TUMBRINK

One-man practical effects studio · Selm, Germany

I used to machine rocket parts. Now I build tiny spaceships and light them like it's 1979.

See the workThe ALIVE pipeline

Practical first

Every pixel in the final frame comes from a real object under real light.

Practical first. If it can be built, it gets built. Digital is for scaling and compositing — never a substitute for real material. Every pixel in the final frame comes from a real object under real light.

8Motion-control axes
72LED channels on one model
<€500DIY metal-printing pipeline
1Garage

Selected work

Built by hand. Filmed for real.

Studio-scale starship miniature lit with a single hard key light against black
01Film · 2026

KORETH

Working title for a first sci-fi short. Miniatures first, film second.

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ARRI ST5 fresnel studio lamp hanging in the workshop
02Machine · 2025

Motion-Control Rig V3

Eight axes. Wood, aluminium, and inverse kinematics.

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Miniature starship emerging from darkness under a single edge light
03Pipeline · 2026

ALIVE

Actual Light In Virtual Environments.

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All projects

The method

ALIVE

01

Build

A physical miniature set, built by hand

  1. 01Build
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  3. 03
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  5. 05
How ALIVE works

Build log

What happened in the garage.

KORETH

72 channels, all alive

Full LED test on the starship miniature — every window, engine, and running light addressable from the ESP32. First time the whole hull lit up at once.

Motion-Control Rig V3

Inverse kinematics on the Pi 5

Moved IK solving off the ESP32 onto a Raspberry Pi 5. The rig now flies coordinated eight-axis moves from a single camera-path definition.

ALIVE

First multi-light-state scan

Scanned a test miniature in three lighting states with the rig. Gaussian splat reconstruction holds up — the ALIVE concept works.

Full log