May 14th, 2008 by misvan
Anatomy meets LEGO in Nathan Sawaya’s latest piece entitled, Heartfelt. I had seen Nathan’s work before when he was a guest on the Colbert Report and I secretly hoped that he would do an anatomical piece out of LEGOs. So imagine my excitement when one of my readers sent me the link to this heart! Thanks Laura.
Nathan is a freelance artist who found his calling using LEGO as an art medium. His studio in New York is filled with approximately 1.5 million LEGO pieces. It would have been a dream of mine as a child to have access to that many LEGO pieces!
Nathan built this anatomically correct heart for the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. He says, “A piece like this is a great tool to help doctors talk to young patients about their own hearts. Hopefully kids will relate to a heart built from a medium that they are familiar with.”
Next up, LEGO stomach, liver, pancreas, lungs, or brain??
Nathan with his LEGO heart.
May 13th, 2008 by misvan
“One click could change your future. Belt up.
Drive safe. Arrive safe.”
Simple and direct message. Very effective.
Done for the government of Western Australia’s Road Safety Council.
Advertising Agency: Marketforce, Perth, Australia
Executive Creative Director: Andrew Tinning
Art Directors: Steve Lorimer, Andrew Tinning
Copywriters: Steve Lorimer, Tom Wilson
Retoucher: Madeleine de Pierres
Account Service: Erin Baker, Carrick Robinson, Sharyn Boer
Account Coordinator: Lauren Humphries
[via Ads of the World]
May 12th, 2008 by misvan
Jellyfish Pictures recently put together this 10 step guide to Make Scientific Animations More Cinematic with Softimage XSI for the magazine, Studio Monthly.
It’s an interesting read and I’m glad that Jellyfish Pictures has been so willing to share their techniques with the CGI community. Like I’ve said many times before, they’re definitely setting the standard high for medical animation.
Here are the 10 steps. Go to the article to read more details on each.
Step 1: Start with Good Reference Images
Step 2: Block Out Your Storyboard with Realistic Camera Motion and Angles
Step 3: Generate Flexible Organic and Accurate Models
Step 4: Use Cloth in XSI to Add Great Secondary Motion to Organs and Flesh
Step 5: Use “Handheld” Camera Motion to Block Out Your Camera Moves
Step 6: Paint Detailed Hi-Res Texture Maps from Real Shot References
Step 7: Generate Several Layers and Passes to Composite
Step 8: Shoot Real Elements You Can Mix with the 3D
Step 9: Mix and Double Up Passes to Help Achieve a “Wet Feel”Step 10: Use Lots of Blur and Depth of Field and Keep Your Colors Real
Read the article here >> Make Scientific Animations More Cinematic with Softimage XSI
May 11th, 2008 by misvan
The creator of Skull-A-Day, Noah Scalin, has one simple objective—to make a skull out of anything he can find, everyday for a year.
Noah literally uses any material to make images of skulls, like the fantastic skull made out of dog fur above. He also takes submissions from his readers who send in pictures of their own hand-made skulls or any skull they may happen to find. Skulls are everywhere if you search hard enough.
The year of creating skulls is coming to an end though, Skull-A-Day is currently on skull #342.
So what’s going to happen after skull #365? A vacation for Noah. But due to the overwhelming response from his readers, Skull-A-Day is going to continue for at least another 6 months. He’s going to be turning it over to his readers and will be posting a new skull made by a reader everyday. It’s good to see that it’s not going to come to an end!
The response to Skull-A-Day has been so enormous that it recently won the prestigious Webby People’s Voice Award for the Personal Website Category. Noah says that he doesn’t have a master plan for all the skulls he’s made. Perhaps an exhibit or a book? But for now, you can be sure to get your daily fix of skull imagery at Skull-A-Day.
Here are a few of my favorites from Skull-A-Day.
Oh, and the best part is the Skull-A-Day font. Go to the site and download it yourself, it’s free!
May 9th, 2008 by misvan
Someone get this tattooed on top of their head—seriously—I want to start a medical imaging tattoo gallery.
[by sga1120 via Flicker]
May 6th, 2008 by misvan
This cerebellum tattoo was submitted by Matt Millard. One of the most unique anatomical tattoos I’ve seen yet.
The arbor vitae (Latin for “Tree of Life“) is the cerebellar white matter, so called for its branched, tree-like appearance. It brings sensory and motor information to and from the cerebellum. [via Wikipedia]
See more at the Anatomy Tattoo Gallery.
May 6th, 2008 by misvan
Are you familiar with the images on the Adobe CS2 boxes?
Have you ever wondered how they were created or who made them?
I always thought they were created through the magic of a master Photoshoper or Illustrator’er. But no.
The delicate images of feathers, leaves, flowers, and shells are actually x-rays created by one of the top x-ray photographers of our time, Nick Veasey.
But Nick Veasey isn’t the only x-ray photographer out there. There are actually quite a few people involved in the unique field. CultCase put together a fascinating post detailing the work of these x-ray photographers from the past to the present.
See it here >> X-Ray Photography as Art: Hidden Faces of The Inner Space
Thanks to one of my readers for sending me the link!
May 1st, 2008 by misvan
Apparently X-Games athletes have specific anatomical differences from the average person.
Lots of guts
Little fear
Big balls
“Watch a different breed of athletes on EXPN.com”
Advertising Agency: Latinworks, Austin, USA
Creative Director: Alejandro Egozcue
Art Director: Judd Oberly
Copywriter: Michael Page
Illustrator: Bonnie Hofkin
Published: February 2008
Have to say those are some nice medical illustrations.
[via Ads of the World]
May 1st, 2008 by misvan
Christopher Huet is considered to be a master at photo retouching. He’s used by all the top ad agencies in the world and there’s no doubt you’ve seen his work in ads for anything from Adidas to Guinness.
Huet says of his work,
My purpose is to make people forget the retouching itself even if it seems obvious because of the singularity of the image.
He certainly succeeds in combining elements to make seamless images. Be sure to look through his portfolio site because he shows the step by step process for retouching each photo. It’s really quite amazing to flip back and forth between each step to see the transformation.
April 28th, 2008 by misvan
Heather Tompkins is a talented filmaker, illustrator, and designer. She’s got a very fun and creative website that’s definitely worth taking a look through (it’s all hand drawn!).
It looks like her focus is on filmmaking, but her illustrations are excellent. Her line work is loose and expressive, making her illustrations feel very energized and effortless. Hope she considers doing more anatomical work.
One of my readers, Aman Agah, had her wonderful heart tattoo designed by Heather and done by Colby Long.
Big thanks to Aman for letting me know about Heather’s work.
You can see his tattoo and more in the Anatomy Tattoo Gallery.
