3D – A P T A S S

XENOGOTCHI

aptass — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 19:56:35 +0000

XENOGOTCHI

Client: Personal My Role: Concept, Direction, 3D, Animation

THE CONCEPT

XenoGotchi started as a simple question: what if Weyland-Yutani had sold the xenomorph as a 1990s handheld toy?

The model needed a package. The package needed a commercial. The commercial needed a world. That’s how a single mashup concept became a five-part short film anthology, tracing the organism from a classified Weyland laboratory to fictional retail shelves.
Conceived and produced solo.The discipline was knowing when to follow the idea, and when to stop.

The thematic spine is taken directly from Dan O’Bannon’s original thesis on Alien: the corporation, not the creature, is the real monster.

That idea shapes every creative decision here, from the Weyland lab aesthetic in Part 1 to the cheerful disclaimer in the toy commercial.

Horror doesn’t need a monster when the packaging is convincing enough. “Tamago” means egg in Japanese, and the ovomorph was always the product.

THE PRODUCT

The XenoGotchi unit had to feel like something Weyland had actually manufactured, not a toy that happened to carry a xenomorph. The form was derived directly from the ovomorph, the egg encountered in the original film, with the same tapered silhouette and a deliberate opening at the top that mirrors how the egg breaches.

Screen, buttons, and chain were added as the minimum required to make it a consumer product.The surface detail was sculpted by hand. The shell is utilitarian. The screen is the only thing alive.

XenoGotchi Wireframe Front

XenoGotchi Wireframe Back

Tamagotchi Inspiration

AI Concepts

THE PACKAGE

The packaging design is rooted in a specific reference: the Kenner Alien line from 1979. Not a generic blister pack, but that particular combination of deep cyan blue, red accent trim, and the implicit promise that something dangerous was sealed inside.

The same visual language runs through Kenner’s Star Wars line from 1977-78. Cheap cardboard and a plastic bubble, mass-produced by the millions.

But for a child holding one in a toy store, it was a window into another universe. Growing up with Star Wars figures from that era, that promise felt real.

Applied to a Weyland-Yutani product, the same packaging becomes something else entirely. Corporate livery dressed as toy store shelf appeal. The blue is familiar. The red makes it feel urgent. The organism is already inside.

Kenner Star Wars 1977-78

Kenner Alien 1979 Toy Box

RECREATING ALIENS

Part 1 needed an establishing scene, something that placed the viewer inside the Alien universe before the project found its own direction. The APC sequence from Aliens was the obvious choice: a hard arrival, practical vehicle, hostile environment.

The main challenge was matching the original camera angle precisely. A few degrees of deviation or the wrong focal length and the reference falls apart. The scene was built in Blender using a combination of original modelling and kitbashed assets.

ANIMATING SCREENS

SURVEILLANCE MONITORS

Blender Viewport

After Effects Timeline

Blender CRT Shader

Frame from video

Not all screens needed to say something. Background monitors were built from AI-generated stills run through a VHS filter and glitch pass, enough to read as active without drawing attention. The main surveillance interface was different. That screen needed to feel like it was actually capturing something.

The solution was to build the scene first, render it, then feed the output back into Blender as a texture on the monitor geometry. A custom shader splits the image into RGB channels and applies a wave distortion to simulate CRT phosphor rows. The screen in the final render is a real-time view of a real scene with added widgets and datalayers.

XENOGOTCHI SCREENS

The XenoGotchi device needed over 20 unique screen animations, covering minigames, idle states, and moments that mirror events in the film. Modelling or drawing everything from scratch would have taken weeks.

The solution was generative AI as a production tool. A base xenomorph sprite was fed into Flux 2 in ComfyUI with a detailed prompt describing pose, palette, and grid layout. The output came back as a spritesheet, which was then masked and animated in After Effects. Every animation still required hands-on decisions about timing, character and how each screen served the scene it appeared in.

ComfyUI Flux

After Effects Timeline

WORLDBUILDING

NOSTROMO TUNNELS

Nostromo Tunnels Reference

Nostromo Tunnel Renders

Nostromo Tunnel Wireframe

Route through tunnels

The Nostromo’s corridors are among the most referenced environments in science fiction, designed by Ron Cobb to feel industrial and lived-in. Recreating that environment meant studying the original carefully and building it from scratch through kitbashing, combining assets from Big Medium Small, Kitbash 3D and Sketchfab with original modelling.

The camera move through the tunnels was recorded using Blender’s walk mode, physically moving through the space in real time to capture the weight and hesitation of someone actually navigating it. A marine mesh was parented to the camera to sell the POV, with an independent shoulder lamp providing the primary light source. Moving the lamp separately meant full control over where the viewer’s eye goes at any moment.

FROM CONCEPT TO SCENE

Every scene started the same way: a blockout in Blender and an AI-generated concept image. Not to let AI determine the direction, but to have something concrete to react to before committing to kitbashing and lighting. The concept image answers the question of mood and composition quickly, the blockout locks in scale and camera. From there the scene builds itself.

The lab in Part 1 and the kid’s bedroom in Part 2 show how the same method carries across completely different environments. One is a sterile Weyland facility, the other a cluttered 90s bedroom. The starting point is the same: concept, blockout, refine, grade.

Part 1 Lab

Part 2 Kid's Bedroom

POST PRODUCTION

WORKFLOW

The workflow was built around a single-scene approach in Blender, one file per part of the film, each using the same structure of named cameras switching via timeline markers. That kept the approach consistent across all five parts and meant a full render could be queued and left running unattended. Part 5 had significantly more markers due to the tight audio timing of the toy commercial format.

GRADING

A base grade was done in Blender then rendered out as OpenEXR for final grading handled in DaVinci Resolve. Each scene got its own node tree, moving from exposure and log conversion through lens blur, color correction and a final diffuse pass.
Part 5 got an additional VHS layer with chroma fringing, scanlines and horizontal wobble on top of the same base pipeline.

Before After

AUDIO

Audio was mixed entirely in Resolve with eight dedicated tracks split across voiceover, SFX layers and music, with individual EQ and bus routing.

For Part 5, all voiceovers were finalized and placed in Resolve before a single keyframe was set in Blender. The audio was exported as a single file and imported directly into Blender’s timeline. Every camera cut, logo slam and product shot was then animated against the actual voices rather than an estimated duration. It removes guesswork entirely and makes the difference between a spot that feels timed and one that feels edited.

TOOLS

Blender for all 3D work, rendering and animation. After Effects for pixel art animations and screen content. DaVinci Resolve for editing, grading and audio. Flux 2 Dev in ComfyUI for spritesheet generation and AI concept images. ElevenLabs for voice synthesis. Music and sound design from Epidemic Sound, Soundly and a personal library. Kitbashing assets from Big Medium Small, Kitbash 3D and Sketchfab.

REFLECTION

XenoGotchi started as a product mashup concept and a potential 3D model. Four script revisions later it had become a five-part anthology. The scope grew because each part kept asking for context, and the discipline was knowing when the answer was yes and when it was enough.

Some decisions were harder than others. The edit order went through several iterations, with an early version splitting the parts differently to make the narrative clearer for a first-time viewer. The current order holds together better as a single piece. Camera choreography in the kid’s bedroom alone went through more iterations than any other scene, small decisions about where the bed sits and how the camera enters the room that compound into whether the scene feels inhabited or staged.

Wan 2.2 was tested for generating video clips but cut from the final project. The output diverged too far from the visual language established in Blender, and consistency across the anthology mattered more than adding another tool to the pipeline.

A Japanese variant with a J-pop soundtrack and gashapon capsules was an early idea that didn’t make it. It would have been a narrower project for a narrower audience. The American 90s toy commercial register turned out to be the right frame for the O’Bannon thesis.

Five months, four script revisions, just under four minutes of film. Conceived and produced solo, alongside full-time work in the same field. The next project will be shorter. But this one didn’t run out of momentum, it ran out of scope.

CAPRINE PARFUMS :: GOAT

aptass — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:22:22 +0000

CAPRINE PARFUMS GOAT

Client: Personal My Role: 3D, Animation and more

THE CONCEPT

A personal project of a fictitious perfume brand devoted to sacred instincts and unapologetic opulence.

Caprin Parfums

A satirical high-luxury fragrance house. Caprine Parfums walks the razor’s edge between elite sophistication and unapologetic absurdity. We combine opulent visual language with feral, animal-themed surrealism to create a product line that feels like Balenciaga spoofing Guerlain.

Each bottle is a reliquary for extinct instincts.
A scent not meant to please, but to awaken.

Legacy:
Founded in 1883 by rogue taxidermist-perfumer Thibault Caprine after an absinthe-fueled vision quest in the Pyrenees. He claimed to distill scent from instinct itself.
Caprine’s original motto: “Let no scent die in vain.”

Caprine Parfums revives what refinement forgot:
animal instinct as high art.

FRAGRANCE

GOAT EAU DE TOILETTE · €110 · 60ml

A crisp, confident scent for those who’ve already arrived. Opens with alpine clarity, settles into something quietly smug and deeply rooted.

“Momentum, made fragrant. Best worn on the way up. Spray with intent.”

GOAT EAU DE COLOGNE · €160 · 90ml

For the quietly excellent, the near-mythic runner-up. Bright and brisk, then softens into cedar and self-awareness. The finish? Dignified. Slightly bruised. Still better than most.

“Close to greatness. Twice the humility, half the pressure. Spray with dignity.”

GOAT EAU DE PARFUM · €240 · 75ml

The summit. Rich, focused, unbothered. It doesn’t cling. It lingers like a legacy.

“This is not a scent for arrival. This is what arrival smells like. Spray once. Never explain.”

BOTTLE & PACKAGING

WIREFRAME / RENDER

CONCEPT & PACKAGING

Before After

AI Concept for Toilette Box

Front Packaging Render

Back Packaging Render

Interior Detail Render

Before After

AI Concept for Cologne Box

Front Packaging Render

Back Packaging Render

Interior Detail Render

Before After

AI Concept for Parfum Box

Front Packaging Render

Interior Detail Render

Back Packaging Render

WORKFLOW

This project started with a dream my wife had — a perfume so divine it was “good enough for the GOAT.” That phrase stuck and snowballed into a full fictional brand.

I wanted to explore AI not just as a tool but as a creative collaborator. For concept and script, I used it to explore names, mythology, and the absurd grammar of luxury branding.
For visual design, AI-generated concepts helped establish mood and direction before I committed to modeling.

The most unusual part: working solo, I set up a virtual creative team using AI, a creative director, a ruthless critic, a narrative editor. I’d pitch ideas, they’d challenge them. Fast iteration, no echo chamber.

Bottles and environments built in Blender. Comp and sound design in After Effects.

Goat Caps were made with an AI Model (huyan3d 2.0) by providing 3 images.
Images made with OpenAI Sora. Then I did some remeshing and adjustments in Blender

Before & After Color grading and looks.

Before After

REFLECTIONS

The key wasn’t just using AI, it’s knowing how to use it well.
I don’t rely on it to finish my work, but I absolutely rely on it to challenge me, stretch my thinking, and speed up parts.
It helped me do a lot more in shorter time.

There is a lot of ways to use AI without removing you as an artist

GOAT was a proof of concept for a hybrid workflow. Working with AI didn’t replace anything, it amplified.
It’s a glimpse of how creative work is evolving.

EXTERIOR SCREEN MOVIE

aptass — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 09:00:49 +0000

EXTERIOR SCREEN MOVIE

Client: Lynk & Co Design My Role: 3D, Animation, editing, grading, video

A cinematic showcase for the Lynk & Co 900’s exterior screen features — the 10,192-LED front array and rear display — demonstrating how they shape the car’s personality and communicate with the world outside.

Designed to feel expressive and clean, the kind of film that makes a feature obvious without explaining it. I handled the majority of the 3D animation, editing and grading. Built in Blender, composed in After Effects, with a custom soundscape.

The highlighted sections below show my contributions.

The parts I did are in color

SHOWFLOOR MOVIE

aptass — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 23:10:56 +0000

SHOWFLOOR MOVIE

Client: Lynk & Co Design My Role: 3D Animation, editing, grading

A cinematic rolling demo created for Lynk & Co’s 900 ultrawide in-car display, running at 5120×1600. Designed for showroom environments where the screen needed to sell itself, slow, visually rich motion that shows off clarity, depth and material quality without asking for attention.

Built in Blender, composed in After Effects. The highlighted sections in the sheet below show my contributions. The project also featured a custom composed soundscape.

The parts I did are the ones in color

SOUND VISUALIZER

aptass — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 17:54:20 +0000

SOUND VISUALIZERS

Client: Lynk & Co Design My Role: 3D, Animation

Four music visualizers and three ambient screen modes, developed as concepts for the in-car display. The brief was to feel responsive and on-brand within the vehicle’s UI system. The challenge was making each one feel genuinely different.

Each visualizer explores a distinct motion language, from reactive particle systems to architectural spaces that pulse with the music. The ambient modes work in the opposite direction, minimal motion, subtle light, designed to make the cabin feel calm without demanding attention.

The concepts weren’t implemented in the end, there wasn’t enough development time to integrate them into the final release. But they shaped the conversation about what the screen could eventually do.

Music Visualizers

Exploring reactive motion for in-car audio playback.

Ambient Modes

Designed for calm, relaxing moments.

Sometimes motion design isn’t about explaining. It’s just about making the screen feel alive.

ONE FOR THE REAR SCREEN

aptass — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 23:20:55 +0000

LYNK & Co 900 REAR SCREEN

Client: Lynk & Co Design My Role: 3D, Animation, Editing

The task was to create virtual rooms where passengers can access different content in the backseat of the car. I explored several animation styles, balancing brand tone with motion clarity and readability across these formats.
Here is the final concept I did for a rear screen display, if available for the passengers.

The challenge: adapting visual content to multiple screen sizes and aspect ratios, ranging from standard 16:9 to an ultrawide 5120×1600 resolution. And the possibility to showcase a split screen if the passengers want to access different content.

I built the 3D scenes in Blender, then composited and animated the UI in After Effects to bring the concept to life.

Below is the final concept version, along with a clip showing how it appears in the actual car display.

ALL 3 ROOMS SIDE BY SIDE

Here is how the screen turned out in the actual car.

Here is an earlier concept with a open space instead of rooms. The video show how the interaction with items could look.

VOICE ASSISTANT

aptass — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 21:19:57 +0000

VOICE ASSISTANT

Client: Lynk & Co Design My Role: 3D Animation, Character Animation

Lynkie is Lynk & Co’s in-car voice assistant, appearing in the HUD or on the main screen depending on the model. I animated the full state machine, a complete library of interactions covering everything from functional responses to idle personality moments.

The work included texturing the eyes, icons and props, and exporting across multiple formats and texture atlases for different real-time engines. Some of the work extended into short films and marketing material. Most of it is under NDA.

Below are four animations from the idle library: one music mode and three personality states.

INTERIOR LIGHT & MAGIC

aptass — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 19:07:25 +0000

INTERIOR LIGHT & MAGIC

Client: Lynk & Co Design My Role: Concept,3D Animation, Light Design

For about a year I drove the work with the visual development of interior lighting across several Lynk & Co models, both functional states and ambient mood experiences. Most of what’s in this video shipped in production vehicles.

The work covered the full visual pipeline: concepting light moods, creating light animations in After Effects on texture atlases for export into Blender, VRED, or Unreal depending on the target environment, used for both VR walkthroughs and rendering presentation videos and internal sign-off. I also improved how we exported and packaged video assets for the cars themselves, making the delivery process more reliable across the team.

Some modes existed before I joined and I developed them further. Others I originated. The Gaming Mode is a speculative concept, proposing using the car’s ventilation system to enhance the experience, with a Wunderbaum swaying in the mirror as a nod to that idea. The Rest Mode at the end was also a concept, not implemented. Everything else delivered to Lynk Z10 and Lynk 02.

The interiors shown were pre-production, the final cars look different, but the light logic is the same.

3D – A P T A S S

XENOGOTCHI

XENOGOTCHI

THE CONCEPT

THE PRODUCT

THE PACKAGE

RECREATING ALIENS

ANIMATING SCREENS

SURVEILLANCE MONITORS

XENOGOTCHI SCREENS

WORLDBUILDING

NOSTROMO TUNNELS

FROM CONCEPT TO SCENE

POST PRODUCTION

WORKFLOW

GRADING

AUDIO

TOOLS

REFLECTION

CAPRINE PARFUMS :: GOAT

CAPRINE PARFUMS GOAT

Caprin Parfums

BOTTLE & PACKAGING

EXTERIOR SCREEN MOVIE

EXTERIOR SCREEN MOVIE

The parts I did are in color

SHOWFLOOR MOVIE

SHOWFLOOR MOVIE

The parts I did are the ones in color

SOUND VISUALIZER

SOUND VISUALIZERS

Music Visualizers

Ambient Modes

ONE FOR THE REAR SCREEN

LYNK & Co 900 REAR SCREEN

ALL 3 ROOMS SIDE BY SIDE

Here is how the screen turned out in the actual car.

VOICE ASSISTANT

VOICE ASSISTANT

INTERIOR LIGHT & MAGIC

INTERIOR LIGHT & MAGIC

STILLS FROM VIDEO