Donut Man is a character I created mostly to try my hand at rigging a character in Maya. He's fully rigged for animation now, so I tend to use him for every test project I do. I was initially just testing the Fisheye camera function, but realized that this would make a pretty awesome animation. I've done a couple of camera moves and I might just make this into a 30 second disco dancing short. We'll see where it goes when I get some time. He sure looks great in a disco setting though!

KARVT just released my artist series Macbook Skin. Laser etched onto authentic fine quality wood, ready to attach to your Mac for $50.KARVT is the product of my friend Kurt Barbee and his business partner/designer Sean Herman. Truly quality products, made with great finesse.

Buy one here:
http://karvt.com/store/bard-standal-ninja-pandas/

I am not entirely sure how my Pirate Pandas became "Ninja Pandas", but that's cool

It seems like my Skulliphant BUD toy has been released to the world's designer toy stores. Like the excellent Rotofugi:
Skulliphant BUD at Rotofugi

I even found them on ebay:
Ebay auction for Skulliphant BUDs

Awesome ^--^

Fukoko is a creature that brings good luck from Japanese mythology. So here we are, a quick 3B pencil drawing of the little guy. I then boot up Maya!

After a little work, the cube I started out with, is starting to take shape.

There we go, modelling nearly done.

And here we are with the UV-mapping and texturing done. Next up, animation!

Finished and animated, ready for my new portfolio site

A box of 50 Skulliphant Bud of the Month from JAMUNGO! just arrived!

This is my first production toy that will be sold around the world. Edition of 800 normal colors and 200 clear. Really happy with these, they look so great!

The end is here. They are done.
The first 5 have been painted and are now ready for the exhibition in New York. 5 color ways and a run of 5 toys per figure. There is a high chance of there being less than that in each run due to the ridiculous amount of work involved in casting, prepping and painting Deinos.

Launch party and solo exhibition “The Birth of Deinos” by Bard Vandal at Gallery Ouchi from the 14th to 17th of July. More details very soon. Sign up to the mailinglist to get it first! This exhibition (and potential the next one) is the ONLY place where Deinos will be sold for the next couple of months. Price $125 dollars.

Finally, Deinos is printed and ready!

Thanks to CrystallineModels.com for the printing of the rapid prototype. After a little polishing and sanding, DEINOS will be ready for molding and casting. Looks like it will be a tough task.

The toy press has been kind to DEINOS already:
 ToyCyte
Plastic And Plush
Toys R Evil
Action Figure Times
Tomopop

Marakhas, my little Mexican character, is ready to enter this world in woodlike form! Kurt (5280 Lasers) and I are working on something cool, more on this project later...

Part 1: Rapid Prototyping & 3D modelling
Part 2: Making the Silicone Mold
Part 3: Pouring the resin

With the advent of affordable 3d printing, I finally found a cheap and efficient way to make my own toys at home using high resolution rapid prototyping technology, silicone molds and resin plastic. I will be documenting this process on my blog to show the progress and to help others do the same. It was quite difficult to find out about this process online, so this is my way of giving something back to the online community.

Rapid Prototyping:
I've been looking into rapid prototyping for a few months, and finally started getting some quotes from different RP companies. While doing that, I uploaded an STL file to Shapeways.com and got a quote for 400 USD. At a price like that, I wasn't quite prepared to go straight to ordering. However, they happened to have a competition to get a free model made and shown off at Siggraph 2008 which I was lucky enough to be one of the winners of.

Blender Nation SIGGRAPH 2008 Shapeways YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbT3T6CW05Q
(Jump to 2:01 to see the husky toy)

The model looks like this.

This is quite impressive print quality. From what I can tell this is their "White Detail" level. The details come out very nicely, however its texture is a bit rough and not at the sort of smoothness a normal plastic sculpt would be. I tried sanding it down with limited results, the texture was still visible; though smoother to the touch than before.
At the size of 10x10x10 cm's the shapeway print costs $471.19 including shipping. This is quite a high price compared to some of the other quotes I eventually received.

Other quotes at 9x9x9cm:
Scimitar Prototyping Inc (www.sci-proto.com): $536 (plus shipping)
Steven Guevara (a3dcreator@gmail.com): $195 (plus shipping)
Carsten Rosenbohm (cr@neue-freunde.org): 360 Euros (plus shipping)
3D Art To Part (www.3darttopart.com): $164 (including shipping)

3D Model:

I am by no means a master 3d modeler, I just started learning this last year so I am sure many would find my polygons horrifying! However, I did manage to get the husky to a level that I was quite happy with. Despite some strange edge loops... ^-^
Regardless, with enough smoothing in Maya, it worked out. Shapeways (and most of the others) required I provide them with an STL file. I had to convert an OBJ file into STL via a PC app, which proved to be quite the task as the size ratio needed quite a bit of tweaking. Luckily, Shapeways now has this handy new tutorial that will make the process easier:

http://www.shapeways.com/tutorials/exporting-from-maya-with-collada-3dprinting

Resources:
My Flickr Set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellobard/sets/72157607454804214/

Resin is the New Vinyl Flickr Group
http://www.flickr.com/groups/resinisthenewvinyl/pool/

Rapid Prototyped Chocolate Monkey Faces
http://bebop.cns.ualberta.ca/~cwant/chocomonkey/

Yoshii's ZBrush Toys
http://www.zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=47708

Sci-Proto:
http://www.sci-proto.com/sla.html

Shapeways:
www.shapeways.com

Smooth-On Mold-Making Tutorial Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSH19G_6Yeo&feature=related

Freeman Supplies Tutorial Videos:
http://www.freemansupply.com/video.htm

Laser cut skateboard courtesy the talents and laser eyes of Kurt at 5280 Lasers! It's been quite the while in the making, but finally it's done and ready for sale. I've got 4 of these coming up in my shop in about a week, so if you need some nice wall art or just a new deck to grind to hell, be quick to get one!