Tilghman Wendel - NEW_A Brief History

Person of the internet,

My name's Tilghman, I'm an FX artist and the only person from Reno, NV who doesn't think the Earth is flat. My favorite international holiday is the 4th of July, and my job is to cook, bake, and drip pixels for companies like HBO, Twitch, CBS, and Ford.

The website you're staring at is an homage to sushi temples, which I'm pretty sure don't exist. The reason I created a fake establishment was to veer away from making senseless spec animations, and instead, build the restaurant of my dreams - The Death Curry Sushi Temple.

As a lifelong student of illustration, film-making, and lettering - I began studying my parent's signatures as a kid. I was naturally drawn to elements of design while never pursuing it head-on. Fast-forward a few Playstations, and my work has encompassed animated typography, 3D sports packages, motion graphics, and even some direction.

Somewhere along the way, I began exploring 3D programs to achieve motion that was elsewhere impossible. During the early days of the Covid pandemic, I deep dove into the fabled Houdini, reshaping my paltry understanding of physics into practice and fascination.

When I'm not burning holes in my eyes, I enjoy snowboarding, riding my bike, and making sushi. I also like drawing on paper, building cheesy websites, and screenwriting.

Element & FX Concentration

Fluid Effects

small-scale liquids, high-viscosity fluids, slow-motion, bubbles and gooey gold drips.

Particles, Grains & RBDs

stackable sand, snow and gold bits with animated colliders.

organic and unique instances with 3D rotation, often without simulation.

Volumetrics

vapor, smoke, clouds, VDB booleans and procedural volume modeling.

Cloth, Wire & Rope

dynamic chains, soft-body simulations with colliders and procedural constraints.

Advanced Motion Graphics

getting across the finish line when other DCC's struggle.

propagated growth, temporal masks and velocity fields.

extensive instance control for modeling, UVs and motion. high-poly count scenes.

Graphic & FX Integration

merging dimensions (2D & 3D) through dynamics and in-render compositing.

procedural vector modeling for bitmaps, type and hero assets.

Proficiencies

SideFX Houdini

preferred DCC for modeling, 3D motion, and FX.

familiar with Solaris (USD) pipeline - rendering Redshift & learning Karma XPU.

Maxon Cinema 4D

my relationship with Cinema has lasted longer than 30% of American marriages.

rendering Redshift & Octane.

Adobe Suite & Substance

the usual suspects: AE, PS, PR, AI - plus a bit of Substance.

I still love After Effects - don't listen to those cantankerous Houdini guys.

The Foundry Nuke

basic understanding of 3d multi-pass compositing with color correction & grade.

comfortable with Nuke pipelines but I am not a Nuke wizard.

Procreate + Rough Animator

my go-to tools for previz, animatics, sketching, and the occasional cel animation.