HOWDY, PARTNER!
I'm Justin Abadilla, an agency-bred designer from sunny LA. I can help you
explore ideas, solve problems, and execute concepts with technical expertise.
I'm driven by an endless curiosity and dedication to the craft. Drop me a line!
Let's transform our best ideas into compelling content.
AVAILABLE FREELANCE OR FULL-TIME
(760) 845-4925
TOYOTA DRIVELAND
Overview: The good folks at Toyota reached out to the Saatchi & Saatchi LA 3D team with an exciting last-minute project opportunity. They wanted to create an interactive auto show experience where users could interact with and become acquainted with a virtual Toyota Prius. With the Los Angeles Auto Show fast approaching, we had five short weeks to go from ideation to delivery.
Approach: We figured that a simple video game would be a great vessel for delivering a short, curated, and captivating experience for players and spectators alike. Early on, we partnered with Microsoft, who supplied us with Kinect for Windows; a motion tracking camera system. Through research and testing, we arrived at a gesture-based peripheral-free control scheme simple enough for novice users yet familiar to our more tech-forward participants.
Ingredients: Expensive electronics and computing equipment, a custom-built kiosk, and actual blood, actual sweat, but no (actual) tears!
Driveland is an interactive game in which your body is the controller.
Users interact with game elements by performing simple gestures. These motions are recognized by the Microsoft Kinect.
I created this video to show a typical user progressing through the game from start to finish.
Users can take a virtual test drive on a variety of different racetracks.
A sketch I created to pitch the idea to Toyota.
An animated concept GIF wireframe of the game's whimsical 360° turntable stage.
I modeled the Toyota Prius featured in the game. Above is the high polygon wireframe.
A photo of the Toyota Driveland exhibit at the Los Angeles Auto Show minutes before opening. The calm before the storm.
A custom kiosk houses the experience while trained staff help facilitate.
Our booth was one of few interactive attractions to have a constistent line of auto show attendees.
Toyota Driveland has toured the major North American auto show circuit;
Detroit (NAIAS), New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
The exhibit drew interest from children and adults alike. The project was very well received!
After playing, users enter their information at the iPad station for a free digital postcard!
A wild redbot has appeared!
To celebrate a successful launch, I made a 3D print of my favorite avatar. Now he's a nifty desk souvenir.
© 2016 Justin Abadilla
Project Credits Coming Soon
CONCEPT TO CONCRETE
Overview: The Saatchi & Saatchi LA 3D team was asked to create a unique web experience to showcase the newly redesigned Toyota Avalon. Our client wanted us to meet two marketing objectives: create buzz for the Avalon and let people know that it was designed, prototyped, and assembled right here, in America. We needed to deploy the site alongside the Avalon's scheduled announcement and were given four weeks to complete the project.
Approach: Our client recommended we reach out to the artists and engineers at Calty Design, the Newport Beach company responsible for the Avalon's stylish overhaul. On a tour of the facilities, we were amazed by what we saw and learned. We knew we had to bring a recap of our experience to life with an immersive virtual tour for everyone to see!
Ingredients: The talents of many dedicated artists, creatives, developers, and project managers.
Concept to Concrete is a horizontal scrolling parallax site that details
the story of the Toyota Avalon's unexpectedly American roots.
An overview of the Concept to Concrete parallax scrolling site. This project posed unique technical and artistic challenges.
Two-dimensional images pass by at offset speeds to create the illusion
of fluidly panning through an immersively curated scene.
A contact sheet of all parallax elements organized by room.
© 2016 Justin Abadilla
Project Credits Coming Soon
AMBASSADOR BOARD GAME
Overview: I was on a real science and space exploration kick, and came across an article that stated scientists had recently discovered a distant planet with conditions that could potentially sustain alien life. The discovery was that of Gliese 581 g, an extrasolar planet 20 light years from Earth.
Approach: In response to the recent scientific findings, I thought it would be a fun challenge to design and fabricate a board game. My primary goal was to create a chaotic and unpredictable experience for players, because after all, outer space is pretty unknown.
Ingredients: Printed materials, acrylic, steel, copper, neodymium magnets, and David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on repeat.
Ambassador is a controversial space race game addressing
science, religion, politics, and human significance.
Ambassador is a social game that rewards sabotage and provokes argument among participants.
A black acrylic box houses board modules and game pieces held in place with magnets.
Reversible modules snap together magnetically in millions of configurations to form the field of play known as “The Universe”.
A catalog of the game's pieces. Ambassador features four playable characters.
A typical gameplay configuration. The race is on!
A detail shot of the board. The chaotic nature of the game frequently calls for the game's setup to be rearranged.
© 2016 Justin Abadilla
An Independent Project
OEDIPUS EL REY PROJECTIONS
Overview: My esteemed design friend Samantha Cabrera was approached by our alma matter about doing some projection design for the school's theatre department. She asked me if I would like to join forces as I had some character and motion design experience. The project sounded cool, and I'm a big supporter of theatre, so of course I was more than happy to oblige.
Approach: Samantha and I attended the cast's initial table-read to get a feel for the play's mood and themes. We did some research and found examples of ancient pictograph art that seemed to capture a sense of mysticism and mythology we were looking for. We strived to produce a modern take on an older visual style, incorporating visual effects such as light, smoke, and fire.
Ingredients: Programmatic light traveling across a room, landing upon some surface, and reflecting back into audience members' eyeballs.
Oedipus El Rey is a modern theatre adaptation of Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex,
and addresses topics such as criminal recidivism, pride, and revenge.
I created this video to provide a glimpse of our process and show our work in action.
My sketchbook. Drawings like these were critically important in pitching our early ideas to the director.
Samantha's sketchbook. As we continued to refine our character designs, we began to consider theatrical blocking.
I retouched the serpent sphinx vector to give it a more sophisticated dimensional appearance.
© 2016 Justin Abadilla
Project Credits Coming Soon
SELF-PORTRAIT
Overview: In my senior year of design school, a series of mysterious posters began to appear in the hallways; vague references to an upcoming surprise event. Fast forward to myself and the entire design student body sitting in the auditorium wondering what all the fuss was about. One of our professors took the stage and announced the charrette; an intense 48-hour department-wide design competition. Then came the unveiling of the prompt. Students were to create a visual response to the question, "Who are you?", and so began the design blitz.
Approach: Despite a very limited time frame, I knew that I wanted to take a risk and pursue a project that would surely consume most if not all of the 48 precious hours. As I was driving home that evening, a song by the band Alien Ant Farm played on the radio. I started thinking about ant farms and the hundreds of micro-interactions that must take place between residents every second. I continued to consider mutations of this idea, and by the time I got home, I had a clear vision of what I wanted my project to be.
Ingredients: Printed material, matte board, craft foam, metallic paint, and alternating moments of zen and panic.
"Self-Portrait" won first place in a competition of 250+ design students.
Participants had 48 hours to answer the question, "Who are you?"
Self-Portrait features 101 miniatures of myself fighting in several rooms. 36" x 24"
The rooms appear to be recessed into the wall, but are actually printed on flat paper with a copper-gold trim.
One interaction results in a miniature being thrown out of the composition. The bricks and falling man are printed stickers.
Each frame is hung individually in an interlocking arrangement to complete the illusion.
A makeshift chroma key green screen made it easier to clip out the minatures and composite them into the rooms.
No, I don't know any martial arts.
© 2016 Justin Abadilla
An Independent Project
PRODUCT SHOTS
Overview: I am able to create sophisticated imagery using a combination of photography, 3D lighting and rendering, and digital retouching techniques.
Approach: My goal is to show the subject in a very controlled and idealized way, with considerations in lighting, materials, reflections, shadows, and more.
Ingredients: Orderly pixels.
I enjoy creating great images and have become a skilled 3D artist and retoucher.
A lit, rendered, and retouched image of a Lexus ISC 290 parked in a garage.
A retouched photograph of a Calphalon kitchen knife. Raw photograph taken by Gabe Abadilla.
A lit, rendered, and retouched image of the 2016 Toyota Tacoma Double Cab.
A lit, rendered, and retouched image of a MiP toy robot made by WowWee.
A lit, rendered, and retouched image of the 2015 Toyota Sienna XLE Premium.
A lit, rendered, and retouched image for Juicify Natural Beverages. I also helped design the product labels and branding.
A lit, rendered, and retouched image of the 2016 Scion tC interior cabin.
A lit, rendered, and retouched image of the 2016 Scion tC interior seats.
A lit, rendered, and retouched image of the 2016 Scion tC interior dash area.
© 2016 Justin Abadilla
Project Credits Coming Soon
PINHOLE CAMERA STUDY
I created a series of three pinhole cameras and then took pictures with them.
A photograph of the pinhole camera study on display at the Kellogg Gallery in Pomona. 40" x 27" x 4"
The foam camera is the first camera in the study. Foam works great for quickly creating experimental prototypes.
The foam camera with jacket open to reveal film roll housing.
The foam camera assembly diagram styled as an exploded isometric drawing.
The matte board camera is the second camera in the study. I wanted to create a camera utilizing a paper product.
The matte board camera is comprised of several layers which protect the film from light while allowing retrieval of the film rolls.
The matte board camera assembly diagram styled as an exploded isometric drawing.
The wood camera is the final and most refined camera in the study. My goal was to create a one-of-a-kind object.
The wood camera features a tripod mount on its underside making long exposure shots easier.
The wood camera is held together with tension springs. It also has interchangeable pinhole barrels that snap into place with magnets.
The wood camera assembly diagram styled as an exploded isometric drawing.
Door. Unaltered photo taken with the foam camera.
Barrow. Unaltered photo taken with the foam camera.
Trail. Unaltered photo taken with the matte board camera.
Pipes. Unaltered photo taken with the matte board camera.
Building. Unaltered photo taken with the wood camera.
Road. Unaltered photo taken with the wood camera.
© 2016 Justin Abadilla
An Independent Project