Animator. VFX artist. Photogrammetry nerd. A Central PA technical artist building tools to solve stuff that bothers him — for your hands, eyes, and ears.
state college, pennsylvania■formerly new york city■est. RISD ’01
draw on the wall — it’s a lite-brite
pick a door
THE FLOOR DIRECTORY
Twelve rooms, one studio. Every door opens into a different corner of thirty years of making things — step inside, then take the lobby door back.
Almost thirty years across games, advertising, film, VR, and the maker bench — and at every stop, the same move: when the tool he needs doesn’t exist, he builds it.
I1997–99, providence
Turbine Entertainment — the MMO frontier
Zach’s career opens at Turbine Entertainment Software as artist and resident “web guy” — officially credited in the pioneering MMORPG Asheron’s Call under his full name, Zachariah Jebediah Shukan, and remembered by Turbine’s lead designer as his collaborator on the game’s interface.
The shipped credits list him among the Artists of Asheron’s Call (1999) and the Dark Majesty expansion (2001). He also ran ZogBlaster, Turbine’s early website. Lead designer Chris Foster: his first job at Turbine was designing the AC interface with Zach.
He left the Rhode Island School of Design for the games industry, then came back to finish what he started — earning his BFA in 2001 and the Bruce Bolduc Animation Award on the way out.
The timeline checks out: RISD starting 1994, Turbine 1997–99, back to finish the Film / Animation / Video BFA by 2001. His own résumé from 2001 names the prize in full — the Bruce Bolduc Animation Award, “recognizing technical achievement and contribution to the RISD FAV department” — and lists the degree film, Invention, made under Steven Subotnick and Amy Kravitz. Turbine’s own web team page, which he built and archived on his personal domain, still lists the staff line: Web Guy : Zachariah Jebediah Shukan.
A decade-plus making TV spots: animator at Element and Transistor Studios, then founder and creative lead of Omega Darling, a design-driven post boutique in Midtown — a seven-person shop so Parsons-flavored that four of the team were alumni, while Zach himself spent six years teaching CG at Parsons School of Design.
“Who is OD?” — the studio’s own 2013 introduction film, straight from the archive (6,280 plays on Vimeo):
The shop sat at 224 West 35th Street, 10th floor, with a “Made in NY” badge on the logo. Teammates over the years included EP Alon Simcha (ex-The Mill), art directors Alex and Adrian Smith, lead CG Magnus Atom, and animator Jassiel McBride.
When screens went spherical, so did he: CG Lead at Superbright, VFX specialist at SilVR, and a published byline in postPerspective reviewing VR compositing tools — plus a homemade DIY 3D scanner years before photogrammetry was cool.
Superbright is the NYC immersive studio founded by Igal Nassima; Zach joined as CG Lead with over a decade of experience. His Mocha VR review ran on postPerspective in July 2017, bylined “Zach Shukan, VFX specialist at SilVR.” The DIY 3D scanner video (2013) has over a thousand plays.
Trading Midtown for State College, Omega Darling became something more personal: “art and games and useful things” — Blender add-ons, indie games, self-improvement apps, 3D-print tooling, and AI R&D, shipped from a home studio that never sleeps.
The GitHub bio says it best: “a Central PA technical artist who’s building tools to solve stuff that bothers him.” Six Blender add-ons all updated within the past month; scan packs on Gumroad; a seller page on Epic’s Fab (bio: “The best 3D artist in town”); and the whole toy chest at omegadarling.com.
Recovered from a backup server: the 1996–2003 layer. Sketchbooks, student experiments, the first professional commissions — and actual Asheron’s Call interface art from the Turbine years.
asheron’s call inventory & ui art — hand-painted at 32 and 64 pixels, turbine 1997–99character sketches for invention — his risd degree film, 2001. the bulb-headed figure here is the one who walks through run toward crazysketchbook, 4/27/96 — the analog layer beneath it allaura drawing i (2001) — made in newtek aura, a tool almost nobody remembersaura drawing ii (2001) — the color companiontimed drawings — 2, 3, 5 and 12 minutes on the clocksenior degree project — a future animator studies his own face, extensivelyeden-interactive icon system — an early craftsman-for-hire commissionillustration diptych — the editorial-voice eraportrait study — early-2000s digital painting, reference below“uglykid” — first steps in maya, rig handles and all“the age of cruft” (2003) — from his illustrated windows-advice column, yes really
things to look at
THE CLIENT WALL
Omega Darling’s reel reads like a channel-surf through the 2000s and 2010s — brand spots, broadcast packages, music videos, and a museum or two.
Working with director Nabil, Omega Darling composited 23 takes of Kanye into the video’s multiplied-Kanyes rotating shot.
The Wheatfield (2013)
A Civil War narrative short about the Battle of Gettysburg featuring actor Stephen Lang — Omega Darling’s passion project, VFX and all. The poster is below, in the archive.
Also on the résumé: film VFX on Bomb Fetish (2012), Man’s Worst Friend (2014) and Sweet Shadow (2016); freelance 3D generalist work for Interbrand, Psyop, CTRL-labs, Stardust and Zehnder; plus the Sigvaris, Sharper Image, Always, Toucan Sam and TeleSUR spots sitting further down the same reel. He also lists production work with MTV, Nickelodeon and NickToons from the same era — that one is his own account, with no surviving reel cut, so it sits here rather than on the wall above.
the previous shukanimator, still standing
The portfolio that lived here before this one never came down — it is still on the server at /old, unlinked and intact. It is the better record of the NYC broadcast years than anything written since: an annotated shot list of twenty projects, each broken out by software, client and exactly what he did, and a folder of fifteen finished spots you can still play — Super Bowl and UFC opens, NCAA, the Nike Hooptown episodes, PayPal’s “Text To Buy,” a dozen Spike TV pieces — alongside the 2009 demo reel.
Recovered from the old studio drives: final frames and finished spots that actually shipped — including the one where he set a certain TV network’s brand on fire.
1yellowstone: day one — march 26, 2018: the “Y” comes out of the forge in cinema 4d2day two: lit — flame and spark passes added, the render that shipped3day three: molten — the after effects comp pass, delivered to paramount network
ink master (2013) — key-art type for spike tvhyundai at e3 (2013) — white-model l.a., one red velosterhyundai, ink pass — same city, hand-drawn lookcriss angel, luxor — a hole in the casino floor (pitch)island forge (2011) — earliest complete freelance identityedgen murray (2010) — the oldest dated client delivery on recordartmatr print (2022) — prepped so a robot could physically paint it
anatomy of a spot — duck brand tape, boards to broadcast
1the boards — caveman, viking, ufo: pitched in pencil2the animatic — boards cut to time, scratch pacing3the delivery — v008, the version the client took
johnnie walker “vintage” (2017) — animated christmas spot for vaynermedia
the vr years — virtual galleries for vortic × frieze
frieze seoul lobby (2022) — a virtual art fair you could walklobby, light study — late-day sun, no sun involvedthe large room — treetops through the skylights, because details matter
things to scan
“THE BEST 3D ARTIST IN TOWN”
That’s his actual Sketchfab tagline, and 5,164 followers seem to agree. Since 2015 he’s published 122 photogrammetry scans — sneakers, sculptures, snacks, and at least one relative’s ear — sold as PBR-ready assets, which earned him an official Sketchfab Seller Spotlight. The rig is homemade down to the matting spray (talc, charcoal shavings, 99% alcohol); the catalog runs from best-selling Birkenstocks to a $3.99 Burger King chicken nugget; and the Doughnut Plant doughnuts were scanned in exchange for an Instagram shout-out. The scans go out into the world as packs — gloves, doughnuts, two shoe packs and a baseball collection on Gumroad, plus 54 models on TurboSquid, 24 on Epic’s Fab and 17 on CGTrader, where the buyer reviews run from 2018 to last year.
He wrote the whole practice down while he was building it. The Journey of the Shukanimator is roughly 150 posts from 2017–18 — rig iterations, software he abandoned and why, masking tests, the failures included.
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
every title above is clickable — or pick a greatest hit:
live 3d — drag to spin, scroll to zoom — served from his real sketchfab
ugolino and his sons — his scan of carpeaux’s marble at the met, on the turntablethe 2018 catalog — one screenshot of the whole scanning erathe gayer-anderson cat — museum replica, home capture session
the workshop
TOOLS FOR STUFF THAT BOTHERS HIM
The current era of omegadarling.com, sorted the way he sorts it himself. Every one of these exists because something was annoying and Zach refused to let it stay that way.
the glossyship fleet — master sheet for the space game’s playable shipsfoodship: taco — one of twenty playable food shipsfoodfoe: donut black hole — the enemy fleet runs on snacksthe design doc — red pen, real keyboard keys, no loremmaw, victorious — one of a twelve-expression setcatmaw — designed from goldie’s pen sketches (below)the youngest art department — goldie’s catmaw design pass, as deliveredmaw’s difficulty scale — from stuffed to insatiablethe nudgerator mark — a pill ouroboros, obviouslythe mark, in motion — the app’s shipped logo animation
“How the Game Ends”
the space game’s game-over music — 31 seconds
things to hand people
SEVENTY-FIVE LIBBYS, ONE GARAGE
When the NYC Podcast Awards (with his longtime collaborators at Silver Sound) needed trophies, Zach designed the Libby — a Statue of Liberty with a studio-microphone head — then engraved every winner’s name and batch-printed the ceremony’s hardware on his own printers. Around 75 in all, counting the ones used on stage for the live show.
1the sculpt — the libby in red clay shading, grille head and crown spikes modeled2the run — 83 seconds of bambu timelapse, one of dozens of plates
3the army — part of a run of about 75, fresh off the plates
the fine print — each base individually engraved per winner
“the awards factory is in full swing” — posted from the shop, 2026 nyc podcast awardsinstagram
the making-of supercut — six builds across seven months, cut to 36 seconds
things in motion
THE SHORTS DEPARTMENT
Three ongoing experiments in tiny film: absurdist character shorts, an animated improv series, and a band of AI creatures with a genuine album problem.
shiccup — shorts posted to @omegadarling
chub chud — dune gremlin, acoustic setzorp hates work — as posted, jan 2025instagramhot dog in a hot tub — his own voice, suno scoreinstagramscary bunny doll — the darker register
straight from the feed
“headshots” — a four-minute short, performed by james orleans browninstagram#nightchills — with @bigvoyage; his most-liked video postinstagram
animprov — improv comedy, animated (in production)
“arsenic pie” — season 1, from live improv audio“lasereyes” — season 0, performance-transfer eracast member — the toad in the grey suitcast member — the prospectorprops dept. — the pie in question
happy valley improv — the client behind animprov1mascot: concept — ai render, then rebuilt properly in blender2mascot: printed — concept to plastic in one scroll
the klingy sessions — an ai creature band, every clip with its suno track
“$50 to the first person who can play the real song”instagram#bluegrasseel — the country turninstagram#squidman — blowfish on backinginstagram“not enough singing cephalopod videos”instagram#bluediamondeyes — beginner guitar, allegedlyinstagramalbum art — the mechanical flying fish
“Circus Majestic”
from the klingy sessions — suno, 2:04
things made for lucy
MY DOG LUCY (2014)
A personal VFX film from the NYC apartment years: Zach built a complete CG talking-mouth replacement for his cockapoo — Maya match-move, Mudbox tongue sculpt, V-Ray fur, Nuke roto and comp. For no client. Because Lucy had things to say.
1model — the head built in maya, between two reference photos2track — the wireframe locked to a dog who did not sign a release3sculpt & paint — the mudbox tongue on the cintiq, jan 20144fur — v-ray hair, fully groomed5roto — accidentally the most on-brand image in the archive6comp — half real, half cg: the whole project in one nuke framethe star — graded frame from the film
flux postcard collage — from the comfyui sessions, 2025
things made with holly
THE BIVIUM
A collaboration with artist Holly Dale Shapiro: her lifetime library of physical collages and monoprints meets Zach’s library of computer-vision tools, 3D printers, and local model pipelines — in their words, “less generation, more synthesis.” Drag the split below to see one work travel the road. More at thebivium.art.
↔
◀ holly’s monoprintthe synthesis ▶
only rainbows — holly dale shapiro; title piece of their book Isaac & Only Rainbowsfantasy train station — holly dale shapiro, original collagered head — synthesis from holly’s original mixed-media piecemen at work (pulling strings) — synthesis, via the local flux pipelinebalance — holly dale shapiro, original collage
things with the logo on them
BRAND, 2009 → 2026
Seventeen years of Omega Darling identity, from a black-and-white pixel flag printed for an office door to the two candidates currently on the workbench.
2009 — the pixel flag
2012 — the glossy flags
2026 candidate — “flat tiles”
2026 candidate — “soft depth”
the studio door art — what greeted you on the 10th floor of w 35ththe kate spade puppet — the actual brass-brad rig from the spotnfl styleframe — the design phase behind the reelthe client wall, literal edition — 35 logos deepthe founder, in subpixels — from the studio’s “structured” photo seriesshoot day — the studio rigged for ka-bar, chalk dog includedcrew hoodie — the brand had merchomegadarling.com, 2011 — as seen on an iphone 4the business card (2013) — contact details retired, so blurred
the 2011 company reel — the earliest complete od reelvimeo
from the archive
PAPER, PIXELS, POSTERS
Pulled from fifteen years of Omega Darling project folders — the stuff between the deliverables.
the wheatfield — poster for the gettysburg short with stephen langstudio holiday card — the logo blocks, in watercolor, with dinosthe robot at home — original 2013 omegadarling.com backgroundgolden butterfly god — from the nft-era ai collectionsimpastoceans — oil-paint seas, no oil, no seaalways high noon — the cat man comethconcerned citizen — early stable diffusion, hand-finishedpooba — from the folder literally named “old stills with potential”off the clock — lake tahoe, by kayak
no client, no brief
THE HABIT OF LOOKING
From roughly 2002 to 2014 there was a camera in the bag more or less always — mostly New York and Brooklyn, plus Ghana and New Orleans. No assignments, nobody waiting on a file. These are 79 frames pulled out of about twenty-five hundred: buried cars, steam off 43rd Street, a bug arriving mid-lunch, a van full of string beans. Titles are his own, off the original posts.
seen on the street
the reception, hour sixthe frieze poses for georgestriperificwhy are amphibians importantthe corner gave uphe shot firstthe ticker doesn't care what the window is doingwinner, loserit breathes firethe line for the 3g iphonei think this guy walked out of the crowd to dancejan is ready to buy this couchcosmonaut and his shadowsantas in hot milktelevisions on the left, shoes on the right
after dark
packing the hammerstein like a sardine tinshadows in the pixelssteam and a red light, 43rd streeta ghost crosses the streetthe train that comes when nobody is watchingpaper star, black rooma globe of water among the towersone bulb, everyone's handwritinglooking up on 43rdnyc mail minivan, half warm half cold
the blizzard
cars are made anonymous by the snowdriftsis that a car or a bar of soapnyc bodega, snowingthat cab is stuck
signs and structures
downstairs at rockefeller centerthe guggenheim as sheet musiccross hereend of the platformthe ceiling winsthe h is gonea car falling forever up the guggenheimthe garnered wisdom that has never died
up close
two holes in a warehouse wallhorus, straight oneggplant on coalsa window full of mirror ballsa table of fingersgreen meets orangeturnip chasmthe moment of appetite changeeverything on the harbor comes through a fencea census of bottlesfish
ghana
working the last chip outkente, from the pedals upthe shade under the cartthe bread comes to the windowphotographed backtwo loads crossing on the beachthe van is full of string beanskente on the loomwalking to schoolworking men, purple wall
new orleans
sewerage & water board, new orleans, la.gate of corntastes like ya mama'sdeath on stilts, royal streetcriminals beware, we shoot backhuge ass beers to gowashington ave
the people in it
family on the subwaynot too broken to drinkconversation with mirrortriandi, working the roomhood up, straight down the lensconnecting flightin disguisejay the butcher, readinga lamp goes to a partythe empire attendsunder the hubcaps, waiting on coffeemavis, through the fenceregfur hood in the yellow tunnel
All of it lives on flickr.com/photos/zboog ↗ — 4,249 photographs, of which this is a very small edit.
non-commercial
NOBODY PAID FOR THIS
Long before the client wall, there was a page at shukanimator.com/noncom — drawings, photographs, character studies and nine-frame cycles, filed under “non commercial work.” It is still sitting there at its original address, black background and all. This is what was on it.
drawn
crackman — a face built entirely out of scribblescratch — pen work: a creature, some scaffolding, one moonrob — every wrinkle drawn by hand
shot
angry — the file name is the directionbob, in the grass — black and white, found at ground levelzach, with film — back when the roll had to come out of the can
modeled
mikhail — character model, no textures, nowhere to hidedrum kit — modeled clean, left whitelegs — frame 33 of a turntable, and the only one anybody keptfloopy — light through something that never existedinfidel — a shirt, printed
run toward crazy — all fifteen takes
A blue bulb-headed figure carries one glowing lightbulb through fifteen panels — a handoff, a stage, a playing field, a tank, a wedding, a cake, a graduation, a rocking chair, an embrace. The old /noncom page only ever showed four of them; the other eleven came back out of the Wayback Machine, off zboog.com, where they sat from 2001.
b0 — the handoffb1 — the scrollb2 — the stageb3 — the weddingb4 — the rocking chairb5 — the fieldb6 — the tankb7 — the cakeb8 — the graduationb9 — the balloonsb10 — the bicycleb11 — the family portraitb12 — the nestb13 — the embraceb14 — the party
bd — rebuilt from the original frames
The old page embedded this one as Flash, which nothing plays any more. It didn’t need converting: the ten uncompressed 720×480 frames it was drawn from were still sitting in the Pro Motion project folder, so this is built straight from those — scratch animation, ten frames, looped.
bd — ten frames at 20fps, from bd00000–09.bmp, not from the swf
nine-frame cycles
Three more loops, seven seconds each, built the same hard way. These have not come back yet: the masters on the old page are encoded in Sorenson Video 3, a QuickTime codec Apple stopped decoding in 2019, and no source frames have turned up for them. What survives here is the thumbnail each one was hiding behind.
The print farm — Bambu multi-color printing, with his own add-ons doing the color math.
The smart house — Home Assistant automations, because a technical artist’s home should also be a rig.
Family studio — the site credits kids Izzy & Goldie for game ideas and music; YouTube’s greatest hit is “squishy balls for baby Izzy.”
the r&d wing (2022 → now)
“where the people are” (nov 2022) — deforum stable diffusion, back when this was hard mode. scored with gibran alcocer’s “idea 10”instagramthe generator showdown (jan 2025) — the same prompt through runway, hailuo and klinginstagram
the insect — styleframe fed to runway gen-3 for bend testsspaghetti monster — midjourney, 2023, no regretsclass 1, input — from his gen-art teaching sessionsclass 1, output — the same street, now cubist“ambient man” (nov 2023) — making suno chirp songs before suno was suno
the family studio annex
“Rosh Hashana Night”
by goldie shukan, all rights reserved (her words) — 0:40
“The Ride Up Here”
by abby and uncle scott — a family suno collab, 3:19
bookmark, print run of two — he designs custom bookmarks for the kidsbookmark, the etching one — woodcut vibes, inkjet reality
the comfyui sessions — recent favorites
“the walrus” (2026) — piece 3 of the nanobanana series, halftone and all“the cubist portrait” — piece 4 of the same seriesthe falling robot — from his self-picked best of nov 2024the crimson bison — red on green, no apologiesthe eye tree — ghibli sky, unblinking canopythe professor — a character sheet for a game that could existthe soup, standing — still frame of a recurring bitthe soup, walking — the liked takesquid man, unplugged — kling session, jan 2025
the bookmark press — 41 pieces, generated, culled twice, upscaled for print — hover to pause
