Steven H. Maines

Lighthouses are a beacon of hope. They never fail capture my imagination. Maybe it is the quiet solitude they embody or the caution to impending chaos that appeals to me. These stately structures are a thing of beauty.

Nubble Light, located on Cape Neddick, NY, is a famous American icon and a classic example of a lighthouse.

Fun Facts:

The Voyager spacecraft, which carries photographs of Earth’s most prominent man-made structures and natural features, includes a photo of Nubble Light.

Nubble Light received indoor plumbing in the winter of 1938.

Work:

First, I used a copyright free photograph as the basis of this work. Shutterstock is a excellent source.

I used Autodesk 3D Studio Max 2006 to create the primary forms - structures and topology. When those elements were complete I used Adobe Photoshop to unify the organic rock forms with the simplified style of the overall piece.

Note:

The land mass is a true representation of the actual location’s heights above sea level. I used the USGS.gov website to plot basic measurements for the topology.

The finished framed work is 36” by 36”.

Also, works in a similar style depicting the Beach and Dusk using cut and torn Colormatch paper.

Uhura, as portrayed by Nichelle Nichols, is a science fiction icon. She’s a civil rights icon as well - groundbreaking as one of the first African American female television characters not portrayed as a servant. And…she’s simply a strikingly beautiful subject for a work of art.

This WIP piece is not intend for sale so I concluded a promotional still from the 1960’s Star Trek series could be a legitimate basis for this work.

Adobe Photoshop and hand work brought the image to this stage. I plan to import that image into Adobe Illustrator to complete a vector file so that all the layered forms will scale with optimal fidelity.

The finished work will be large, framed and displayed in my home office.

Dimensions: 48” by 48”.

An earlier iteration of this piece began as a watercolor painting, then a massive 8’ by 12’ airbrush demonstration at the Shreveport Regional Art Council’s “Artbreak” Student Art Festival. Sadly, that large-scale artifact was lost to a fire at the SRAC offices.

My “obsession” for precision compelled me to give the subject a second life.

Work:

Created and rendered with Autodesk’s 3DStudio Max.

Dimensions: 10” by 20”

Who can resist Mona Lisa? She’s ageless.

One could ask “why tinker with such an enigmatic work?” Hey, we all have a curiosity we must explore and satisfy.

While I haven’t viewed this work in person I was struck by documentation that states how small a painting it actually is - 21” by 30”.

My pixelated interpretation of the work is the first stage in a process to create a 3D “abstraction” of the original. I intend to use my 3D modeling package, Autodesk Max, to extrude the foreground from the background (all “pixels” at varied heights/depths), output that result to a 3D printer and then adhere cut color to the viewer facing forms.

Unframed Dimensions: 5” y 7”.

This van is certainly a 90’s era Ford Aerostar though branding it as such for gaming is a red flag by Legal. It is a common industry practice to mimic forms, however use of literal logos and brands is expressly prohibited.

The van is “low res” constructed from under 200 polygons. The skin it utilizes is 512 x 512 pixels.

This appeared in Avalanche Software’s “25 to Life”. Additionally, I served as Art Director for this project and studio Art Manager.

Russian Truck Large is, similarly, “low res”. It was used in Valve’s Counter Strike Condition Zero.

NCC 1701! The United Federation of Planets flagship is, almost, a required task for any Trekker with access to a 3D modeling package. Nerd!

The starship was created in Autodesk Max and utilizes the NURBS capacity of that program. Put simply, the program allows the artist to model the objects within manageable parameters using control points.

NURBS were originally only used in proprietary CAD packages of automobile companies, but later became part of standard computer graphics packages.

Generic Fighter Shuttle is a element of a larger WIP. The model is relatively low poly but uses NURBS to extrapolate that form forward to the high poly result.

Altered Olds is an 2D “sketch” created to illustrate how game models, in this case mid-century vehicles, would be stylized to fit the in-game universe. This game was never realized and released to the public.

A few of the many characters I modeled and animated live here.

I am continually amazed at the advances video gaming has made since my entry into the industry. It was always a challenge to work with the technology of the time. It was satisfying to push at the boundaries some tech presented and…succeed.

The Black Widow, a boss character, appeared in Quake: Ground Zero - low poly models moving in real-time 3D gaming environments.

The tech/engine allowed two (2) 512 x 512 TGAs. Woohoo!

I taught myself the 3DStudio Max on-the-job and the results might be evident. However, sprite based animation were state of the art for our Strife Shooter/Role Playing offering. Max steamlined production and produced consistent results. The game used the early iD DooM Tech 1. The Strife world played on a theme which blended medieval characters with advanced technology and robots.

I envisioned, modeled, textured and animated all robotic NPC enemies, as well as, the view weapons.

The models are deliberately simplified forms with exaggerated details to better use baked in light then, finally, rendered to frames. Those frames were limited to pixel dimensions, depending on the character, of 64 x 64 up to 256 x 256. The game palette was likewise limited to 256 colors.

The Crusader character spec sheet called for a squat, compact enemy that imitated RoboCop’s ED 209 to populate early levels of the game.

The Inquisitor was a mid level boss that tested the player’s skills with surface and air movements. Tough guy!

The Sentinel was a ubiquitous robot that patrolled the myriad halls of Strife.

The End Boss Alien’s form undulated and roiled. It shot energy bolts from nodes across its body.

This simple high poly model of Ripley is decidedly less “alien”. It was a sketch/study for a main character in “Ripley Save the Day” children’s book…I have yet to finish.

Props flesh out the game environment. Many have gameplay significance even though that might not be evident at first glance. They are fun to create too.

These lower poly models utilize per pixel lighting (normal maps) to give them a realistic appearance when rendered in game. All were modeled in 3DStudio Max. Diffuse color maps were created in Adobe Photoshop.

The four models that round out the collection were created from concepts for a stylized zombie game, appropriately titled “Zombie Game”. Clever, hunh?

I have created quite a bit of print work over the years. Much of it doesn’t translate well to a website. It needs to be held in the hands.

Here’s one that I created for the “Dilla Fest”- my brother’s annual music festival held on our farm in Louisiana.

The motto always was “If it rains, we get wet.”

Sadly, there’s no more Dilla Festin’.

I designed posters, tickets, t-shirts, cups……………

“This dude apparently likes aqua!” Yes.

These are light tables I designed and built for our media room. They provide a low level illumination and I think they look really cool when switched on in a darkened environment.

The farmhouse that Steve (and brother) built. I designed it and it’s the ultimate work in progress.

The Danger Label is not an original design though I recreated it in Photoshop to post on the office snack ‘fridge.

“You gonna make a lamp out of this” is the line all my friends say when I find a unique artifact to add to my packrat collections.