Von Kagaoan

3D Artist · Technical Generalist

3D

Real-time & VR Product Architecture Character & stylised

Real-time environments for VR, product design and rendering, architectural visualisation, and character work.

Real-time & VR

Mobile crane lifting a steel vat tank inside a coned exclusion zone, from the VR safety training
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  • Construction site, elevated platform
  • Residential build, exterior and interior
  • Roadworks and traffic management

Industrial VR safety training

Three modules · captured in headset

  • Unity
  • VR
  • Environment art
  • Real-time
  • Lighting
Case study →

Rebrandable retail environment

VR environment · brands shown are mock-ups

  • Unity
  • VR
  • Environment art
  • Real-time
  • Lighting

Product

A blue, black and orange foam dart blaster on a green cutting mat on a desk, with foam darts beside it
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  • Side profile of the blaster on a grey-blue gradient
    Side profile
  • Three colourways of the blaster: blue and black, orange and blue, and white and black
    Colourways

Tagr dart blaster

Original toy design · form, colour, materials

  • Blender
  • Product design
  • Hard surface
  • Materials
  • Lighting
Case study →
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A black 1920s-style box camera with an Art Deco face, on yellow
A chrome and black 1970s-style SLR, on green
A black 1980s-style instant camera with a coral band, on blue
A 1990s-style disposable camera in a green and yellow wrap, on pink
A silver 2000s-style compact digital camera, on peach

Mini cameras

Concept collectible series · five eras, one design language

  • Blender
  • Product design
  • Range design
  • Materials
  • Lighting
Case study →
Wireframe pass of the keyboard scene

MX Mechanical Mini

Product render study · final render, breakdown, wireframe

  • Blender
  • Modelling
  • Materials
  • Lighting
Product render of HD 6XX headphones, three-quarter view
Product render of HD 6XX headphones, front view showing the earpads and headband
Product render of HD 6XX headphones, profile view showing the open grille

HD 6XX

Product render study

  • Blender
  • Hard surface
  • Materials
  • Lighting

Architectural visualisation

Modern two-storey house behind clipped hedges, with horizontal batten screens over the upper floor
The driveway and entry of the house in daylight, with a car in the garage
The same entry view at dusk, lit warm from the low sun
The rear of the house across a pool terrace with sun loungers

Napier Home

Residential exteriors · architect’s model used with permission

  • Blender
  • Cycles
  • Archviz
  • Animation
  • Lighting
Long open-plan living room with two pale blue sofas, looking past the dining table to a kitchen island and a floating stair
Kitchen with a rounded sage-green island and marble top beside an open timber stair with lit treads
Glass dining table under smoked-glass pendants, between the kitchen bench and a sofa facing a wall-mounted TV
Bedroom with an upholstered grey bed, timber bedside tables and linen lamps
Bathroom with a backlit mirror over a vessel basin on a timber-fronted vanity, beside a glass shower
Close-up of the floating timber stair treads, each lit by a small wall light, behind a glass balustrade
A wooden bowl of citrus on the marble island top, with the black sink and the stair soft in the background
Shallow-focus close-up of the glass-topped dining table's timber frame

Auckland Apartment

Real-time interior in Unreal Engine 5 · architect’s model used with permission

  • Unreal Engine
  • Lumen
  • Blender
  • Archviz
  • Real-time

Window views: Google Maps 3D Tiles · Imagery ©2026 Google, Airbus, Data SIO, NOAA, U.S. Navy, NGA, GEBCO, Vexcel Imaging US, Inc., IBCAO, Landsat / Copernicus

Character & stylised

Animation reel

Web series, TVCs, and personal work

  • Maya
  • Blender
  • Character animation
  • Stylised Batman character model, three-quarter view, matte black and grey with a gold belt
    Batman · personal study
  • Batman · turntable
  • Breakdown of the Batman model: finished render, wireframe cage and untextured clay, side by side
    Batman · beauty, wireframe, clay
  • YooBot · run cycle
  • The YooBot character in a Maya viewport showing its animation rig: control curves at the hips, spine, wrists and feet
    YooBot · rig and controls
  • Krillin, stylised in chibi proportions, three-quarter view on a beach The same Krillin model from the front, showing the symmetry of the face and gi
    Krillin · personal study
  • The Night King in faceted low poly, arms outstretched, a crowd silhouetted in the haze behind him
    Night King · low-poly study
  • Faceted low-poly bust of a bearded figure in stone-grey armour
    Faceted bust
  • Faceted low-poly xenomorph in a wide stance against a green ground
    Alien · low-poly study
  • Stylised astronaut lifting off a moon surface on a jetpack against a starfield
    Jetpack · stylised scene
  • Stylised Xbox controller, blue on a yellow ground Stylised N64 controller, yellow on a blue ground Stylised PlayStation controller, blue on a yellow ground Stylised SNES controller, yellow on a blue ground Stylised Sega Saturn controller, blue on a yellow ground Stylised NES controller, yellow on a blue ground Stylised Sega Genesis controller, blue on a yellow ground Stylised GameCube controller, yellow on a blue ground Stylised Sega Master System controller, blue on a yellow ground
    Retro controllers · nine pieces, one rule

Stylised work

Characters, props and rigs · personal projects

  • Blender
  • Maya
  • Stylised
  • Character
  • Rigging

Software

Things I built because I wanted them to exist.

TallyToo, tally list
TallyToo, tracking anything countable
TallyToo, insights and trends
TallyToo, shared tallies
TallyToo, creating a tally
TallyToo, dark mode
TallyToo, themes

TallyToo

Tally tracking app, live on Google Play

Designed, built and shipped solo. Also built a companion dashboard that renders live tally data to a jailbroken Kindle over the local network, as a wall mounted e-ink display.

  • React Native
  • Expo
  • TypeScript
  • Supabase

Hardware

Soldering iron, firmware, and a stubborn opinion about how digital photos should look.

Instagram, @vonkagaoan
Frame shot on Mata Cam
Frame shot on Mata Cam
Frame shot on Mata Cam
Frame shot on Mata Cam
Frame shot on Mata Cam
Frame shot on Mata Cam

Mata Cam

Screenless film-look digital camera

A "screenless camera" inspired by retro-styled digital "film" cameras. Custom firmware on a Seeed XIAO ESP32S3 Sense, with an image processing pipeline towards a film look. Custom-designed 3D-printed enclosure to suit the board, function, and aesthetic. WiFi-based setup for gallery and offloading.

  • C++
  • ESP32-S3
  • PlatformIO
  • Image pipeline
  • Blender
  • 3D printing

About

3D generalist based in Auckland. Work spanning character animation for television commercials, virtual reality and real-time, alongside teaching animation.

At heart I like making things, whether that is building and tinkering with a physical project, solving a technical or digital problem, or tackling a creative one.

[email protected]