Acid 2 Time

Here's a fun experimental animation project created with Cinema 4D/Redshit and After Effects. It's a music video for the track Acid 2 Time taken from the album Drift by friend and collaborator Graeme Swinton's latest Acid House incarnation Mobile Mother.

Crafted with high-end 3d graphics, gritty moving textures and vfx, the video is a series of animated loops of swirling 3d sculptures that progressively deteriorate and overlap as the soundscape intensifies. It's also a cracking excuse to indulge in a fetish for late 90s techno aesthetics, see Autechre's Incunabula cover. You can watch the video on the main site here also and get Mobile Mother's Drift from Bandcamp here.

3x3 Annual 23 Merits

Very happy to receive news of two Merit Award Winners in the 3x3 International Illustration Annual No.23 Show. In the Edtorial category my Time magazine TIME AI 2025 illustration and in the Unpublished category my recent AI-Wakening personal experimentation project. Always nice to get recognition for personal as well as commissioned work. Thanks to this year's jury for the honour.

AI-wakening

I've been having a bit of 3d experimentation fun this week with Cinema 4d/Redshift, After Effects and a dusted-off 3d android bust I modelled for an AI themed BBC Science Focus cover concept in 2023. That job eventually went in a different direction but I always fancied revisiting this idea to get it out of my system. Initially, I created the third blue-tinged visual as a Redshift render test that I took into Photoshop for further treatment to get the kind of look I was after. I then developed the lighting, textures and illuminated tech interior to bring a little life to the humanoid and finalised the orange and yellow iterations. When I was happy with the visuals I decided to render out an animated version featuring the AI emerging from a primordial tech-soup and giving us a little spin - then presumably overwhelming us all. Hey ho. You can see the work on the main site also here.

TIME100 AI 2025

Here's a great commission for Time Magazine and their annual TIME 100 AI 2025 list of the most influential people working in Artificial Intelligence. The loose brief was to create an image that was interesting and abstract and conveyed the concept of AI without being too obvious. The design director Chelsea Kardokus had referred to some of my 3d work in the past, such as the Secret 7" chrome swan and the BBC Science Focus Dark Universe cover, so it was a no-brainer to turn to Cinema 4d to begin creating this piece.

My first ideas revolved around the notion of a cybernetic flower of some sort with metal thorns to convey the notion of a flourishing technology with potentially very prickly elements to it. I really enjoyed modelling the flower and experimenting with textures and lighting but soon decided to move on to another train of thought. The image of a spherical egg-like object came to mind with an all-seeing eye, suggestive of the birth of a powerful new technology possibly, so I modelled and rendered that to present with my other concepts, some of which are shown here. The cyber-egg won the day so I developed that further in Cinema 4d with a ripple effect beneath, catching some interesting reflections, and took the renders into Photoshop to refine the eye with its luminous data-strewn field of view.

I've included here a Cinema 4d render of the basic model and an alternative version with subtly different lighting and textures. A really satisfying and enjoyable job and it's a real pleasure to see it across the Time website and print edition so many thanks to Chelsea for taking a chance on me. You can see this on the website here also.

Dark Universe

Here's a new BBC Science Focus cover illustration and animation on the mysterious matter of The Dark Universe. The doozy of a brief involved visualising strange distortions in space and time that may reveal hidden forces controlling the cosmos. I was sent some specific reference of an abstract blob animation which was a helpful starting point for some exploration into Cinema 4D's volume builder dynamics. After some fun playing with various textures and organic animations I sent over first concepts, some of which are posted above. A stark and graphic black on white approach was preferred with a bulbous and jagged blob combo to give it an erratic feel. I was also tasked with creating headline typography that would interact with the undulating shape and added subtle grid elements to suggest an attempt to quantify the unquantifiable. The shape animation was created in Cinema 4d then composited in After Effects and was a very satisfying blob-job overall. See more Focus work here.

Cyber Skullduggery

Here's a fun little personal animation project that began as an alternate concept for a recent BBC Science Focus' AI issue cover commission. The initial brief, before it altered, revolved around Art, Love and Death so I'd modelled the cyber skull to pose with a holographic rose and even storyboarded the animation for it (see above). I was keen to continue with the endeavour and set about animating a motion camera in Cinema 4d to move around the skull. The mini-concept grew to include a holographic paint brush and nuclear missile representing the AI skull's expanding education before culminating in a countdown to annihilation...naturally. All of these elements were composited together in After Effects using camera data exported from Cinema 4d then graded with film stock and noise filters. Really enjoyed adding the soundtrack and mixing in the sound effects for finishing touches. You can see this on the site with other personal work here.

Chrome Blab: Danger of Death

Here's a short bit of experimental daftness featuring a dollop of 3d twisting gloop and oddball found signage from the coast. Creepy fun? Surewhynot.

Scorch / Fi

The 3d experimentation continues apace with two different approaches using the same floaty head model and scene. The first is called Scorch and employs some crispy texture work for that hot 'leatherman' sunburnt look. The second, Fi, cools it down with glass textures reflecting luminous objects in the void. I made a little animated gif and short of Fi to get to grips with some 3d camera movement. You can see it on the site here with related works.

Heartonaut

More 3d mayhem this week as I experiment at will. Been working on this heart-themed helmeted psychedelic figure and it just so happens to be World Heart Day today! Coincidence? You bet. I've pushed the camera around a bit to get some nice angles and also included some screen grabs of the 3d work scene-in-progress that I think look quite interesting and lo-fi. As you were.

Zane 3D

Strange new happenings to report at Potts HQ. I've been dabbling in the dark arts of 3D over the last few weeks learning a bunch of exciting new tricks. Here are my first attempts to explore the extra dimension with a suitably abstract illustration and cheeky gif animation that I'll call Zane, no relation to Billy. These three scenes are the same texture and object experiment with different lighting to suit your mood. It's been a creative eye-opener so will keep the new stuff coming as I navigate the massive 3D learning curve.