the art of Geppetto

Well, it is another mish mash day, but I am calling it the art of Geppetto instead!!  When DS9 season 7 came to an end, this was my first job working at Disney on Drew Carey’s adaptation of “Geppetto”.  My boss was Charles Wood, and he was one challenging man to work for.  He offered a lot of criticism that really had me push uncharted boundaries in trying to put his thoughts on to paper.  It was a great experience and even more so because I met Nathan Schroeder, who is still my favorite of all the illustrators I have been honored to work with!!  Nathan’s command of pencil is truly unique and mind boggling at how he can perceive the most believable designs of architecture flawlessly and always in perfect perspective.  I learned a lot looking over this man’s shoulder and now he has transfered over into the realm of digital, which is even more striking than his carbon skills.  There will have to be an art of Nathan day, and I am making a note right now!!  Anyway, these drawing represent a variety of things, the first is a machine that makes perfect children for parents that want a particular style of appearance and behavior in a child!  Sounds a little like somebody who reigned from about 1936 to 1945, HMMMMMM!!! The next is of a puppet trunk that opens into a mini stage, next is some architecture for the lab and library, a scene that turned into an outdoor set by the end of the design stage.. and finally one of the wooden toys from Geppetto’s shelves, a sparrow that would open it’s wings.  OK, this is way far from the tech stuff that I always drew, and it was a great job to move over to another form of art.

 

machine and specs

 

mish mash sunday/monday

WOW, busier now than I was when I was on the Green Hornet!!  So to keep the blog alive, here is another mish mash day!!!  What you get today is two tropical locations, The first is Risa from DS9 and the second is the first pass for the Baku village from ST Insurrection.  In the script, the village was a grand set of ruins set in the side of a mountain high above a rain forest.  This was a fun drawing, and the set scaled down considerably by the time the construction department started up.  Next, direct from the Perpetual files comes a little starship called the USS Nelson.  This was one of the last ships I did for the Star Trek On-Line game when Perpetual was heading the gaming division.  I named this little craft after my friend, Doug Nelson, who was retiring from his post as the Museum Curator out at Edwards Air Force Base.  Mr. Nelson put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into creating one incredible milestone of a museum for the base.  And finally, here is the Xindi cargo ship from Enterprise episode #59, which later would be designated as Degra’s ship in later episodes.  OK friends, enjoy the Trek mash for today and hope to get back on track in a day or so!

 

risa and baku

 

the USS Nelson

xindi cargo

it’s a mish mash Tuesday!

Well there ya go, one more week of insanity and only have time for another mish mash of things from the dark storage files of my computer.  For today’s non-organized entry, you’ll get to see some old ones from SeaQuest, Santa Clause III, and Sky High.  Hope everyone is having a great week, and I’ll keep things going here as best I can.

OK, and have a good one.

 

the S-cool bus from Sky High

Pin up update with Victoria vertuga

Thanks all for the great comments and requests for more pin up and nose art.  Jess Robinson, Penny Von luck and Miss Amanda Lee are all very happy with how the shoots tuned out, and they all love getting your comments here.  The next shoot is being scheduled as we speak with the lovely Miss Victoria Vertuga, and we are in the process of setting up our location at a place called the Proud Bird.  It is a very nice spot, and the surrounding yard is full of vintage WWI, WWII, and a whole bunch of cool 40’s, 50 through 60’s planes of fame.  I was a fan of Victoria’s pin up work for quite some time and just found out she is local to the area!!  Very exciting shoot in the works, and here are a few teaser pictures and the link to her website.  Enjoy and have a great weekend.

http://www.victoriavertuga.com/

 

Victoria in lethal B&W

 

she really has a way of capturing a mood with her eyes

it’s a mish mash Friday

Howdy all, and thanks for the huge response and cool comments about all the Valdore posts!!  It is one of my favs and so glad to get all the feedback.  You never know how things will be received, especially when working on Star Trek stuff.  As a fan myself, it’s sometimes hard to see if what is happening on the drawing board is aesthetically right for the the show and it’s roots, and also be pleasing from an audience and Trek fans point of view!!  Very nice to get all the good and bad here and always an education!!!  Today is Mish Mash day only because of the heavy work schedule.  So with that, here is my very first Star Trek drawing done for Trek V, and it is a detail for the Bird of Prey wing cannon that was being built by Mike Joyce.  I was working in Greg Jein’s model shop at the time, and in a way Greg gave me my first art job.  HAAA!  Thanks Mr. Jein!  Next are two more pics from the scorpion model post from earlier this week, a robot concept for an ILM/Dreamworks project called XO that didn’t make it, and a bogus Magazine cover that had it’s roots as a DS9 piece of art.  OK, enjoy and have a great Friday!

 

BOP wing gun

 

the extinct XO robot

“the valdore” day 3

Man oh man, it’s my last week here on Green Hornet and it’s busy.  Here are the rest of the Valdore illustrations.  These are crude and small, and I promise to do an update with bigger and better images hopefully next week.  In the mean time, here are some more of the plans and final design ideas that came together to finish off this big bird.  The second arched bi-wing is in place and took the spot of the Caterpillar nacelles, and overall it tied everything together nicely.  That extra wing added a good break up to the forward view and helped tie in with Andy’s TNG bird a bit more.  When I get to day 4 of the Valdore, I’ll include the rest of the CG models from Digital Domain and do a special write up on the master modeler behind the final ship’s outer workings!!  Enjoy todays teaser.

 

bi wing detail

The Reman Scorpion model for polar lights

 

Right after Star Trek Nemesis came out, I got in contact with the folks over at Polar Lights and did a pitch to make the master for their up coming model kit of the Scorpion.  The ship was going to be in 1/24th scale and at that time had not been determined whether or not it was to be a snap tight kit or an actual advanced model kit that needed glue, fillers, and paint.  First, the scale of the master was upped to 1/12th scale and rough blue prints, photos and measurements off of the actual piece were all used to build the model from.  A bit of engineering had to go into the way the parts would go together and come apart, and that was actually one of the more challenging parts of the construction.  Dave Metzner was the supervisor  from Polar that I was working for, and he was a great guy to work with.  When Polar Lights sold, he went on to be a big part of Cultman’s model world, and he has quite a passion for for Sci Fi and physical modeling!  My good buddy Dan Platt sculpted the figures for the ship, and he always outdoes himself!!!  Awesome likenesses and great postures really finished the model off!!!  When the final kit came out, something evil was used instead of these fine sculpts and I can’t tell you why…only because I never heard any explanation!!!!!!  Below are pictures of the final pieces all laid out at my desk at Paramount just before I mailed them.  Lots of fun and haven’t made a model since!!!  The grey pieces are the masters and the white are resin pulls from the molds.  Wow, that was a long time ago, and I’m feeling the need to do another one soon.

 

 

resin pieces

 

assembled

pin-up update with Jess, friday the 14th

Here is a quick pin up shot from our shoot the other day to end this long and busy week.

 

Jessica!

Xindi friday!

Well, busy as predicted so here is a quick post featuring a couple of Xindi ships.  The first shot is of the massive Xindi crash site from “Hatchery”, episode #69 from Star Trek Enterprise.  This was used as a CG reference shot for the Eden VFX boys to have fun modeling.  Next are some Xindi Fighter concepts, also from episode #69, and in conclusion, two variations for the insectoid ship that later would be Degra’s Shuttle.  The version with the angry facetted dorsal blade was the first pass and later modified for the final with a bizarre articulated nodule for space flight.  This ship had to also take advantage of use of the PHX nose piece from ST First Contact, and that is where the design basis had to start from.  OK on the run, so enjoy the spectacular Xindi Friday!

 

the big crash, note the little shuttlepod in the foreground

a new fun place to see a bunch of blogs covering everything

http://geekblips.dailyradar.com

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