the 50th anniversary of Alfred hitchcocks “North by Northwest”

North by NorthWest was Theatrically released on July 17th, 1959, by the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock.  If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Hitchcock, you are most likely very familiar with his work.  Just about every movie that deals with suspense and heavy drama that has been put out in the last 30 years has been inspired in some way by Hitchcock’s legendary style of movie making.  North by Northwest is the story of an average man caught in extraordinary circumstances…the theme of most movies today:  Batman, Ironman, and just about all of Brian DePalma’s films.  No one has yet to equal his brilliance for story telling and incredible visual style.  As composer John Williams is to Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, Bernard Herrmann was to Alfred Hithcock.  Herrmann’s scores are without a doubt the heart and soul of Hitch’s film.  Next to Goldsmith, Bernard is my next favorite film composer.  Here are some images from the film, and it is one definitely worth watching again, or if you haven’t seen it yet, you’re in for an incredible tale told through some very imaginative eyes.  No spoilers to take away from the movie, just some great shots to tease and whet your appetite.  Hitch was definitely a fan of beautiful blonde women, and they are prominent in all of his films.  This one is a big favorite followed by Rear Window, Psycho, the Birds, and To catch a Thief.  Lots of fun on a Saturday night but don’t bring a crowd that is high maintenance…Hitch’s films are not short or fast in pace, and they are full of long and important build ups that intricately tell the story.  Keep your eyes open because Hitch has a cameo in most of his films!  So with that, Happy 50th to the cinematic masterpiece, “North by NorthWest”!

the poster

 

day three, of the Scimitar

WOOOOOOO-WEEEEEEEEEEEE, I forgot how many drawings went into the making of this Monster!!!!  Today are the drawings of the wing tip armaments and all of the overall plans that make up all the mechanics of the Scimitar.  If your in the mood to model this one, here is all the stuff you’ll need!  Each wing had to be drawn individually because every one was vastly different in shape.  The detailing and panel break up was identical from top to bottom, and the only change in this was on the main hull and central structure of the ship.  On the wing plans are a set of registration circles that, when aligned in layers, use these circles to scale everything accordingly.  Also are some beautiful CG renderings by Digital Domain artist Rory McLeish.  Rory was the one that modeled this beast for Nemesis, and I had a great time working with him.  He filled in a lot of holes and added a lot of his own imagination to the final design.  Rory had the thickest Irish accent on the phone and I almost could never understand him, so I would just say yes a lot and then call Jay Barton and have him decipher what Rory had just said to me, HAAAAA!  Lots of good times between our two departments.  Anyway, here is a cornucopia of stuff to look at, and I have to get to work so hope you all have a great Friday and enjoy all the pictures.  Next week we’ll wrap up the Scimitar and hit the Valdore, and if time allows, I’ll start that week of Robert McCall.

each wing was different and so was the tip weaponry. Here are some of the smaller wing details

breakdown of the big Wingtip focusing device.

VFX sequence on how the tip would deploy and open up.

As You Remember It: The Lift-Off of APOLLO 11

In July of 1969, America sent the first humans to the moon. Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin, and Michael Collins were aboard the mission named Apollo 11.
The launch vehicle they rode, the Saturn 5 rocket, is still the most powerful machine ever built. It generated almost 8 million pounds of thrust and even after nearly 40 years, it is the only vehicle that has carried men beyond earth’s gravity.
Watch it now, as you would have seen it on July 16, 1969, at 9:26 AM EDT. T-minus 00:5:59 and counting.

splashdown 2009, 40th of Apollo 11 celebration

Wow i have got to get to San Francisco for this event, check out the link below and if your anywhere near the Frisco bay be sure and head over to the USS Hornet for an awesome anniversary event.

WOW What a show this will be!!!

 http://www.uss-hornet.org/posters/splashdown/index.shtml

day two of the Scimitar

Well, the overall design had been approved, so the next step was to get into the details and work out how the ship would open up into a spider.  David Negron Jr was on the show and had worked on Voyager prior to Nemesis.  I was always a fan of David’s work, and I so loved his ability to whip out some awesome ideas in beautiful quick color sketches.  Below are some variations on ideas to get the Scimitar to open up.  There were a lot of ideas that he penciled out and some of which had some wicked hinging of the wings.  The two of us would work off of each other’s concepts, and it was a lot of fun to work with Dave, even though we were in different buildings.  Dave’s work on the Scim was short, and we both did the same with the next ship, the Romulan Valdore.  We worked back and forth to get the big V’s look and details down on paper.  Both of us had big palettes of things to do, and while Dave was working on ship sketches, he was also busy working on the Reman mining complex.  I was doing both Enterprise and Nemesis, as well as Doug Drexler and the rest of the E art depot, so it was one very busy Art department.  Below are a lot of drawings that started to define the intricacies of a very complex  battleship, so sit on back in yer easy chair and enjoy Day 2 of the Reman Scimitar!

40th anniversary of Apollo 11

This is one of the biggest days in history, and it is a time I think of often.  I was 7 years old in 1969 and lived in a little trailer off of the side of the freeway in Black Canyon City, Arizona.  My dad was a Highway Patrolman, and this was one of two trailers and two homes that housed the patrolmen and their families.  Even though the houses are gone my trailer is still there to this day.  As a kid, this was a really big event for me.  I didn’t leave the TV for a good two weeks, I watched every minute as Walter Cronkite would talk us through the entire process of the launch and landing with some awesome models and incredible art work.  WOW MODELS AND SPACE ART!!!!  I guess my future was pegged and laid out for me in just a couple of weeks’ time.  I haven’t researched who built the models nor have I confirmed the art, but I would swear it was all Ralph McQuarrie and Robert McCall.  Anyway, I would just watch with amazement as ol’ Walter would talk away in complete professional fandom.  He would walk you through the mission and tell you all there was to know about the astronauts who were household names in our house, and we knew every inch of the Saturn V rocket right down to all it’s tiniest of specifications.  I started drawing pictures majorly during this time and compiled the whole mission in little scribbles.  Once the Apollo lifted off,  it was unbelievable to watch that beautiful rocket soar by a wide angle camera mounted on the side of the launch tower.  Another camera recorded the aft view as the rocket went into orbit, and it was so awesome  to see the stages and coupler rings disengage and tumble slowly back to Earth.  It was an anxious wait for the ships to get to the moon; a couple of days to a kid was like 6 weeks. I don’t think I ever went to bed, and I am sure  all the rest of the guys and gals from the Star Trek art department were doing the same.  I would have loved to have known Doug, Mike and Denise, Jim Van Over, Rick, Andy, Anthony and the rest of the gang back then!!!  Can you imagine Doug in his little Jammies running around the house screaming as a kid back then…I might have to draw some of these scenarios just for the heck of it, HAAA!  The landing took place perfectly, Neil Armstrong was the first man down the ladder and his words will echo on forever, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”  Neil and Buzz started walking around on the moon setting up equipment and  placing an American flag on the surface, while Mike Collins orbited the moon waiting to pick up the moon walkers after the mission was over.  All the footage on the moon had these little faint crosses on the screen, some type of registration I guess but I had to put those marks on everything I was drawing for years to come.  The lift off from the moon through that exterior camera was breathtaking,  and all the little pieces of golden debris flying all over the screen inspired the entire VFX community for sure.  The reentry and splashdown brought the mission back into full color, and I was so sad that it was over.  Even as a youth, you felt like you were a part of the mission, as I am certain everyone that saw this amazing adventure was, too.  It was a different time, and nothing was hurried to the point of becoming a blur; the public’s minds were not exposed to the rapid MTV style of needing 4000 edits every three minutes to tell a story.  The whole event from the news end to the NASA side of things was so beautifully merged with great talent and exquisite professionalism.  This was an unbelievable time, and I’m so glad I had a few moments to relive and share it with you today.   Happy 40th, Apollo 11.  Below is a quick photo album to relive some of those awesome moments and images from long ago.  Enjoy.

the scimitar, day one (the conception)

Star trek Nemesis, Well it was in the year of 2001, and Enterprise had just started up and at almost the same time Nemesis was in the works.  The incredible writer John Logan had been penning the story and was working very hard on the drafts for the script.  We got to read a teaser early on and it was a very cool read!!  John was always a Star trek fan, and he was really putting it all out for his tale of Reman and Romulan conflict.  Just in the first few pages, we were thrilled to see the list of great new ships that were going to have to be drawn and the Scimitar was one wicked sounding machine.  John wrote that it was a massive vessel (unlike anything we had ever seen before) which would take on the form of a viscous spider when it was poised for attack.  Almost every script we ever got on Star Trek had the description of a new ship as (unlike anything we ever saw before) but the window of approval that designs had to squeeze through was very tight and would not allow you to travel too far outside of it’s very rigid boundaries.  We all laughed when we read this especially word for word from an outsider.  Anyway, the Scimitar was a huge challenge in just the mass and what it’s function was to be…it was going to have a lot of mechanics, and coming from a physical model shop background, my thoughts were mechanical hinge points as opposed to a CGer’s point of view, which would be more in line with liquid hinge points and morphing.  The ship was definitely a challenge, and being that the description called for something new, the first pass came from another one of my Sci Fi art heroes, Mr. John Berkey.  John was one incredible artist who had a passion for fantastic space ships modeled after everything imaginable and in part to predatorial fish.  The read opened the door to maybe pay homage to John’s style but was rejected after only one sketch being to ambiguous and not defined enough.  You could almost see that this one was headed towards the classic Bird of Prey design which had ingrained itself as the shape of a star trek bad guy, and the closer you get to that shape, the better your chances for approval and making everyone happy!!! HAAAA!  So heading down that path, a few shapes emerged and one in particular that went a little too far into the realm of being too bird like…I liked the lines but remembered the evil hawk shaped ship from “Galaxina”, and after watching the movie again, it was just too similar.  A few more passes emerged and finally wound up with…you guessed it…a Bird Of Prey looking vessel which is so unlike anything we had ever seen before!!! HAAAA-HAAAAR!  Know the mission was to make the shape as different as possible in terms of details and mechanics.  So stay tuned ’til tomorrow when we will get to see some of the spider sketches by the awesome concept illustrator David Negron JR.  So until then, be good and don’t take any wooden nickels!

segmented plum-bob version

the batarang version with spider leg extensions for the thalaron weapon

an homage to the great John Berkey

a red lobster dinner and Xindi insectizoids

Ahh the delicious crustaceans!!! King Crab legs, Lobster, Crawdads, Langostino,,,, MMMMMMM,MMMMMMMM!  I so love all of these things and after enjoying a generous portion of these fine aquatic delicacies, I got the assignment the next day to start working on the Xindi Insectizoid ship.  Having those big buttery crab legs still on my mind, my subconscious mind doodled out the starship version of my dinner!!!!  I was very happy with the first pass of this flying seafood dinner starship and so was my boss, Herman Z.  We drew up a couple of size charts and off it went to Mr. Berman’s office…the drawing came back with a hard line through the middle of the legs that translated out to be, “cut em off here,” so the next version featured a shorter version which got the approval in red ink and an actual written note!!!  WOW, that didn’t happen too often!!!  Anyway, the ship then went to Eden where the magical CG wizard, Pierre, went to work, and I love how he split the central core of the ship into two segments instead of a symmetrical three piece section to match the three extrusions.  The Xindi were a very fun race to draw for, and I so loved the costumes that Bob Blackman came up with for these nasty space demons!!!  Enjoy, and Happy Friday.  johneaves

crabs...in...space!!!!!!!

cajun crabs...in...space!!!!

Extinction, Enterprise episode #55

 Here is the artwork from an episode called Extinction.  It was an interesting script, and the story called for quite a few concepts from ships to some massive architectural landscapes.  First thing asked for was a Xindi probe that went through three fairly significant renderings, from huge and winged to a final simple faceted cylinder.  Next came a host of Vulcan shuttles and a final alien spacecraft that is pretty darned goofy looking!  I don’t know what I was thinking, but I did one sketch that I hated, and it got the green light.  So in hindsight, never turn in a drawing of something you hate because it will be the one that gets picked!!!!  HAAA! and BLAHHHHH!  The best part of the show was working on the cave of ruins & ancient temples.  This went through a couple of changes, and each one made for a more grand version.  These sketches were a lot of fun to render out and the final drawing has been a key portfolio piece that has landed me a couple of fun jobs outside of the Star Trek and Sci FI world.  Valkyrie was one of them!!!  So with that, sit on back and look at the dumbest space craft ever, followed by some of Pierre’s fab modeling!!!

 

a variety of Vulcan shuttles, I believe these got written out but used later and as other alien vessels instead of being Vulcan.

the winged Xindi tube...reject #1

pin up up date

Here is another one of the beautiful Miss Amanda Lee to add to the pin up files.  Just finished the retouches on this one early this morning and just in time to share with you all today.  Miss Amanda and I are hopefully going to be setting up another shoot in October down at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson, AZ.  Starting in a couple of weeks, I’m lining up the next series of pin up shoots with some  fabulous pin up style models.  First will be Miss Penny Von Luck, we’ll be doing a shoot out at Edwards AFB towards the end of this Month, and we have been putting together this big shoot for quite some time!  Also this month, if time will allow, Miss Pin Up Fal from San Diego and I are going to try and do a Navy themed shoot.  In late August, plans are being finalized for a fun shoot with Jess Robinson at the Thompson Aviation scrapyard, and September photo shoots are being set up with Lisa Marie, Due Volte D, and Mandallily.  Below are some pictures from their portfolios, and I am looking forward to working with these talented models!!!  I talked my beautiful wife Tara into doing a pin up shoot for me, and that is one I just can’t wait to do, hopefully in early September!!!!!  So stay tuned for more vintage pictures and retro nose art.

 

at the pond

 

ready for nose art