Meet the Artist

Will

MacRae

aka. Zorp, DPXA (Digital Painting and Expanded Animation)

“The Temple of the Dreamer (TTOTD) is a narrative VR pilgrimage set in a colourful fantasy world designed to evoke a dream-like sensation and a feeling of divinity. This prototype (and a completed sample of TTODD) consists of a game level, character models and assets designed using Blender and Unreal Engine playable on the Oculus Quest 2. TTOTD's main themes are dreams, magic, mystery, divinity, and the intersection between collective and individual imagination. Players traverse the Great Dreamer’s temple, the shrines of four primeval deities to gain their blessings, and then return Luap to sleep to save this world from annihilation. Luap dreams this world into existence. TTOTD uses its setting to explore how dreams act as a bridge between our imaginations, the waking world, and a near-death state. By harnessing the immersive capabilities of VR, TTOTD is designed to induce a feeling of magical dreaminess and explore mental states and moods that can be VR-elicited. The project has been heavily inspired by an array of world mythology. By embodying mythologically visual, tonal, and thematic qualities in TTOTD ‘s environment and character design, enhanced to a greater feeling of realism through VR, TTOTD attempts to activate the sacred in us. Stylistically TTOTD is a merging of a young boy’s imagination with a focus on colour and wonder, designs from a wide range of mythology, and a concealed, sinister sense of danger and the bizarre. This prototype includes a sample level and four of the deity’s 3D modelled and showcased. ”

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Will MacRae is a Canadian 3D character and environment artist for game development, with a background in oil painting and traditional drawing. Will originates from Calgary, where he spent his life until graduating high school, and has been living in Toronto for five years. Will’s first two years of university were spent learning how to oil paint, before he pivoted his attention to digital practices. Will participated in the OCAD’s Florence Program in 2019. Will’s work seeks to explore mood and atmosphere with color, merging realistic rendering techniques with stylized design and expressive color to create believable fantasy worlds that encapsulate feelings and experiences. He has long had an interest in monster design, taking inspiration from media ranging from John Carpenter’s The Thing to Dark Souls. He draws huge reference in his color work from the impressionists and post impressionists, as well as surrealism and lowbrow pop surrealism. Will wants to bring his painterly approach and color sensibility to digital spaces. He highly values depth and complexity in work; work rewards viewers who continue to give attention to a piece with an unfolding understanding of the project. He has a huge love of epic fantasy and wants to create world in VR that rival his inspirations in George RR Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archives.
OCAD U - Faculty of Art
Drawing and Painting: Digital Painting and Expanded Animation
Major In progress, 2022
2022, Grax Ex 2021-2022
51 McCaul St, Toronto, Ontario
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