrush for touch ups. Everything was textured in Substance Painter, I could do another pass but was too excited to start lighting. Lighting and rendering done with Redshift. Compositing done in Nuke.

Award-winning animated short film made with Eduardo Enriquez

This render is created at the start of 2020, inspired from the world literally on fire and virus outbreak. Monster sculpted in Zbrush, lookdev and lit in Maya Arnold, Kitbash3D used for the buildings.

In this series of renders, I try to combine nature with human constructs in unexpected ways. Through unconventional pairings, I try to dig deeper into the notion of separation between the two.

I created this character by combining various Asian actors including Bruce Lee, Tony Leung, Louis Koo and Southeast Asian facial features, while blending between the fine line of realistic and animation design.

Zito Ren 仁自佗 aka Slipper (a Chinese pun) is an ex-Shaolin Monk in a futuristic slum city. Been brainstorming a story around him for the past few years, hoping to make an animated film in the future!

When I was little, I got stuck in the elevator a of couple times, and for a while it was one of my fears to ride the elevator alone. Solitarily locked in a claustrophobic metal box that could free fall to the bottom was a feeling that I would gladly discard. Then one day, I walked into an elevator built with all mirror walls. I could see infinite clones of myself and the mirrors made the space feel larger. But most importantly, the mirrors reflected my own worried face. I saw that I could relax in these vertical transporters, and no longer afraid. This piece is to remind myself that sometimes, all we need when facing our fears, is a new perspective.

I also wanted to created a composition that would be difficult in real life. The three mirrors created infinite reflections. If this was a photo or film, we would see all the lighting setup, camera, and crew. I purposely wanted to challenge myself in lighting. With the mirrors, multiple angle of views of the character are visible. For example, the key light in the reflection became a soft kick or rim light for the foreground. And if you’re wondering what he’s drinking, it’s Coca Cola in a plastic bag with ice. That’s how we do it in South East Asia, hehe.

Character sculpted in Zbrush, clothes in Marvelous Designer, hair with Xgen, rigged with Advanced Skeleton, plastic bag of coke with ice in Houdini, bonsai tree in Speed Tree, textured in Substance Painter, rendered with Maya Arnold, compositing with Nuke.

Designed this for 2023, the year of the Dragon.

Zbrush for Sculpting, Xgen for Grooming, Substance Painter for texturing, Redshift for Rendering

Concept art done by the talented Goro Fujita. I started by blocking the painting with 3D objects and matching the camera angle. The robot is procedural shaded using Al Shaders. I sculpted the large bricks where the robot and the cat are sitting on in Zbrush. The cat's fur was done with XGen and the whiskers are curves rendered with Ai Render Curves. The rain drops are simulated with nParticles. It was very fun learning and matching lighting in this project.

Quick Zbrush doodle and render for Halloween.

Had this image in my head one day and so I made it.

Based on the Cantonese song 冷雨夜 by Beyond.

Concept art by Sam Neilson

Sculpted the base model of the bear and the set, groomed with Xgen and procedural shaded everything. I added a little spin by animating the lights so it looks like there's a car passing by outside the window. Check out Sam Neilson's other awesome work!!