If you’ve ever seen The Lord of the Rings, Bay Raitt has been in your face. Literally. He’s the genius behind Gollum’s visage and collaborated on the Weta Digital puppet used for Gollum’s performance. He also introduced your favorite hats in Team Fortress 2. More recently, Raitt and his cohorts at the Spiraloid Workshop in North Seattle are jack-hammering their way through artistic and 3D barriers and encouraging others to do the same.
“I don’t see comics, games and movies as that separate anymore. Especially if you’re working in 3D. The duty of an artist is to be a witness to our time, so let’s get crackin’!” challenges Raitt, who’s supported by Spiraloid’s co-founder and Silicon Valley brainiac Brendan Kavanagh, plus a colorful bunch of misfits, including game veterans, a graphic novelist, a sound guru, a sculptor and code ninjas, plus ReLoad, a tuxedo-wearing Boston Terrier.
As well as producing some incredible projects such as the serialized VR graphic novel, Nanite Fulcrum, this studio’s on a mega-mission to inspire other creators, developers and 3D artists, so that together they can help create the pop-culture universes of the future. “My hope is that aspiring creators out there see our VR comics and say, ‘Hey, I could do that! Who are these Spiraloid folks and how can I learn to do the same?’” Raitt says.