© Mayo Clinic All work produced by the medical illustrators and animators in the Division of Biomedical and Scientific Visualization at Mayo Clinic. Special thanks to medical animator Caitlin Morris for editing this compilation.

This is an interactive story about how in 1976 two surgeons and a medical illustrator at Mayo Clinic saved a critical surgical technique from fading into extinction. Special thanks to Content Production Specialist Eric Sheahan, Medical Animator Jason Robinson, and Tech Specialist Grant Pfizenmaier for scanning the wax models hilighted in this vignette.

Please visit this article to read more about the current BMSV team: https://intheloop.mayoclinic.org/2023/11/08/meet-my-team-how-medical-illustrators-combine-the-art-and-science-of-medicine/

© Mayo Clinic

Our first award during my time at Mayo Clinic! This project was conceived by Dr. Jonathan Morris and in collaboration with BMSV, produced in ZBrush by medical illustrator Jim Postier. 2024 AMI Salon Award of Excellence: Simulators, Prosthetics and Sculptural Products.

Dr. Andre de Oliveira PhD (pictured) and Eric Sheahan, load the fetal hip bone into the MedCreator powered by Botspot Photogrammetry system. Thank you to Dr. Jonathan Morris , co-inventor. Post-processing performed by Wes Price using Maxon ZBrush. This is the beginning stages of a Photogrammetry/ZBrush/Sketchfab workflow. ©2023 Mayo Clinic

The object is placed inside the box on posts that are for support. These posts connect to a turntable at the base, and are marked with QR glyphs to help the software recognize its position in space. There are five cameras pointed at the object from different angles. Ambient lighting and polarized lenses illuminate the object while reducing glare. During the scanning stage, each camera snaps photographs as the object turns in space. The software will measure the parallax and minute changes from each set of photos to stitch together an accurate 3D model of the object. ©2023 Mayo Clinic

The original mesh and texture is created with a high resolution of detail, however, notice how dense the mesh has to be in order to describe that detail. The raw scan directly from the box results in a topology of tightly packed triangular polygons. This might be fine for 3D printing, but for interactive apps and animation, it is best to run it through the optimization process. ©2023 Mayo Clinic

The original mesh and texture was brought into ZBrush for optimization. This includes duplicating the original, retopologizing its geometry to create a more orderly flow of four-sided polygons, and reducing the polygon count significantly, without losing its basic shape. Next, the duplicate is subdivided to millions of polygons again. The new version can now accept a projection of all the detailed surface and texture data, while keeping its new orderly topology. Texture maps, normal maps, and other ‘tricks’ can be generated to produce a low poly version that looks exactly like the original. The final optimized version is lighter and faster to load on any device. ©2023 Mayo Clinic

The UV and texture maps are also optimized in this process.

One major benefit is to unwrap the model into one or more large, contiguous islands of polygons, making the texture map ‘human-readable’ or easy to follow how the texture lines up with the contours of the 3D model. The other benefit is to limit the number of potentially visible seams, in this case there is only one, and usually seams can be hidden on a part of the model that is not prominently displayed.

(Notice how the raw scan rips the model into hundreds of polygon islands, making it hard for a human to read how each chunk lines up with the others and resulting in hundreds of potentially visible seams on all sides of the model.)

© Mayo Clinic This is a short compilation of work created for a stop-motion animation competition by the medical illustrators and animators in the Division of Biomedical and Scientific Visualization at Mayo Clinic.

This animation is the centerpiece of a larger patient education and community health campaign in partnership with the Women in Medicine (WIM) student club at SGU. Winner of the Award of Merit, Association of Medical Illustrators Salon, and Honorable Mention in the CUGH-Pulitzer Center Video Competition, in collaboration with Sue Simon, Claudia Cárceles Román, Nicole Lekach, Sarah Gluschitz, Lucia Garces, Dr. Sasha Lake, Dr. Francis McGill, Dr. Sasha Lake, Avi Bahadoor-Yetman WIM Student Leads: Hanah Lee, Jade Lerner, Jasmine Custodio and Amrita Pandey

During the pandemic, all interactions between students and standardized patients were suspended and alternative modalities for auscultation training were needed for online delivery. Our team, in collaboration with Dr. Anna Cyrus, and Dr. Charlotte Taylor-Drigo, worked together to develop the Auscultation Resource Center, a browser-based interactive experience where students could continue their training using a database of real patient heart and lung sounds provided in partnership with Thinklabs. Original heart and lung sounds were created by Stacy Price, Lucia Garces and myself, using Adobe Audition. When lockdown restrictions eased, Sarah Gluschitz, Lucia Garces, and I met with Dr. Taylor to capture heart and lung sounds from standardized patients at Grenada’s General Hospital, using a Thinklabs One digital stethoscope and Adobe software.

Since becoming Director of Basic Science Selectives, I have challenged all my medical illustration colleagues to develop and offer unique extracurricular training to SGU’s medical students. As Director, I also helped design and implement an online hub and new registration system for all Basic Sciences Selectives. We realized that some SGU students would benefit from exploring segmentation, or the process of creating a 3D model from patient-specific data, and the results have been rewarding. This selective was originally designed by Brandon Holt, former SGU medical illustrator who is now a Creative Director at Focus Graphics.

Jack Nelson, Lucia Garces, Claudia Cárceles Román, Sarah Gluschitz and I designed this selective to be a fun excursion over the landscape of accessible animation techniques. This selective is part of a series of courses that focus on visual communication skills.

Winner of the 2022 Association of Medical Illustrators Salon ‘Award of Merit’ in the Instructional Non-Commercial Category! Gender Roots was created as part of the Justice, Art and Medicine initiative ‘JAM’ at St. George’s University and is inspired by the concept of the Genderbread Person. Gender Roots aims to increase awareness and understanding of human diversity within the Caribbean region and across the globe. In collaboration with Matthew-Dean Argame, Sarah Gluschitz, Sue Simon, Lucia Garces, Farihah Khan, Nicole Lekach, with Narrator Chandra Stafford, faculty advisors Robert Alig, Andrea Blair, Dr. Laura Colket, Dr. Tracy Penny Light, and organizations such as GrenCHAP, Projects for Peace, UNITED, Grenada Film Company, and the West Indies Recording Company. For more information, check out this booklet on the project.

SGU medical illustrators and Anatomy Research Fellows in 2016. Our role as medical illustrators at SGU includes collaborating with recently graduated doctors to help with their interview process for matching into residency, by illustrating their research for journal publications.

In 2017 I presented a talk entitled ‘The Medical Illustration Profession’, to the students of the Secondary School, with Xochitl Vinaja and Dr. Rachael George. I love participating in outreach to the greater island community, to hopefully inspire young minds in Grenada about what might be possible in a career that blends science and art.

In 2018, the medical illustrators volunteered to host students from Grenada’s Westmorland School on a field day to SGU. We had great fun showing the young participants real human bones and plastinated organs, much to their delight and wonder. The demonstration was organized by SGU Instructor Sarah Gluschitz.

The SGU Medical Illustrators regularly partner with the Large Animal Research Facility and student groups, such as the Bovine Society, to provide unique visualization to enhance their auscultation and ultrasound labs. Our team works closely with student leadership and faculty lecturers to create a one-of-a-kind illustration on some very patient animals using washable paint. The visuals guide veterinary students to locate palpable landmarks and envision spatial relationships while School of Veterinary Medicine faculty lecture on common pathologies and how to properly conduct imaging procedures.

Every month a member of our visualization group will hold a workshop that teaches a particular skill or process that will be helpful in our day to day operations. This is an image from two workshops delivered by Jack Nelson, on the 3D modeling, sculpting, and texturing workflow between C4D and ZBrush as well as animation with CMotion in C4D.

Katie Yost, former SGU illustrator who now works for HarvardX, is helping me illustrate the cranial nerves in one of the student study halls. This was caught on camera and used as the banner image for the residency guidance sites for the School of Medicine.

In collaboration with health experts of Caribbean origin, and the Women In Medicine Student Organization at SGU, our team co-wrote a script which includes regional language cues and lay-audience vocabulary. Assets were illustrated to reflect local characteristics and animations were staged with subtle humor to resonate with the Grenadian audience using personally recognizable situations. The campaign focuses on best practices for prevention and aims to fill the need for more culturally appropriate health education materials in the Caribbean region.

These vector portraits represent just a small sample of the invaluable relationships I have built on campus, on the island of Grenada. It has been a true honor to work with such talented colleagues and friends.

From 2016 to 2018, I helped produce over 170 illustrated plates in collaboration with Jessica Holland, Angelica Ortiz, Xochitl Vinaja, Katie Yost, David Nahabedian, Brandon Holt, for authors Marios Loukas, PhD, MD, Danny Burns, PhD, MD, (Wolters Kluwer Publishing). Angelica and I set up a special workflow using Autodesk Maya and 3D models of the ultrasound probes, to keep their look consistent throughout the book.

In collaboration with Angelica Ortiz, using an Autodesk Maya to Adobe Illustrator workflow, we created over 800 orientation images to improve student understanding of location of prosected cadaveric features.

Award of Merit, Association of Medical Illustrators Salon, Boston, MA. ‘Equine Phalanges: A Comparison of 3D Capture Methods’ with Dr. Melania Crisan, Jessica Holland, David Nahabedian, Katie Yost, Brandon Holt, Xochitl Vinaja to present a research infographic, and 3D-printed haptic display.

Several illustrations were created in collaboration with Dr. Andrew Granger, using shared assets by Angelica Ortiz, Xochitl Vinaja, and Jessica Holland for Malignancies of the Groin: Surgical and Anatomic Considerations, Springer Publishing, 2016.

From Malignancies of the Groin: Surgical and Anatomic
Considerations, Springer Publishing, 2016

From Malignancies of the Groin: Surgical and Anatomic
Considerations, Springer Publishing, 2016

Illustration for a student poster in collaboration with Dr. Maira du Plessis PhD and fellow medical illustrator Angelica Ortiz.

Illustration for a student research paper in collaboration with Dr. Maira du Plessis PhD, using a DICOM segmentation to ZBrush workflow.

Illustration for a student research paper in collaboration with Dr. Maira du Plessis.

Anterior Thigh Flap Phalloplasty, Journal of Clinical Anatomy v31:2, Mark Terrell, MD, Wallisa Roberts, MD, Charles Wesley Price, Justine Schober, MD. 2018

Illustration in 3D using ZBrush, in collaboration with Dr. Justine Schober and Dr. Wallisa Roberts.

Diagnostic Imaging: Oral and Maxillofacial, eds. Lisa Koenig, BChD, DDS, MS, et al. Amirsys Publishing, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2011. In collaboration with Dr. Dania Tamimi, and medical illustrators Lane Bennion and Rich Coombs. 2011

Diagnostic Imaging: Oral and Maxillofacial, eds. Lisa Koenig, BChD, DDS, MS, et al. Amirsys Publishing, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2011. In collaboration with Dr. Dania Tamimi, and medical illustrators Lane Bennion and Rich Coombs. 2011

Illustration created in 3D using ZBrush for a student research poster and paper, in collaboration with Dr. Maira du Plessis.

Illustration created in 3D using ZBrush for a student research poster and paper, in collaboration with Dr. Maira du Plessis.

Designed a 3D sculpting process to produce ~48 Variation Illustrations of the aorta produced with Valerie Lentz for a research poster presented to the 19th Congress of the International Federation of Associations of Anatomists, Poster Presentation by Konstantinos Natsis, Marios Loukas, Maria Piagkou, and Nikolaos Lazaridis. London, UK.

Illustration created in 3D using the ZBrush to Keyshot workflow, for a research paper, in collaboration with Dr. Justine Schober.

Illustration created in 3D using ZBrush for a patient education campaign at Floyd Medical Services in Rome, Georgia and in collaboration with Karl Peters of Brandsavvy, Inc. 2015.

Medium: Digital Pen & Ink and Color in Illustrator

This compilation of Latissimus Dorsi Myocutaneous Flap Procedure and Pectoralis Minor Syndrome: Subclavicular Brachial Plexus Compression, was for a collaboration with Dr. Richard Sanders at Rose Medical Center and Dr. Stephen Annest at Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Hospital in Colorado to show considerations in treating thoracic outlet syndrome. Pectoralis Minor Syndrome was submitted for a book ‘Diagnosis and Treatment of Thoracic Outlet Syndrome’ in 2017.

I segmented this CT of patient-specific data using 3D Slicer and rendered it using Gravity Sketch in VR. I envision a future where our creatives will collaborate with Anatomical Sciences faculty to design immersive 3D environments that will train incoming students to lab procedures before they enter the physical space. Exploring clinical cases with patient-specific DICOM data in VR would enhance the experience of learning on prosected human cadavers.

Progress is being made on introducing SGU students to advancements in VR during guided office and open lab hours. In the future, I imagine students in Grenada will be able to learn side-by-side with students in Northumbria, UK , together in virtual space.

Printed on the Formlabs Form2 printer, this proof of concept I created is a collaboration with Dr. Maira du Plessis and Jack Nelson features a removable diaphragm base.

In collaboration with the architects who designed SGU’s newest state-of-the-art building, SGU’s Office of Events and I created this proof of concept to celebrate the building’s grand opening.

The infographic poster was paired with a 3D printed haptic display comparing and contrasting the quality of each 3D capture modality, so that the viewer could handle and inspect the results during the conference.

Scanner: Artec Space Spider Renderer: Keyshot Post-Production: Autodesk Maya

Scanner: Artec Space Spider Renderer: Keyshot Post-Production: Autodesk Maya

(collaboration with Dr. Marios Loukas, Jessica Holland, Katie Yost and Xochitl Vinaja)

Over the years, we identified a need at SGU to help Departments with limited budgets to create effective photogrammetry stations with inexpensive equipment. As a team we created an ePoster for the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE), with David Nahabedian, Brandon Holt, Katie Yost, Melania Crisan, Xochitl Vinaja, David Nahabedian, & Jessica Holland. The AMEE conference presentation in Basel Switzerland was delivered by David Nahabedian.

The Space Spider has exponentially sped up our workflow in our studio, reducing the amount of time needed to set up the photogrammetry station and reducing the fatigue that results from manual photogrammetry capture.

This scan was performed in collaboration with Dr. Neil Norton, BA, PhD who is a tenured faculty member with primary responsibility as the Associate Dean for Admissions in the School of Dentistry at Creighton University. Dr. Norton is one of the regular visiting professors that I am grateful to teach with in the lab and he sparks our imagination every time he visits. He completed the dissection and we created a scan as a proof of concept.

Scanner: Artec Space Spider Renderer: ZBrush Post-Production: ZBrush (dissection tray)

(collaboration with Dr. Neil Norton, Jessica Holland and Katie Yost)

David Nahabedian and I collaborated with Dr. David Marancik who is an Associate Professor of Aquatic Animal Medicine, in the Department of Pathobiology, and is Director of the Aquatic Animal Medicine Research Laboratory. We were invited to Necropsy to perform a surface scan of this female green turtle (Chelonia mydas) who washed ashore on March 18th, 2022. The diagnosis concluded that this turtle was severely debilitated secondary to fibropapillomatosis (FP). Our goal is to create a series of teaching models from this event in 3D for SGU students to study from for years to come.

From Dr. Marancik: Fibropapillomatosis (FP) is a neoplastic (i.e. tumor) disease that mostly affects green turtles and is rarely described in other sea turtle species. Turtles severely affected by FP are not able to swim and forage which can result in starvation and death. Although FP is described worldwide, it has only recently been confirmed to be in Grenada and likely represents an emerging disease around the island. Research is underway to identify the cause of the disease as tumor development is thought to be associated with multiple factors such as viral infection and environmental conditions.

Scanner: Photogrammetry Renderer: Recap Pro Photo Post-Production: none

Fibropapillomatosis (FP) is a neoplastic (i.e. tumor) disease that mostly affects green turtles and is rarely described in other sea turtle species. Turtles severely affected by FP are not able to swim and forage which can result in starvation and death. Although FP is described worldwide, it has only recently been confirmed to be in Grenada and likely represents an emerging disease around the island. Research is underway to identify the cause of the disease as tumor development is thought to be associated with multiple factors such as viral infection and environmental conditions.

The Don Jake Saunders Heart Model ©1976 Medical Plastics Laboratories, Inc. Gatesville, Texas (now https://laerdal.com/) Digitized by Wes Price and Jack Nelson in 2022 - Center for BioMedical Visualization, Department of Anatomical Sciences, St. George’s University School of Medicine, Grenada, West Indies. Created using a variety of workflows and techniques, including 3D scans by the Artec Space Spider, sculpting/painting in ZBrush, and animation in Cinema 4D. The final result is dedicated to the students/faculty of SGU, who have studied from the real thing in the cadaver labs for over 40 years.

Created by Jack Nelson, with some creative direction by Wes Price, based on the idea of a ‘zoetrope’, an old animation toy popular in the 1800’s.

This shows the coronary vasculature by applying a ghosted effect to the heart, including the pulmonary and aortic valves. Collaboration with Dr. Maira Du Plessis and Dr. Robert Hage Department of Anatomical Sciences St. George’s University copyright 2021

Human plastinated Cadaver heart captured using 100 photos at four angles, 360 degrees and processed in Autodesk’s Recap free software. Photos were taken with the Canon EOS Rebel T5.

Another example of our tests with a human plastinated heart. This time we scanned it with the Artec Space Spider hand held scanner. Notice the differences in color some details as the previous example created with photogrammetry.

Case Model #69 Tetralogy of Fallot: Downloaded from the National Institute of Health’s 3D Print Exchange and Jump Simulation, annotated and rendered in Sketchfab.

Created by Wes Price, using Artec Space Spider 3D scanning and ZBrush.

This is an initial test of our ability to use the Artec Scanner to capture a plastinated donor specimen and convert it to a simple online experience.

I graduated from UGA’s Scientific Illustration program under Gene Wright in 1993, and it has been an honor to return to bring my experiences over a 25 year career back to my alma mater. In collaboration with Gene Wright and Michael Pollard, we created the ZBrush for Science Illustration nine-day intensive course on creature design, digital sculpting and 3D printing.

Using ZBrush, I evolved the traditional hand drawing assignment for the science illustrator into a three-dimensional study.

Artist: Zoë Elwood Medium: ZBrush, Photoshop, printed on the Formlabs Form2 resin printer. This course was designed to show the versatility of sculpting a 3D model in the process of creating an illustration. On the left is the 2D painted illustration and the right is the 3D print. Creating a 3D model in the illustration workflow generates a valuable asset that can be endlessly incorporated in a variety of projects.

Artist: Sydney Bechtel Medium: ZBrush, Photoshop. This student sculpted the beetle from scratch and generated two digital illustrations before physically painting, mounting and framing her 3D print for her final project and extra credit.

Artist: Sydney Bechtel Medium: ZBrush, Photoshop, InDesign. Sydney went on to use the processes learned in my class to produce these skull sculpts, posters and prints for her Capstone course needed for graduation.

To date I have served on several AMI Meeting Planning Committees, both as Workshop and Tech Showcase Chair. I have also served in other ways, such as a Salon Judge. Over the years, I have been truly honored to develop workshops for the AMI membership, including digital sculpting in ZBrush and techniques in stop-motion animation.

Since 2017 I have served on the AMI’s Online Learning Committee, both as an organizer and host of several webinars for our members, as well as delivering my own webinar content.

Another service role I have had in the AMI is in meeting planning and marketing. My first experience in the behind-the-scenes of the AMI was at the 2001 Asilomar Conference, where I was allowed to design the meeting T-shirts and postcards.

The most invaluable part of AMI membership for me is the long lasting friendships that I have developed over the years. (The color pic in the middle was snapped at an AMI conference, and the grayscale images were borrowed from a memorial presentation years later.) David Mascaro was my graduate school painting teacher at August University (A.K.A. Medical College of Georgia). During his career, David helped revise the illustrative work begun by the late Dr. Frank Netter for the CIBA Pharmaceutical Company. David’s T-shirt says it all, and he will always be remembered as a mentor and friend. His work remains a great influence on my journey through medical illustration.

For several years I had the opportunity to develop extracurricular classes for our students at the Art Institute that revolved around educational tours. Once we visited the Vatican, Rome, Florence and toured the Sistine Chapel, Coliseum, and viewed Michaelangelo’s famous David. As an added bonus, I personally organized for my students two separate tours of working animation studios in Rome. Twice we visited southern Japan and visited the Studio Ghibli museum. The extracurricular classes required sketches in field (mine in purple above) as well as digital paintings (mine below).

At the end of every term, our students would celebrate their hard work by entering their short films in the REEL Thing, a student animation and film festival screened at a local Denver theater. Faculty would pre-judge work to award prizes in several categories. It became a source of pride to show at the REEL Thing, often to a packed audience of students, friends, teachers, and family.

Artist: Ian Moss  Title: Self Portrait  Medium: Acrylic  Course: CA2363: Drawing and Anatomy

Artist: Josh Trujillo  Title: Self Portrait  Medium: Charcoal Pencil, Mi-Teintes Paper  Course: CC1311 Life Drawing for Animators

Artist: Kris Koester  Title: Deinonychus  Medium: ZBrush, Photoshop  Course: MAA363 Advanced Drawing for Animation

Artist: Nancy Nguyen  Title: Cervitaur  Medium: ZBrush  Course: CA3340: Character Modeling

Artist: Tracy Deines, Jose De La Cruz Title: Various Characters Medium: ZBrush Course: CA3340: Character Modeling

Artist: Reilly Leeds  Title: Arachne  Medium: ZBrush  Course: CA3340: Character Modeling

Artist: Shruti Balakrishna  Title: Bumble Bee Medium: Adobe Illustrator Course: RS1320: Digital Illustration

Artist: Blake Henriksen  Title: Werebear  Medium: Photoshop Course: RS1320: Digital Illustration

Artist: Wayne Sullivan  Title: Harpooned  Medium: Photoshop Course: CA4393: Animation Portfolio Production

Artist: Wayne Sullivan  Title: Harpooned  Medium: Autodesk Maya, AfterEffects Course: CA4394: Animation Portfolio Presentation

1998 Award of Excellence, The Association of Medical Illustrators Annual Salon, Toronto, CAN. Performed medical illustration and animation with the Interactive Division team to complete an award-winning interactive atlas of anatomy/physiology.

This is the project that shifted the paradigm for our interactive teams at EAI. I always tell people that as medical illustrators, we went from painting ‘blood & guts’ to ‘pink sparkles & make-up’. Although I only collaborated on a small part at the very beginning, the impact of this project on my career has been enormous. A huge thank you to Kat Jones, Terran Boylan and others who made the visionary leap into the unknown.

As art director on this title, I guided the vision of the look and feel of a 5-level mini-game that accompanied a special box set of action figures and pieces. During the production, I led a team of game artists to produce all the art assets while partnering with software engineers to influence the interactivity and game-play.

Member of the game art production team. (Cover art by SouthPeak Interactive). 1999

Member of the game art production team. (Recognition poster by SouthPeak Interactive) 1999

This ‘mockumentary’ marketing video was created in-house at EAI to describe the serious aspects of interactive software creation in the late 1990’s, using genuine creatives working on an absurdly fake product: a videogame referred to as ‘the merger of fast-food snacks and military-style combat’. I watch this from time to time to appreciate how far the technology has come and yet how similar the creation process still is today.

Medium: Ball point pen on paper

Medium: Ball point pen on paper

Medium: Felt-tip pen and Niji waterbrush on Reeves BFK paper

Medium: Tombo pen and Niji waterbrush on Reeves BFK paper

Medium: Tombo pen and Niji waterbrush on Reeves BFK paper

Medium: Tombo pen and Niji waterbrush on Reeves BFK paper

Medium: Digital paint in Photoshop

Medium: Illustrator-Maya-ZBrush-Photoshop workflow Client: Birdy Magazine issue 1, Johnny DeStefano, Christy Thacker, et al

This logo was created for Denver-based Birdy magazine’s ‘Artopsy’ section, whereby journalists dissect an artist’s life and work. Inspired by the Body World’s exhibit, it is an example of how I use 2D and 3D software pipelines to create hyper-realism.

I created this image during the ‘How to get the most out of the render possibilities in ZBrush’ workshop by Mieke Roth, delivered on August 28th, 2022. Mieke showed us how to tweak 3D model renders using ZBrush RenderSets in a customizable fashion.

Medium: Watercolor and guoache on illustration board (with some additions in Photoshop and Illustrator)

Medium: Graphite on tracing paper (Render of Kidney in Photoshop)

Medium: Gravity Sketch VR

Sketching in 3D is as familiar to me as sketching with a ball point pen on paper. In virtual reality, I can use my whole arm and body to achieve the gestural marks on virtual objects that would be meters in length in real life.

Medium: Drawing on foam tray, acrylic paint monoprint on watercolor paper

Medium: Spray paint stencils of tropical foliage on craft paper

Medium: Adobe Photoshop

Medium: Resin 3D print of Artec Space Spider digital scan

Sculpted in ZBrush from a skeletal specimen of Otus Flammeolus at the Denver Museum of Nature and Art.

The model was derived from a photogrammetry that was performed at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, in collaboration with medical illustrator Quade Paul. Legend has it that this particular wolf was found off I-70 West in the mountains near Denver, Colorado, with tags that identified it as a wolf from Yellowstone National Park. How it got there, no one knows.

Medium: ZBrush

A few years back I decided to participate in Inktober, created by Jake Parker 2009 as a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. (It has since grown into a worldwide endeavor with thousands of artists taking on the challenge every year - https://inktober.com/) I decided to challenge my ZBrush to Sketchfab skills, producing an interactive 3D model that looks like an old school pen & ink technique that I love called scratchboard.

This interactive 3D model is based on the same beetle sculpted at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, but rendered to emulate scratchboard, an illustration technique that uses black ink on a white clay-coated board, and the light is scratched in using a sharp knife or instrument. I call any interactive 3D model designed to look like traditional media such as paint or pen & ink a ‘Living Illustration’.

In 2010, we had the distinct honor of hosting Academy Award-Winning animator Bill Plympton, who was circuiting the country while screening his film ‘Idiots & Angels’. Bill lectured to our local animators on his work process. (also shown is Emmy Award-winning Evert Brown, who served on the ASIFA-Colorado Board and who also taught with me in the Media Arts & Animation Department of the Art Institute of Colorado)

Corrie demonstrated and taught to our local animators the contemporary sand animation techniques used to create her animated short ‘A Tangled Tale.’

From 2009 -2014, we organized and delivered the Animation Station workshops and competition for all ages at the Starz Denver Film Festival. Professional animators from around the world collaborated with our efforts to educate the local Denver public about the power of animation to engage audiences, to promote peace and to transform minds. (shown here is Board Member Joey Buhrer in grey, Iranian Animator Sarah Tabibzadeh in blue, Founding Board Member Ed Desroches in red, and Board Member and Emmy Award-winning Evert Brown in black, who animated on the Peanuts Charlie Brown tv specials)

Directed and Produced by Sarah Tabibzadeh, one of her latest films, and winner of the Tehran International Short Film Festival in 2019.

In 2009, we were followed by an HDNET film crew during the 33rd Starz Denver Film Festival. The resulting footage was used as a KidScene Promo, airing on their network on the east coast and beyond. This 3-minute short gives a perfect behind-the-scenes look at the community service we provided for local Denver animation enthusiasts and their families. Volunteering for ASIFA-Colorado was an extremely rewarding experience.

One of our main events during the year was to offer animation workshop training and competitions to local animators as well as judging the international award for the Best Animated Short screened at the Starz Denver Film Festivals. ASIFA-Colorado would raise money through grants, donations, and sponsors to offer cash prizes and gift certificates for the winning animations.

Here is an example of the judging rubrics I created for ASIFA-Colorado to improve inter-rater reliability when choosing the ‘best of the best’.

For several years, ASIFA-Colorado hosted an ‘exquisite corpse’ collaborative animation project, whereby each animator or team receives the single last frame from the animation before, and blends their animation to it. The result is a stream of consciousness experience and a journey through multiple animation styles and motifs. We would celebrate by screening the compilation in a local theater, and sharing it with sister ASIFA organizations around the world.

This was the ‘equisite corpse’ entry created by Andy Mason, with a little ‘in-between’ help by me.

Collaborating with members of ASIFA-Colorado, we created and screened an original stop motion animation at the GIJOE Film Festival, now known as the Action Figure Film Festival. Selected by Movie Insider® as America’s ‘Most Original Film Festival’ and as ‘Denver's Best Film Festival’ by the Denver Westword®, the Action Figure Film Festival (formerly know as GI JOE FEST) was created in 2005 by Gio Toninelo to celebrate the dying art form of stop-motion while paying tribute to the world's favorite posable toy: THE ACTION FIGURE.

Another major event for us was the annual Denver ComiCon. Here is a flyer for a panel discussion between me and Special Make-up Effects artist Todd Debrecini on fabrication techniques for stop-motion animation.

India ink on scratchboard. My thesis project in the Scientific Illustration Department at the University of Georgia was to collaborate with the University Natural History Museum to research species of bat native to the Southeastern United States, particularly the Eastern red bat Lasiurus borealis and the Seminole bat Lasiurus seminolus.

Introduction to Looping: A 3-Dimensional Interactive Tutorial of the Developing Heart, published within Embryo: CD Color Atlas for Developmental Biology, ed. Dr. Gary C. Schoenwolf, Prentice Hall, NJ. 1996

‘Morphing’ between two different 3D models was well beyond my expertise in 1996, therefore I used part of the Vesalius Grant awarded to help fund my graduate thesis to purchase the software used in Michael Jackson’s music video for ‘Black or White’. Here is an interesting article on how the video special effect was made. I used the same techniques to morph one stage of heart development into the other.