fun from the art department

Man!!!!  Yesterday’s post fired up a lot of heat, so hopefully this in-office joke will cool down all of the fire and make you chuckle a little instead.  The ship was going through a lot of size changes in the middle of production, and at one time it was close to a mile long, so for a quick laugh in the art department, this little drawing was created.

I told you all it was big!!!!  But no one would believe me!!!  Well, here is the proof right off of the new DVD and out the KING, Alex Jeager’s, mouth…2379.75.  So all the arguing can now stop, and all you garage kit modelers can get to work!

Blue Ray and my Mac don't get along so here is a pic from the TV screen

WOW!!  If you picked up the new Star Trek DVD or the art of book, you have really got some amazing and incredible images, concepts & grand imagination laid out in print, The movie versions on DVD and Blue Ray are incredible and are presented  in spectacular clarity with some awesome behind the scenes segments. Amazing that all those years of work can be held in practically the palm of your hand.  I have all ready watched the movie, and the behind the production stuff is incredible and the book is just as impressive!!

Great fun recollecting those early days of applying to work on the show. I had talked to the art directors on the show several times and after about a month of this it looked fairly certain I was going to have to let this one go,,, Then one day months later I got a call from Christine who was one of the art department Assistants and asked if would like to interview with the Production designer Scott Chambliss???  Why of coarse I would, I had to put a quick book of work together for him to see, so I used rejected images from past films and shows, as well as some of the Perpetual spacecraft designs instead of recognizable Star Trek concepts.  I thought if I showed Trek work that was a little off the beaten path, it might help get me a job on a show that openly banned  folks that had worked on the prior films and shows!!!  It worked, and I am very thankful That Scott Chambliss broke the rules and brought me on!!!  One of the first things he asked me was: Will you be influenced by what you’ve done before or can you move on into a new direction???  I could tell it was a big gamble for him to bring me on and he put me on a two week trial basis. fortunately I passed the test and stayed on for about 5 months. It was one awesome adventure, and I got to work with an incredible crew, many of which I had great admiration for.  Scott had me put a lot of those portfolio drawings on the wall as a sort of basis or stepping off point for where we were heading in terms of aesthetics and new architecture. once we started drawing though those images looked more out of place as the new look of the film was developing. When we sent our discs of art over to Titan to be used for the art book, there was little to no explanation except by the headings attached to the drawings so it was quite fun to see the illustrations that least belonged to anything printed in the art of!!!  HAAA! They were more finished pieces and in color while my illustrations for the job was more in lines of concept only and not finished production art.

I was brought on the film several months after the art department had started, and the amount of work already conceived by James Clyne and Ryan Church was staggering!!  For a short while, Nathan Schroeder was on board, and  for a short time you had three of the greatest motion picture artists together on one show!!!  The talent was incredible and everywhere.  Scott had assembled the finest art department I had ever seen…such an awesome privilege to be a part of such a fun ride.

Scott approached things very differently than most of the designers I had worked with before.  Usually when  your boss asks you to design a future tank, he’ll give you old tank references to build from.  When scott asked me to start working on the med-evac shuttles, he gave me pictures of stylized furniture……  One very creative mind, he has, and he spoke his ideas very clearly with the unusual reference material and in the end made for some very unique and right on the mark concepts.

Below is the shuttle sketch based on the table image and the first drawing I did for the show.  Scott would have me working on several projects at the same time, always keeping my busy, and one of the cross over projects was an Iowa police cruiser. Below are the first passes of those flying squad cars, and in time this would turn into the flying motorcycle.

the table top shuttle craft

hover cars

Been way too busy to be current on the blog and also to have a moment to respond to all the fun notes this week.  I will do so tonight, but in the meantime, here is a new one of the ever lovely Miss Amanda.  We did this Trek shoot in the heat of summer, and this is one of about 7 favorites shots from that morning.

Enjoy and catch up with everything and everyone later.

my fav of miss Amanda!!

Well, I have to say that is one fine book and produced at high warp speed.  This whole project only started about 3 and a half 4 months ago when everyone that had worked on the movie got a call to put all their art work together on a disc and have it ready to pick up the next day!!!  Neville Page was the gathering man of all these discs and probably a lot more…I love to see things come together under impossible odds, and Titan publishing shines at doing what others would be unable to do!!!  Great work displaying all the images in a very nice collage style format which really shows a nice progression, in many cases, from sketch to finished production art.

Mark and Titan really cover a little bit of everything, the concept art, CG work, ILM’s stuff, all the costume and make up work and some nice writing – full of little tidbits of info and a lot of how things came together - make a for one nice art of book.  Mark could easily do a part 2, and 3 with all the art that couldn’t be squeezed into those 160 beautiful pages.  The breakdown pages of the Enterprise, the Nirada, and the Kelvin are some awesome pages, as well as J.J. Abrams’ very nice and humorous forward.  It is a very complimentary book to all those behind the scenes and the art work of Ryan Church and James Clyne, along with Alex Jeager, Paul Ozzimo, Neville Page, and all the rest is breathtaking!!!  Even some of my scribbles made it in which was a thrill to see, HAAAA! 

What a great showcase for some awesome and very stylized art work!!!  Scott Chambliss (The film’s Production Designer) adds a lot of info, insight, and some very kind compliments to his crew throughout, and it was a fun read and makes a great companion along with the DVD release.  OH yes!!  The burning question of what is the Enterprise’s dimensions are are finally revealed in the book so now all the fighting can stop!!!  HAAA!  Thanks to everyone that put this book together so fast, and I so love adding it to my book collection!!  Enjoy

the cover for the art of film

Here are a few more trek shots of the wickedly beautiful Victoria to help go along with the earlier post to get the mood high for todays Star trek DVD and art book release!!!

victoria 1

vic-vasq

WOOOOOOO-WEEEEEEEE can you believe it!!!!  Feels like the movie only just came out in theaters yesterday and now today, November the 17th, both the DVD and the art of book come out simultaneously!!!  MAN_O_MAN how the time flies!!!  I can’t wait to run out and get my copy of both!!!  What an awesome day, I saw some of the pages being put together and holy cow, my work is prehistoric in comparison to what Ryan, James, and Paul put out!!!!  I’m going back to work at A J Bayless  grocery stores in Arizona!!!  HAAAA!  Unbelievable talents these guys are and can’t wait to see all the cool stuff they did.  On the eve of the release, here is a special couple of pin ups to stir the mood and excitement of tomorrows long awaited DVD and art book.  Miss Penny Von Luck did some fabulous Trek shots a few weeks back, and here she is in the rocky mountains of Lake Los Angeles!!!  From Blonde, to brunette, to super hero black your hair color always looks awesome and you’re one of the rare exceptions that can pull it off!!!  Beautiful work, Penny, and thanks for another great day of shooting.

available tomorrow

the bewitching Penny Von Luck

on the hunt

set phasers to stun

the art of film cover

Here was a fun ship from the Suliban race, and it was seen in Enterprise episode #26 entitled “Shock Wave”.  The Suliban were a strange race and they were to be so prominent in the new series, but by season 2 they had pretty much faded away.  Amongst all the ships that had to be drawn for the series, the Suliban were the hardest to get concepts signed off…it still brings back a lot of dizziness just thinking about all the billions of drawings it took to get just a handful of ships through those narrow approval doors.  This one was one of the last ships to be drawn and the heat and tension had let up, so it went through on a single pass!!!!  WOOO HOOO!  And it was one of my favs as far as their ships went.

In addition, there had to be a hidden base and, looking at Monument Valley in Northern Arizona for inspiration, the base became a high offensive location atop a spire of rock overlooking the vast landscape.  Eden VFX work shined brightly on this episode, and as always the work Rob and the gang put out was beyond awesome.  So with that, have a great weekend everyone, and thanks for all the comments and for putting up with the loads of pin up pictures!!!

Suliban Stealth ship

stealth ship docked at the secret base

Here is a fun shot of my friend, Melissa, striking a schnazzy pin up pose in an old Bell Huey.  We had a wildly blustery shoot out in the Wrecking Yard fighting horrific winds and stinking cold weather!!!  I LIKE HOT AND ARIZONA WEATHER!!!!  Despite the elements we got some really awesome shots, and this one is a fav.  Thanks for the great day M.

melissa 1

Well, setting the flood of pin up shoots aside for today, here is the follow up to Vulcan architecture from Star Trek Enterprise, Episode # 74 entitled “HOME”.  This is three variations of the same location.  The hillside dwelling on the right is the exterior design for T’POL’s mother’s (played wonderfully by Joanna Cassidy) home on Vulcan, Joanna’s character was of a high ranking woman but somewhat of a rebel, so her immaculate home is rural as opposed to in the high society of downtown amongst the powerful.  In these three drawings, the tone and mainly the city scape will change drastically as the approval process for this concept goes through all the changes.

Concept #1 has an easy atmosphere and a smaller spread out cityscape.  Joanna’s house made the cut, but the sky and background didn’t.  Sketch #2 puts the atmosphere in heavy sunset mode, and the city grows in terms of  ground level structures.  The producers asked for more skyscrapers so Drawing #3 came to be, and, in the long run, the city became a combo of #2 and #3 as seen in the next two previously posted images.  This was just about the end of designing new architecture for the hot planet, but it was quite a treat to get to dive into such an awesome world of drawings and concepts.

#1

text 2

#3

#4