Emperor’s Champion

May 14, 2009

Project Summary

This 3D animation was inspired by Warhammer 40K, one of my greatest childhood hobbies that I still do today. Warhammer 40K is a complex table-top game that requires each player to assemble and paint their own army.  My primary army, which can be seen in the attached slideshow, is a Black Templars army led by the Emperor’s Champion (the character that is seen the 3D animation).  I won’t go into too much detail about the fiction behind the game but I will say that the Warhammer 40K universe is expansive and the game is for people who love art as much as gaming.  Every players army is entirely unique due to the fact that there are no pre-painted models.  It is the only game that I have played that provides as much for my artistic cravings as it does for my desire to play.

This animated short was created using Maya and Photoshop.  It was the first animation that I ever did during my early explorations into the field of 3D and computer graphics at Columbia.  This clip helped land me the job of teacher’s assistant for Jose Sanchez’s Engineering Graphics class for my last 4 semesters at Columbia.

The Model

My hand-painted (acrylic) Warhammer 40K Black Templars army:

[slideshow]