Rigging Showreel:

DIRECTING WORK

(click on the posters!)

PROJECT WORK

(click on the posters!)

A Griffith Student Film

3D Animated short
3 minutes

My Student Film, Wizard Joust is about a up-and-coming spellslinging jouster being forced into a competition with the reigning champion, her abusive father

DIRECTING WORK

(click on the posters!)

Animated Haiku: Ride of the Grey Nomads (AWARD WINNING)

3D Animated short
30 seconds

My contribution to the Kolperi outback boot camp program, this in addition to 6 other animations won the animation department the"Best Kolperi Film" award for the first time in 10 years! This was modelled, animated and rendered all within the space of 5 days in a small (poorly airconditioned) room in Winton, and aims to capture the hilarity of the Grey Nomad phenomenon affecting rural Australia. And yes, it is a Mad Max reference.

Character modelling/rigging

"Azeem" Model

Design by Ya Dan Deng, Modelled and Rigged by Me.

"Chadimus/Abarroth" Rigs

Rigged by me. Designed by Joy Ferentino, Modelled by Inez Meaker.

"Rockback Snapping Turtle" Production ready digital sculpt

Conceptualised, Sculpted, Retopologised, Textured and Rendered by Me

"Chadimus/Abarroth" Rigs

"The Wizard Cup" Rig

Rigged by me. Designed by Keira Ansems, Modelled by Inez Meaker.

"Radior" Rig

Designed, Modelled and Rigged by me.

3D Environments and Lighting

Loop de Loop submission: 'Swamp'

Designed, modelled, lit and animated by me.

Wizard Joust

Directing and lighting by me

Submarine in peril Realistic Environment

Designed, modelled, textured, and lit by me

Desert Jousting arena Low Poly Environment

Designed, modelled, textured, and lit by me

Who am I?

A question we all find ourselves asking after a long day or too many drinks.As the header suggests my name is indeed Alex Cranston and I am indeed a 3D generalist. After school where I failed to find the traditional pathways of business man or STEM major particularly interesting, I studied a diploma of Post Production at TAFE QUEENSLAND. There I discovered one of the loves of my life, 3D modelling. I took my experience from there and immediately enrolled at Griffith University for further study. There I awoke another dormant passion, writing! With every project and every maya directory I reinvigorated a lust for storytelling that was long hiding within the reaches of my subconscious. Now I work tirelessly to combine my writing with my 3D skills to create immersive stories to awaken the creative desire within others, because the world always needs more storytellers.Know that if you consider me and hire me for you're project you're not just getting another icon on the Zoom call, your getting a dedicated artist who will give 120% on my worst days.

Email: [email protected]

My Socials:

My Student Film, Wizard Joust is about a up-and-coming spellslinging jouster being forced into a competition with the reigning champion, her abusive father

A 3 minute 3D animated short.
Roles: Director, 3D modeller, Rigger, Lighting Artist

"What is the Cost of Vengence?"

The Wizard Joust is the first exploration into the fantasy world I have been developing for quite a while now. Its inspired by stories of Family trauma, a variety of Sword & Sorcery Fantasy, and a distinct Persian flair.

On this project i managed 15+ people a day, channelling their myriad of creative strengths toward one creative vision.

I wrote the first 16 drafts of the script over the course of 6 months, and then oversaw the edits made by my new assistant writers Mars Redmond and Luna Barrios Asplund. I made sure the script was kept within 3 pages, and that we had a clear consistent tone going through the whole film. Though the idea seems silly on first glance, it's a fantasy action film with some very serious themes. It was important we got it right.

I directed concept artists on how to properly convey the characters. Despite us not having a proper concept bible due to time restraints, we kept consistent design principles of strong shape language and keeping details simple.

Similarly, i oversaw our brilliant environment artists working on creating a truly unique environment not seen in fantasy media yet. Using real life historical sites such as Persepolis, we crafted a mesa environment rich with visual tidbits that indicate things about the world of this story.

I worked with storyboarders to ensure our story was visually stunning as an animatic, and that everyone of our shots had a strong narrative weight behind it.

I was apart of the modelling and rigging team, creating the rig for our 'Wizard Cup' model and modelling our antagonist Azeem.

Organising weekly meetings, providing feeback, i was on the clock the entirety of pre-production getting this production of the ground. I kept our vision clear, and our goals realistic. I also maintained a personal development blog to learn how a real production would inform investors on their weekly progress.

I rigged both the Kiwish mounts and Arch Magus Azeem, creating solid puppets that make up for the low-poly style.

Once we entered into production I shifted gears to wrangling Maya's toon shaders. Specifically, I experimented with the lighting to make our film look absolutely delicious whilst still keeping a slightly cell-shaded look.

It was particularly hard as Arnold's toon shader didn't account for the colour of the light, but with enough research I built a node blueprint that allowed us to keep our golden hour look.