Eastwick matte painting

I produced this matte painting for the pilot of the now-canceled TV show Eastwick. This would have been the establishing shot for the mansion where the show takes place, but it ended up not making the cut. They still paid me, though.
Production filmed on location at Greystone Mansion. Then, using Photoshop, I added an additional structure to the complex with photo fragments from the location. I then tracked it into the footage with Boujou and After Effects.
Here is what the original plate looked like...

peacock feathers

Another 3-hour portrait, with a laptop and live model.

Dark Metropolis- previz and matte painting

For the premiere of Smallville season 9, the producers asked for a sinister, more Batman-like view of Metropolis. I started with a couple digital concept paintings with opposing color palettes. They chose the second one.
The actor was filmed on a green screen and partial set in Vancouver.
Overlaying the concept painting with the live plate, 3d artist Andrea Shear assembled the Metropolis 3d geometry from the show's library of buildings to match the concept. She rendered it out in multiple passes, breaking out the windows, neon signage, radiosity, Z fog, Y fog, and volumetric fog into multiple grayscale passes.

Layering the passes in After Effects, I comped them all together and added color.

Dax Jordan does Portland

This is a video I shot with my cousin, comedian Dax Jordan. We shot the thing around Portland on an ipod nano.

Holiday card 2009

The Robot Rumpus holiday card, featuring a digital still-life of IG-88 and a candy cane! Happy whatever it is you celebrate!

VFX reel 2009

Robot Rumpus reel 2009 from Jason Dunn on Vimeo.

New exciting reel for 2009! Now mostly explosions!

Destruction of Kandor

From the Smallville episode, Kandor, in which we flash back its destruction on planet Krypton.


The matte painting was built as a still in photoshop, and I used the warp tools in Nuke to animate it. I then comped it in After Effects with footage of an LA firestorm to get the smoke to billow.The destruction of the city is a cocktail of particles, breaking glass elements, gas explosion elements, dust, and exploding Styrofoam.

Destruction of Kandor from Jason Dunn on Vimeo.

Halloween still life

Digital still life of Halloween stuff, lit by a glow stick and a candle.

Portrait of Mike Nusbaum

This was a commission I got from the University of Pennsylvania, to paint a portrait of the head of the neuroscience graduate program, on the occasion of his retirement. He is an expert on the crab nervous system, and an enthusiast of all things crab.

They have a centuries-long tradition of portraiture at the university, although it seems to have lost some steam in the last few decades. My brother and I decided to try to revive it. We wanted to emulate the classical style of a lot of the older portraits, but this one was done digitally in Photoshop.

It was meant to be a surprise for his retirement party, so I went to his lectures covertly to study his face and mannerisms. Along with that, and random snapshots and a mirror, I built this image.

art nouveau-themed portrait

Three hour digital sketch from a costumed model (Sara Streeter) at Bob Kato's drawing club.