LAst Transmission Demo reel
I love works that tell a story but still leave room for interpretations. Last Transmission started with a question — what does it feel like to be lost in space, trapped with something that might not even be real? Not a monster or a jump scare. Something quieter and stranger than that. A presence. A memory. A hallucination born from isolation, or something otherworldly reaching through the static.
This piece pushed me across nearly every discipline I'd learned at Think Tank simultaneously. Characters sculpted in ZBrush, HArd surface elements modeled in Maya, clothing built and simulated in Marvelous Designer, hair groomed in XGen, textured across Substance and Mari, and rendered in Arnold.
The skin shader was the heart of the technical challenge. Working from Wrap3D's forums and scan-based workflows, I built a system that gave me independent control over subsurface scattering, displacement, and even makeup passes across distinct regions of the face — forehead, cheeks, nose, chin, eyes — each blending seamlessly into the next. That granular control was what let the skin actually read as skin.
For the second figure — the ghost emerging from the static of an old television — I built a custom holographic shader from scratch. Transparent, glowing, caught between presence and absence, designed to feel like she was being pulled out of the screen itself rather than simply standing in front of it.
This piece found its way to Alwyn Hunt — Head of Education and Partnerships at Adobe and co-founder of The Rookies — who discovered it independently and featured it. It was also shared across Marvelous Designer's official channels.
I wanted people to get lost in this piece and pick up on subtle details upon subsequent visits. Some details here are easter eggs — small things that build a quite narrative to reward anyone who looks closely. Take Another look at the songs written on the cassette tape, or what's playing on the tvs in the background. what do you see?
The music in my demo reel was produced by my father. He passed this past year, but getting to work with him on this project was truly the most rewarding thing I could ask for.
Beauty
Clay
Wireframe
SKin shader setup that includes individual area controls including displacement and makeup
