And now for something completely different.

Caiti is a biomedical visualizer with a passion for science, medicine, and educating others. Animals, plants, and science have always been a fascination for Caiti in her studies and eventually her art.  CJohnstonBioart on Facebook Follow @CJohnstonBioart !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');

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Feline Eye Anatomy (2016)

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Three quick studies of my cat’s eye for an upcoming illustration on feline eye anatomy. Feline pupils reflect light due to a layer in their eye called the "tapetum lucidum". This layer helps many vertebrates see in low light.

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Check out my Society6 store for fine art prints and more, like this cool artichoke tote bag and cow mug! http://society6.com/caitijohnston

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Sea Star Locomotion

This animation explains how sea stars are able to use their plethora of tiny tube feet to move across the ocean floor. This is the sea star animation I completed during my last semester of grad school. Created with 3ds Max, Adobe After Effects and Premiere. © Caitlin Johnston 2014

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What I've been up to instead of updating...

I promise I'm still alive! Life has been pretty crazy lately, so that is the reason for the lack of updates. This past month I have:

Graduated with my Masters' Degree!

Been in my sister's wedding

Gotten a job (woohoo!)

Found an apartment (also woo!)

Bought all the furniture for said apartment

Sorted and packed my things for an impending 900 mile move

Gone on a family vacation

Worked on contracts

Chilled with the family

I was recently hired by a medical-legal illustration firm as a medical illustrator, so I will soon be creating illustrations & animations for lawyers in medical malpractice lawsuits. Since the work I will be doing for them is confidential, I will only be posting my personal work from now on. The next project I'm planning on is going to involve dinosaurs, so stay tuned!

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Hip Arthroplasty and details (2014)

An illustration depicting a hip arthroplasty, also known as a hip replacement surgery, to be used as an educational handout to inform medical students about the basic steps of this surgery.

Created with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

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Neer's Impingement Test (2014)

An animation created for the University of Illinois at Chicago's Graham Clinical Performance Center (GCPC). The center provides medical students with simulation training featuring standardized patients and a dedicated mannequin simulation suite with additional procedural skills lab.

This animation is my Masters' research project and will be used by the GCPC in clinical diagnostic workshops to educate first and second year medical students. In medical education it is important for students to learn clinical diagnostic procedures as a primary tool for patient diagnosis and treatment. There is currently a lack of educational material that connects the external anatomy with what is happening to the internal anatomy during clinical diagnostic procedures. The shoulder is an area of anatomy that is important in a medical students' education, as it is often injured and has complex internal anatomy.

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Sea Star Locomotion animation (WIP)

Finally gotten footage into Adobe After Effects. I still need to update the textures on the models, change the movement of the arms, and fix the timing with the audio.

It's now three weeks away from the day I complete my Masters' degree! I am almost done with all the projects for my classes, but I should be pretty busy up until final presentations.

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Shoulder joint and supraspinatus muscle motion test- 01

This is a test animation of the extension of the shoulder joint and the movement of the supraspinatus muscle. The supraspinatus muscle is one of the four muscles within the rotator cuff, and attaches to the greater tubercle of the humerus (arm bone). The rotator cuff muscles help to stabilize the shoulder joint and facilitate motion.

The goal of the animation I am working on is to depict the internal anatomy of the shoulder during a clinical diagnostic procedure, called the Neer's Impingement Test. When a clinician performs this test, they are trying to see if the supraspinatus tendon is the cause of a patient's pain when they extend their arm, often due to either the tendon becoming pinched or inflammation of the tendon.

The final animation will depict how to perform the Neer's Impingement Test, and also what the internal anatomy looks like during the motion with normal and injured anatomy.

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Sea Star Walk Cycle

Sea stars move across the ocean floor using a water vascular system to power their multitude of tube feet. Water flows through the water vascular system into the bulb at the top of each tube foot, called an ampulla. It fills up with water, and then contracts to force water into the tube foot for extension. To retract the tube foot the ampulla relaxes.

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Caitlin, you're rad.

Thanks!

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Time to get all 500 of these sea star tube feet moving in (slightly out of) sync!

Making lots of progress on my sea star animation. This is the wire frame model of the water vascular system, a hydraulics system that sea stars use to move across the ocean floor.

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Helicoprion and Nautiloids

Sharks have existed for millions of years. They are extremely important to their local ecosystems as they help to keep fish populations in check. Today there are approximately 400 known species of sharks. Sadly, many species of sharks are facing the threat of extinction due to overfishing. For more information about sharks, their history, and conservation efforts to save them, check out: http://www.sharksavers.org/en/home/

Created with 3ds Max, ZBrush, After Effects, and Photoshop.

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Do you sell any prints of your art?

I have an Etsy shop, but currently I don't have anything for sale. I'm in the last two months of my masters degree, and am swamped with papers, projects, and tests. After graduating in May I do plan on selling prints again, and will make an announcement on my blog once I have my shop stocked. If there are any illustrations in particular you would be interested in seeing for sale, let me know, thanks for asking!

- Caiti

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Helicoprion (WIP)

Sharks are one of my favorite marine animals, I am very excited to have the opportunity to work on this model!  I decided to base the coloration and features of the Helicoprion on the modern-day lemon shark.

This is being made for a contest- they gave us the plain, base model to finish sculpting and then texture.

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Helicoprion and Nautiliods (WIP)

Layout and lighting for a piece I'm working on. Helicoprion was a prehistoric shark genus that existed from the late Carboniferous period (around 310 million years ago) and became extinct in the Late Triassic period (around 250 million years ago). They possessed a lower 'whorled-jaw'. It is believed that the odd jaw structure helped the shark remove the fleshy parts of the nautiliod from it's shell.

This is a fossil of the teeth located inside the Helicoprion's 'whorled-jaw'. The skeletons of sharks are made from cartilage, a substance that usually doesn't survive the fossilization process. The shark's teeth are often the only part preserved.

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Sea Star Locomotion (Animation WIP)

Finally begun the animatic stage of my animation. In animation, an animatic is the rough draft of an animation used to figure out camera movement and animation timing, usually made with simple shapes instead of completed models. They are often made in black and white so that color is not a distraction; full color will be added later. Next I need to finish setting up the different scenes for my animation and begin testing out animation techniques. I think the biggest challenge is going to be figuring out how to get all those tube feet moving!

In class we've been learning some exciting new techniques for creating backgrounds and lighting that will should improve the overall look of the animation, while also saving me a ton of time. It's crazy how many different ways there are to do the same thing in 3ds Max, and the wide variation of results you get from those methods. Some of them get amazing results, but create files that can take an unreasonable amount of time to render. The hard part is figuring out the balance between image quality and efficiency of time. I learned a lot from my last animation, and hopefully production on this one will go a lot smoother!

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I created a quick diagram explaining the anatomy of the sea star’s water vascular system to help explain what is going on in the animation. I will probably make an updated version of this once I have the final sculpts of the sea star model.