Discover Gnomon’s Best of Term Students 2021
Each quarter, Gnomon holds a Best of Term competition to award and recognize the best student work created at the school during that individual term. Each Best of Term features artwork displaying a wide range of technical skills from full-time program students, extension students, and individuals enrolled in the Foundation in Art & Design course of study, as all students enrolled in that term are eligible to submit their work for consideration.
“Best of Term is always a highlight of the quarter, when we go through all the amazing submissions to pick the stand-out pieces in different categories. It’s never easy, because there’s so much great stuff, but it’s extremely rewarding to see all the work that our students do quarter after quarter. I love seeing students submit each term and watching their skills grow as they progress.” – Gnomon Chief Creative Officer, Josh Herman
Continue below to find out which student projects were selected and see more of their works.
Jake Bohringer – Grand Prize Winner
“For this airstrike sequence, I wanted to attempt a 3D matte painting integration with a live-action plate, along with other effects. All the elements were projected onto 3D cards in Nuke, which allowed them to have real parallax as the camera moved.” – Jake
Andrew Reichle 
Project Title: Carved Companions
“Some friends are just made for each other. I had a lot of fun making this piece, and thank you to Jeremie Verbecq for inspiring me.” – Andrew
Jan-Allen Cauton
Project Title: The Repairman
“This character is based on a concept by Ariel Perez. For this project, I did all hard surface modeling in ZBrush and later retopologized in Maya. Adding my own touch to the character via texturing, custom decals, and stickers was one of the most fun parts of this project.” – Jan-Allen
Meg Mjaatvedt
Project Title: Paper Animals
“I animated this as part of a group project for Stephen McClure’s Matchmoving & Integration class. It was a fun challenge studying wildlife footage and interpreting realistic movement into something more stylized and toy-like.” – Meg
David Benguiat
Project Title: The Peeling
“I got the inspiration from the “Call of Duty: Ghost Cinematics” made by The Mill. I used Megascans for texturing, Houdini to create the Effect/Lighting/Environment, Arnold for rendering and Nuke for compositing. It was a fun project to create.” – David
Mark Butler
Project Title: Planet Beam Destruction
“My final for VFX Design class. The project and effects were created in Houdini. Used RBD, debris and pyro simulation and custom shading techniques for the particle beam. Rendered in Mantra and composited in Nuke. This project is inspired from a shot in the CGI Film Harlock: Space Pirate.” – Mark
Wen Sun
Project Title: 7th Street
“This piece was done for my Game Creation 1 class while learning Unreal Engine. My main inspiration for this piece was a concept art called Become Human by Wojtek Funs. The goal was to create a futuristic scene that felt grounded and lived-in.”
Tony Boserman
Project Title: Goblin Run, Idle & Death
“This set of animations was created to challenge myself to convey a personality in cyclical animations like a run or idle. This goblin represented to me mischievousness; stealing and running away from the player’s character. The rig was created by Thomas Vialetto and the animations I created in Maya.” – Tony
Isabella Omohundro
Project Title: The Biker Baker
“In this project I didn’t want to just copy and paste from the lovely original concept because in the animation industry it’s important to be flexible in case the director wants quick changes. I challenged myself with 3 prompts: To make her younger, more realistic, and detailed than the original concept art. I feel like managed to do all 3 while keeping the same spunky feel as the original drawing by Julia Blattman.” – Isabella
Adrianne Munoz
Project Title: High Elf
“I did this for my demo reel class. The concept was simple and has its complexities which challenged me but also inspired me to make this piece. This was created by using ZBrush, Maya, Mari, Substance Painter, rendered with Vray, and composited with Nuke.” – Adrianne
Alex Susanto
Project Title: Shaman
“When I came across the concept art for this piece by Mingchen Shen, it was love at first sight; and I wanted to do whatever I could to make this shot in 3D. This project was my first foray into Xgen, Speedtree, and Marvelous Designer; so learning all this new software to create the scene was my biggest challenge to overcome. My artistic focus for this piece was to ensure that I was able to use light and color to direct the viewer’s eye across the scene. This shot was created using Maya, Substance Painter, Mari, Speedtree, Xgen, Vray, and Nuke.” – Alex
Project Title: A Near Miss
“The Fast and Furious franchise holds a steady place in my heart; and as you can probably tell, the series served as my main inspiration for this piece. The project started off as a study of RBDs and fluid simulation in Maya. Once I understood the dynamics workflow, I re-approached this shot as a lighter; crafting the explosions so I could use their light and smoke to shape the scene. This shot was created using Maya, Substance Painter, Fracture, Phoenix, Vray, and Nuke.” – Alex
Fiona Ng
Project Title: Untitled
“This is a concept model I did in Jared Krichevsky’s creature modeling class using Zbrush and Keyshot. Design was inspired by the Bloodborne universe.” – Fiona
Ricardo Araya
Project Title: Baba Yaga
“This project was inspired by the folk tale of the Baba Yaga. I wanted to challenge myself with modeling, sculpting, and texturing a realistic cg human and I’m pretty happy with the result.” – Ricardo
Devon Rush
Project Title: The Clearing
“This has been the most rewarding piece to work on during my time at gnomon so far, a big part of that was collaborating with my good friends and fellow students Ellis Tamarin , and Ricardo Araya. Each of us created a different image based in the same world. It was so much fun and creatively stimulating to have people to bounce ideas off and to create a world together. I have to give a lot of credit to my friends and especially my amazing teachers Miguel Ortega and Andrea Adams for helping me steer the piece in the right direction.” – Devon
Michelle Sharp
Project Title: Lava
“For this piece I just wanted to focus on doing a study of one particular effect. Working with fluids is definitely a challenge and so I really enjoyed getting to dive in and spend a lot of time with this small shot.” – Michelle
Project Title: Rocket
“Instead of having a shot that merely showed off a bunch of different effects, I wanted to use this project as an opportunity to create story-driven effects inside a stylized world. I love adding life and humor into my work whenever I can, so this piece became one of my absolute favorites to create.” – Michelle
Mel Blalock
Project Title: Standing Stone Butterflies
“I chose to focus on environmental effects for this project. I used a combination of techniques for the scene including multiple blueprints, cascade particle effects, and the foliage tool to paint some of the butterfly meshes on the stones. The lit rolling fog and god rays were the last touches on the scene to bring it all together.” – Mel
Pom Intakul
Project Title: Animal Handler
“This piece is based on a drawing from Stephen Stark. My main goal was to practice using Xgen with creatures/ characters. I used Zbrush for sculpting, Substance painter/Mudbox for texturing and Vray for rendering.” – Pom
