Andrew Dowell

Part of my job is model making, the other part is how to implement these models and animations into a real time environment. What does this mean? Basically I get to make and play with toys all day in a virtual reality world. This week I have been building a magical forest with a Stone hedge structure at the center. You can walk around the environment and interact with objects and explore the scene, it's fun stuff. Built in the Unreal Engine, it has real time effects and environmental lighting. The great part is that I'm currently testing the software with the new HTC Vive hardware! I was very impressed with the Oculus DK2 as the start of the year but it still had some some major issues. The main one being the screen pixelation was terrible but the potential was huge. Everyone saw it, and jumped on the VR hype train. Nearly at the end of the year was are about to get a serious wave of new VR software and hardware. Is it the future though? Maybe a few year ago I w...

It's that time of year again to update my website. I always enjoy making changes and this year it a big one. I'm still a few weeks away but it's looking great. Over the last year within the visual effects industry, I have produced some great work and look forward to sharing them, provided the intellectual property copyright doesn't get in the way. I often wondered why, when looking at Industry Artists' websites they lacked content yet they had worked on amazing films. Now I know why, until everything is wrapped up and signed off nothing gets distributed without approval. In the meantime, Force Friday was a blast and I had a very unique experience in Kaohsiung. Overnight queuing around the world with fanboys waiting in line to get their figures. Reduced stock levels and purchase restriction in place created such a hype train it was hard not to get excited. I took the morning off work and went to my local Toys R US. I expected to see some people but it was compl...

A good friend bought this for me as a gift. It had been on my list of books to buy for quite some time and it came as a huge surprise. This book is a must for anyone interested in the Art of Star Wars or the creation of Storyboards. A storyboard is a graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. Star Wars The Original Trilogy Storyboards has 352 pages. Presented in hardback and great paper quality. The storyboards included are split between Episodes IV, V and VI, with 82, 112 and 142 pages devoted respectively. The quality of detail for each frame is fantastic. Included are storyboard artists Joe Johnston, Ralph McQuarrie, Nilo Rodis-Jamero, Roy Carnon and more. There are 15 artists total which bring the Star Wars universe to life with depth and continuity. A range of different drawing styles, and mediums are included such as in pencil, i...