onionHead

idN Neo York

2010-02-09T11:09:00.000-08:00

Finally, my illustration piece I did for IdN will be published. All-new IdN Extra: Neo York is hitting shelves early next month.

Hooray! Here is some Q& A and artist bio I wrote up for the book.

Artist Bio

Helen Choi is a mutated-furry creature with eight legs and nonfunctional wings. She lives in a ruined building in Manhattan where grasses and furry flowers grow. She enjoys looking out at the vista where mutants roam freely. She goes hunting and farming everyday for a living. Her hobbies are skyscraper climbing and rope-swing jumping into river. In her past years, she kept her human form and dedicated her daily life to sitting in front of a computer, geeking out for a living. She generates 3D graphics for commercials and illustrates on her own time.

Synopsis

Octokitten, Octobunny and Sealeanmaid are one of the many mutant creatures living amongst the ruins of New York City. As they stumble upon random human objects left behind, they learn about what life was like here and they thirst for more .Oftentimes they go off on their mini adventures through the thick jungles of the city skyscrapers to find out more and more about the humans.However, danger looms as the hungry giant Ratapede lurks in the jungle. Devouring anything that scurries around him. Beware little mutants, be back home before the sun sets.

I) Please name one animation that influence you most, and how did it influence you? (within 50 words)

Hayao Miyazaki's animations have influenced me the most. His well known pieces are amazing, but I was most inspired by Porco Rosso. The pacing of the story isn't forced and flows so naturally. The little things the character does makes them so real. The subtleties of character and great storytelling amazes me most about it.

II) Imagine that if animé was introduced by the US instead of Japan about 90 years ago, how today's design scene would be different? (within 50 words)

If you mean if the US had accepted it's animation industry and infused it within it's own culture much like Japan has then it wouldn't be as "inside the box" as it is today. A lot of animation pieces in the United States are made to be widely accepted so that it can guarantee profit. If our priorities weren't profit, then there would be less animation with singing animals and more animated films for all audiences not just children.

III) Please name one of your most recent favorite animation / comic / director / animator?

My recent favorite animation is Tekkonkinkreet. It is such a beautiful piece of work not to mention such dynamic characters. The story is a bit too metaphorical and abstract in my opinion. However, that part of the story makes it visually interesting and the stylization compliments the piece as a whole. I recently purchased the Art of Tekkonkinkreet book and I can't stop looking through the pages and pages of beautiful artwork there.

Michelin - Evil Gas Pump

2010-02-08T12:18:00.000-08:00

I am very happy to announce that I took the full time job at Psyop after permalancing at Psyop for almost two years. Hooray!!

I worked on this Michelin spot as a lead designer. I mostly did human character design. Most of the environment design was done by Anh Vu. Here's the story of the evil gas pump spot!

Once upon a time there was a evil gas pump, who overcharged people. Townspeople couldn't do much about the unfairness of the gas pump, since the evil gas pump overshadowed the whole town. One day the Michelin man appeared and saved the day by giving people the fuel-efficient tire that helped to keep money in people's pockets.

Watch the project hereMichelin-Evil Gas Pump.

Below image is my first set of characters.
However, we ended up going for the "people of sloped shoulders and thin neck" instead of the "potato people with no neck".

This is the "people of sloped shoulders and thin neck" set of head study drawings by myself.

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We wanted to maintain this painterly stroke not just for styleframes but also throughout the 3D process as well. When we painted our textures in Photoshop, we tried to exaggerate the brush stroke textures. Here are some of our texture maps.
Styleframe by Anh vu and myself.(collaborated 3D& Photoshop)

After I was done with character design process, I layout almost every shot, making sure quirky building design from Anh was properly integrated to the spot. Just overall, tons of usage of lattice deformers to give personality to the environment.
I also lit couple shots when I was done with the layout process.

The UPS store-Circus

2009-04-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Circus spot for The UPS Store is finished. You can watch the finished spot here on Motionographer. You can also check out the "Additional notes from Psyop".What was the most fun part about working on this spot? I loved set dressing for sh01 and circus tent details.Oh! I also got to do little design sketches for the coo coo clock. Hooray! Also please pay attention to the animal toys in the mall toyshop. In a magical world of The UPS Store what happens? Elephants, bears,clowns and clown car toys comes to life and help us ship coo coo clock package!
And don't forget,"We do more than shipping".

Wittle Universe

2009-04-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

As a kid(and still to this day)I was very much fascinated by the idea of having my own cozy planet. Anything and everything on this planet would be fuzzy .. mossy and cozy. Of course it has to have amazingly cozy interior, pimped out with colorful dishes, pots and picture frames.

I realize that I had this "little planet" image stuck in my head from reading The Little Prince when I was young. I also have seen many imageries that carries similar concept as this.
One of my favorite is by National tv Honda:Drive Every Drop commercial. I can think of couple more spots I've seen online recently that was based on this similar concept. Pretty interesting I think!

Wittle Universe

Quickiez

2008-08-10T10:46:00.000-07:00

Freestyle Collective-Nickelodeon Global Rebrand

Look at these beautiful images from Nickelodeon global re-branding art directed by Brian Drucker from Freestyle Collective. I was helping out on animating bug sequences for couple of days. Unfortunately this spot won't be airing on television. :(

Panda Panther-Pop Tarts
A while back, maybe last summer, I was over at Panda Panther for 3 days helping out on their Pop Tarts pitch. I collaborated with Jon and Naomi on texturing/layout/lighting/compositing of these images. Extremely cute stop motion/3D piece is finally on TV. I went nutz when I saw their miniature sets all over their studio. So cute. This spot is also miniature set combined with 3D character animation.

PSST3!Lucid
HOORAY! Finally,PSST3-Lucid piece has been officially released. Yes, we all know that it could have been way better than how it turned out to be... However, it was tough to work on 3D piece after long day of working on 3D. So.. RESPECT for all of you who participated on PSST PSST.

Psyop NY- The UPS store-Gladiator
Please press the HD button on the right bottom corner once you click on the Gladiator movie.

This spot is such a joy to work on. Scripts are fun, visual style is fun, amazing team..so I really am appreciating this chance to have FUN at work. I roved detailing/texturing/lighting the set for first shot of office.Fun thing about this job is that we were given certain limitations (world made out of cardboard) that allowed us to explore more ideas. Cardboard as a material is not very flattering(hobo style) so figuring out how to turn grungy, messy and dull cardboard into golden, rich and crafty look was a fun challenge for us.

Psyop NY-Dante's Inferno-NEW-
MOTIONOGRAPHER
Dante's Inferno was one of the most insane project I have ever worked on. Six people for core CG team and twelve people(CG) who helped us out for short amount of time. Two main compositors everything was composited in AE. A lot of fun and pain at the same time. On a very positive note, I learned a lot and that's always very valuable experience for me.

This first image is style frame of cerberus done by Jon Saunders using my 3D renders. Next image was the final look.

Here's the sketch of last shot from Dante's inferno sketched out by Jon the Saunders, and the final 3D output.

Three specular, RGBcombo, RGBmattes, Beauty, sss, BG beauty.

Buck NY-Coca Cola Quantum of Solace
What could be better than working on a stylized CG-007-car, silouhetted-hot-bond girl, sweaty-coca-cola-bottles, dramatic-extreme-earth-cracking-action?
It was good-fun! to explore mia paint shaders. This is what I did when I was working on the car shader.

1.Tweaking numbers settings
2.test render
3.guess what each attribute does and use it to my advantage.
Repeat above steps until delivery date.

I worked on mostly all the CG elements in this spot with Vi Nguyen who I worked with at MotionTheory.

Psyop NY-Valentine's Day.
Psyop LA- Coca Cola Shuang City.
Psyop NY-Fanta spots.(Couch monster and Fanta Tree)
Si TV

ToysRus

2008-07-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Adidas Together

2008-04-18T12:36:00.000-07:00

2008, psyop
uploading in progress.

Fung Animationg

2007-12-26T22:38:00.000-08:00

I had fun animating this character for a pitch.
Very special thanks to Psyop, Jaye Kim, Tony Barbieri and Joshua Harvey.

TUTORIALS: How to build/texture wilting leaf.

2007-12-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

This tutorial is on 3DTotal. Check out the same tutorial you just read here in a slightly different layout!

onionHead

2007-10-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

2007, work in progress.

This painting's concept is based on fragmented memories and imagination. It has been shattered and weaved back together. Creating, as a whole, a new story while maintaining each panels independence.

The world of onionhead, exists beyond these panels. These images are only a little glimpse of what goes on in that world.

miniJourney

2007-10-13T14:59:00.000-07:00

octoNoodles

2007-10-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

Coke Happiness Factory

2007-10-11T23:37:00.000-07:00

Click above for shot details/example shots
2007, Psyop.
Set dressing, texturing, modeling and lighting/rendering

Gatorade "What's Inside Sydney"

2007-10-09T18:03:00.000-07:00

2007, MotionTheory.
Modeling,texturing,animation,set dressing and lighting/rendering

Jeep Compass

2007-10-08T14:18:00.000-07:00

2006, BNS
Modeling,texturing,set dressing and animation.

Flow PS3

2007-10-07T22:46:00.000-07:00

2006, TGC,Sony.
Art Direction.3D tests

Zune Little birds

2007-10-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

2006, Motion Theory
Modeling, texturing, set dressing and rendering

Toyota Camry, Slippery Styling

2007-10-07T10:42:00.000-07:00

2006, BNS
Lighting

HP

2007-10-06T23:49:00.000-07:00

2006, MotionTheory
Modeling, texturing, lighting/rendering and hand tracking