An apple a day...

More New Scientist illos...

Math joke...

grabbed from:
http://xkcd.com/468/

New Scientist Cover no.2

Another cover for New Scientist, on electric cars and their future. Ever noticed that most electric cars are ugly as sin? Apart from the Tesla, so the commission required more of a 'lads mag' look for the cover, with a sporty-looking, sleek motor. I built the car referencing a couple of different supercars, nevertheless the front half still ended up looking like a Ford Puma...

I don't just do black you know...

Here's some recent images, 3 of a series of 6 with a 'light and pale' theme.

Blog updates...

I'm going to try to update this damn thing regularly from now on....!

Darker Matter

I recently completed a couple of illos for New Scientist magazine for their cover story on Dark Matter and Dark Energy. It was a really nice job to do and the art editor was a delight to work with. I also got a couple of emails from people about the images, one a Physicist working on one of the experiments mentioned in the feature asking if he could use them in his public lectures! I was delighted.

Grand Prix

Just found out that the three Tide Ultra ads I worked on have won the Grand Prix in the Press category at Cannes. It was a very good idea by the creative team at Saatchi NY and the final ads turned out well I think.

Gold award at Cannes

I'm very pleased to say that an ad campaign for Tide Ultra detergent for which I produced the 3D artwork has won a Gold Lion award in the Outdoor category at the Cannes International Advertising Awards 2007. You can see the other winners at the Cannes Lions website.

These ads were used on billboards and in print in the US and consisted of thousands of posed characters. I'll be adding high-res versions to my site gallery soon.

Edge Magazine Cover

I have just done a rush cover for Edge magazine, their cover story fell though so they needed something done quickly. We had originally planned to comp the icons in on a photo of a new Russian-designed keyboard (Art. Lebedev Studios) that features organic LEDs in each key (OLED). You can see the keyboard at their site Here

We didn't have time to wait for a high-res photo from the designers so I had to do the whole thing in 3D. Here's the cover illo (mocked up with the Edge logo):

Visualization for The Daily Telegraph

I was commissioned by The Daily Telegraph to create a 3D visualization of their new news 'hub' in Victoria (that's in London UK). this was done in an incredibly short time and a massive rush and I'm quite pleased that it turned out like it did, it could have been a disaster! It was commissioned Sunday night (!) the image was supplied Monday afternoon and the job was in print Tuesday morning. That's the fastest job I've done yet. In the rush I didn't notice that the OSX desktop texture on the big screens were upside down.

Here's the link to the story on the Telegraph's website although they lightened the image though it didn't need it.

The image also turend up in a few other publications including The Guardian, The Press Gazatte (a press industry paper) and even Private Eye (as a gag about there not being any journalists in the Telegraph's news hub :)

Some new images...

Just some eye candy

New Photoshop tutorial in Advanced Photoshop Magazine

I've written a Photoshop tutorial for Advanced Photoshop Magazine published by Imagine that's s just about to hit the streets. It's Issue number 21 and the tutorial is based around the fashion & beauty shoot I did with Luqman (scroll down this page and you'll see the image of the girl with the glass wings in an earlier post). I won't of course mention that they said it was 'one of the finest tutorials in the mag so far' as modesty prevents, but if you want more of the same you know where to go...

PC Graphics cards DO NOT work in Apple Mac Pro

Well, it's dissapointing but I've just tried around 7 PC graphics cards in the new Intel Apple Mac Pro and none of them worked in OS X (though I've yet to try them with Boot Camp and Windows installed). Most of the cards were recognised in the System Profiler as display devices and some had the manufacturor name (eg ATI) as well as other info but I could get no display signal from them. Three of the ATI cards displayed the cryptic 'Kernel Extention not loaded' in System Profiler possibly suggesting that OS X itself is hamstrung so you can't use the cards (this is a pure guess as I admit I don't really understand these things at a core OS/driver level).

Cards tested included:
Quadro FX4500 (Nvidia-based)
X1900 (ATI-based)
ATI V3400
ATI V5200
ATI V7350
FX 3500 (Nvidia-based)

I will be checking the cards again with Boot Camp as well as taking some grabs of the profiler info. I'll post more info and pics on my site so book mark it and check back soon...

simondanaher.com

Apple Mac Pro...PC graphics cards????

Apple have finally anounced the replacement for the PowerMac G5, the Intel-based Mac Pro. It's basically the same case as the G5 but fairly different on the inside. Best of all its a Quad Xeon system (2x Dual Core Xeon 'Woodcrest' chips) runing at 2.0, 2.66 or 3.0 Ghz each. Mine is on order and will arrive shortly but it's interesting to note that with the Intel chipset there's the possability that PC graphics cards will work in the new systems. Currently you can order them from Apple with either Nvidia Geforce 7300, ATI X1900 or Nvidia FX4500 cards... full specs here.

I happen to be writing a graphics card round up for a UK magazine so I'll have about 9 or so PC graphics cards to test in a Windows machine. Will any of them work in the Mac Pro stright out of the box... stay tuned and I'll tell you! Results will be posted on simondanaher.com.

Sony PSP 2 renders for UK magazine....

I've produced yet more Sony visualization/mock photos this time of the Playstation Portable MK2 (PSP 2) for UK publication 'Official PSP Guidebook' . Not a lot of direction or visuals were provided so had to come up with the model design on a very short deadline.

Lightwave v9 released

Newtek have released version 9 of Lightwave 3D. The new version has some interesting new features and includes a lot of rewriting of code apparently, including a new BSP/KD algorithm (like Mental Ray). Well the feature list can be veiwed on Newtek's site. I'll be looking at LW9 on my site and comparing it to other apps (indcluding Modo 201) soon. Stay tuned.

Playstation 3 - new press shots?

I was asked by UK gaming magazine 'PSM3' to render some shots of the new Sony Playstation 3 games console. No one had an actual console to photograph yet but the guys at PSM3 were determined to get some unique images their feature and not the same old press shots that had been in circulation for ages. I obliged, building the models, lighting and rendering the images for the feature. Turned out well I think.

Digital Photographer magazine interview...

I was interviewed last month by Digital Photographer magazine (UK) about my commercial photoshop/3D work and about my collaboration with New York photographerLuqman. Its issue 45 and should be on the shelves now(its not the issue shown BTW).

Fashion + Beauty in Miami...

I've been working with a great photographer based in New York, Luqman, and he and I have had our first collaboration published in a US Style magazine. The title is Public Magazine and features a six-image story that's a combination of luqman's photography and my photoshop work. I don't think there was any 3D used on it, but the next one we're working on is heavily 3D'd. Stay tuned...

Latest image...

Here's some content from the site, and some of the latest work I've done recently. This is a 3D render test based on a photograph of a fine artwork by Tetsuo Miyajima - I take no credit for the idea or the composition, but the lighting turned out quite nice on this.