Happy Halloween, Happy adoption day, and happy Birthday to Greg Jein

Well, it’s an awesome day on many levels.  It’s Halloween for one, most importantly, this is the day way back 14 years ago that I adopted my twin daughters, Olivia and Alicia, and it’s also Greg Jein’s Birthday!!

I was a foster parent way back and the first children that I got to foster parent for were two little twin girls just a few days old. The girls’ birth mom vanished after a couple of visits in the early days and after a year or so the court gave the option to adopt, and it was a great day to get this long awaited news…just a few days before the girls turned three (Halloween Day).  We went to court and so happily made Olivia and Alicia a permanent part of our family…I have been truly blessed with these two wonderful daughters, and they bring a special joy to every day of my life!

Another way back story to the late 1970’s, as a little kid in Arizona, was the day Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out and I learned about a man named Greg Jein!!!  Within the next couple of years, special effects mags like Starlog and Cinefex would do special articles on Greg, and from the first day I read about him, I was a fan!!!  In 1984, I got a hold of his # and worked up the courage to give him a call, and he invited me over to his shop to say hey.  I was in town doing my bi-monthly turn in a new portfolio and resume to all the VFX houses hoping to one day get a job, and Greg’s shop was right behind Boss Films!!  It was a quick visit, and Greg had his hands in some black, gooey, brushable resin he was smearing into a laser blaster mold…I didn’t have a lot to show him, but I left with one big ear to ear grin after meeting my hero!!!  A few years later I managed to break in to the VFX world, and Greg Jein came to the shop I was working at to lend a hand on some models we were making.  We kept in touch, and soon I was working with Greg at his shop on Star Trek V; it’s funny to look back on those times and have a new outlook on someone who was once someone I only new from books and the big screen to now calling Greg my friend!!!  To this day, it is still one great honor!!

Happy Birthday, GREG!!! and Happy adopted day, Olivia ‘n Alicia!! and Happy Halloween to all.

Alicia and Olivia

Greg and I at his shop

Greg and I at Comicon

Greg and Ed (big daddy) Roth both loved to work their magic with bondo by hand!!

vulcan

It’s hot and covered with big statues!!!! HAAA! pretty tough place to live when your trying not to be emotional!!

 

  Ed. note:  Screen Caps courtesy of  Jörg, of course!   These are from Eps #79, “Home”, as John’s artwork states.

miss amanda lee

Here is a quick one derived from a much bigger picture!!  Whilst cleaning up the exposures on a western themed shot of Miss Amanda, a close up of her eyes proved to be something special and had to have their own frame!!  In color this grab was nice but oh so very bewitching in B&W!!!   Thanks Amanda!

pin up update with daniza

Lots of pin ups in the next coming days!!  Working on getting all my calender and holiday ideas worked out, so I hope all you bloggers are up for a cornucopia of vintage style gals showing there best pin up poses and outfits!!  Lots of fun working with all these awesome and talented models, and I so love putting these pictures together!!

Today’s model is the lovely Daniza from Phoenix Arizona!!!  We met at the park in Scottsdale AZ where I first worked with Miss Amanda Lee last October….  If there was more time, I would love to get back to PHX and shoot Daniza in the Star Trek garb as well as a whole bunch of other themes….  She is awesome in all styles of fashion, and boy oh boy, would she ever make a great Star Fleet officer!!!  I have to say Daniza has one incredible talent!!  She has such a love and passion for what she does, and she makes every picture a work of art!!!  I have worked with many models and love em all, and I especially liked working with Daniza because of her high enthusiasm. She is very professional and fearless at striking that perfect pose and expression despite what is happening all around her. On Top of it all  she is one great gal, very sweet and kind as well…so with that, please enjoy these fun pics from a very fun shoot.

#1

#3

 

awesome

 

 

pin up update with miss amanda lee

WOOOO HOOO!!  Finally had a moment to work on some pics from all my recent shoots, and here is the lovely Miss Amanda sporting her Starfleet uniform in the rocky terrain of Reatta Pass Arizona.  Always a treat to get back home  to work with Amanda, and this was a fun, new kinda pin up theme for the both of us!!

pin up update with victoria

Wow, lots of great comments on Victoria’s post from the other day, and also some just too serious one’s!!!  Relax folks, this is an art form celebrating the golden era of pin up with a fun Star Trek twist to it!!  Today’s pick is from the same shoot featuring the TOS phaser against the NorthWest face of Vasquez Rocks.  Victoria again strikes one awesomely gorgeous pose!!!  All Gorns beware…she’s one lethal beauty!!!

Lieutenant Victoria Vertuga….

Well, today was an awesome day!!  I got to meet up with my buddy, Victoria Vertuga, to do another pin up shoot…but this time we did a Star Trek themed shoot at the legendary Vasquez Rocks.  We had an incredible day and got about 1600 shots off against an incredible back drop and a brilliantly cloudy sky.  Victoria did some incredible and beautiful work, as always, and captured some outstanding poses, adding her own flair and style to the classic theme!!  Here is a teaser from today’s photographic adventure!!

scorpion

Howdy all!!  A new job and 4 rodeo daughters in events and pageants have me on the go and nowhere near my computer for the last week and a half!!! HAAA!  With that, I wanted to take a moment and say thanks to everybody for all the fun comments on the Vulcan Architecture…hopefully I can get more of that up later in the week.  For today, though, I have one drawing to post, and it is of two early versions of the Reman Scorpion from Star Trek Nemesis.  The ship started out to be a pretty big fighter, but budget made the practical hallways of the Scimitar sets smaller so the Scorpion had to get smaller as well.  Mr Berman loved these, and to make them smaller but keep what he liked in tact, he had me take the little piloting pod and wings off and make a smaller ship based on those lines.  There will be more to this genesis but today here are the first passes.

variations 1 & 2

vulcan architecture

Well, had a bit of a lapse in getting to my next post, but here it is.  Next to all the fun spacecraft we got to design on Enterprise, we also got to come up with some very fun alien, and in this case Vulcan, architecture.  Episode #83 (the Forge) called for a Vulcan High Command building and the United Earth Embassy, both to be located in the same city.

The main idea for what a Vulcan skyline was going to look like came from inspiration drawn from two favorite movies, Conan and Brazil.  I had just watched both films and thought that Vulcan skyscrapers could be based on heavy Swords standing on end.  I loved the ornate blades that Ron Cobb had drawn for Conan and really liked the idea of mixing his sword concepts with cathedral style long windows, domes, and passenger train cars connecting the blades.  Watching Brazil, there is a sequence of folks riding in these little box type trolly cars through the city, and those images stuck as an interesting building idea.  After all was drawn and approved, Eden did their magic and really came up with some awesome VFX shots.

For the Earth Embassy, it really had to stand out so it went into a bright white surface color with a lot of cool architectural lighting to punch it out from the sea of red and purple that made up the Vulcan palette.  Hard faceted  and angular lines would also make for a good contrast against the very curvy organic lines all around the Embassy.  This was a very fun episode to work on and sorry, but there were no new ships in this one to show, HAAA!

earth embassy

vulcan high command

Where’s Waldo!!! [UPDATED]

Here is a VFX rendering from Enterprise episode #56 “Enemy Advances” (later renamed “Rajiin”) in which the crew shuttles down to a town and trading port constructed from sea barges.  This one was loads of fun to draw, and once Deanne makes it clickable (ed. it’s ready!), you’ll find space craft and airplanes from a variety of my fav movies and shows parked all around the platforms.  Lots of fun to try to find all the stuff hidden away with your kids.  Keep an eye out for the Red Baron’s tri-plane, The C-82 Packet from Flight of the Phoenix, an Eagle from Space 1999, a War of the Worlds war machine, The X-15 and many more to make you sick and dizzy trying to locate them all!!  Enjoy and happy weekend…back Monday with more fun stuff!

the barge city spaceport

Final version on the screen