It’s pin up friday with Miss Chelsea Rea

Chelsea and the f-14

Howdy there and welcome to Pin-up Friday.  It has been a long time since I’ve posted one of these, and today I am so pleased to share some pictures from last week’s shoot aboard the USS Midway with the lovely Miss Chelsea Rea.

It was the week of (July the 11-15th)…the big weekend of Comicon down in San Diego and one of the most anticipated weekends of the whole year!  My buddy Nelson Broskey and I have been attending the con since the mid 80’s, and it sure grows in leaps and bounds every year.  We arrived at the con for both Wednesday & Thursday’s exhibitions on the dealers floor, and on Friday we spent the day aboard the USS Midway, CV-41, for our annual Navy themed pin-up shoot.  My friend Scott McGaugh cleared the way for us to shoot on the ship and we were ready to go….

This year we were very fortunate to work with Miss Chelsea Rea.  Chelsea is a San Diego native and is very new to the modeling world, only just joining Model Mayhem last month.  One of her life long dreams is to become a model, and I have to say that those wishes are so coming true.  I saw her portfolio a week before the con; it was pure luck that both our schedules worked out on such short notice.  Chelsea brought along her friend Scott as an escort, and we shot for close to two hours.  Surprisingly, the ship’s flight deck was wide open, there were very few visitors on deck which opened up a lot of areas that are normally swamped with crowds and impossible to shoot at.  As always, the magic of Photoshop helped to remove all of the folks that were in the background but on a smaller scale this time.

Chelsea was awesome and she has such an easy-going and natural talent with her style of posing.  Full of confidence and a beautiful smile, she made every shot great.  Before the shoot, she studied pin-up and discovered that to make the best facial expressions you silently say the vowels, A, E, I, O, and U.  I had never heard of this technique before  but man o man she was right on and nailed it!!!  We had time for three costume changes, and each one she tackled with sleek elegance and vintage flirtatiousness.  She was a fearless acrobat climbing in and on everything on the deck.  I am sure you’ll agree Chelsea Rea is well on her way to greatness!!!!  Tons of fun, and I so can’t wait to work with her again.  So without any further chatter enjoy some of the pix from the shoot and be sure to check out her MM page by following the link below. BE SURE TO STAY TUNED for all the pix from Comicon coming next week.

http://www.modelmayhem.com/2699844

The enterprise-e and the aztec paint job

Howdy all, this is a continuation to a piece from way back on December 10, 2010.  Below is a link to part one of the redesigning of the Enterprise-E for Star trek “Nemesis”

https://johneaves.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/the-evolutions-of-the-uss-midway-cv-41-and-the-uss-enterprise-ncc-1701-e/

Pictured below are two versions of the “E” with an Aztec paint job that was designed to tie the Sovereign class starship to its predecessors, the  Enterprise “A” through the “D”.  Way back in 2001 when we were working on all the concepts for the film, the “E” was going to be rendered in 3D by Jay Barton at Digital Domain.  “Nemesis” offered us the chance to tweak the ship a little, and it was a great time working with Jay on all the new and extra details.  At the time I could barely turn on a computer so everything I did was done on paper with pen, pencil, ink and paint.  I would send over roughs to Jay and he would add on the new weaponry as the script would call for.  We also were allowed to mess with the lines and dimensions of various sections of the ship and in doing so were able to make some subtle changes to areas that I wanted to fix from the original concept drawings.

In the beginning months of production, “Nemesis” was going to be #10 in the film series and the 4th with the TNG crew.  There was no mention that this was going to be the end of the TNG crew or the “E” so we were all working on not only the current film but what would possibly be the next film.  The Enterprise-E gets hammered majorly throughout Nemesis ending with some final shots of the ship being repaired in space-dock.  When my boss, Herman, and I were working on the dock and the repair views of the ship, we thought it would be cool to have the Aztec paint job be a part of the finished ship.  I did one rough sketch of the aztec patterns, as well as all the new plans for the exteriors of the retro’d “E”.  These renderings were shelved and were waiting for the next production meeting to get approval or notes on any changes needed….  The next big meeting came a few weeks later, and Herman took all the new drawings with him.  When he came back he said that he didn’t think they would be needed because the rumors were that “Nemesis” was most likely going to be the last Trek film.

It all was starting to gel at this point because we were already seeing used sets getting thrown away instead of being sent back to storage.  It seemed odd, but the sets were beat and had been used many times before so we all thought that there would just be new things to build come the next show.  Sadly, this would never happen…so with all that said, and with a bit more computer knowledge in my head, here are some renders based on the sketches from “Nemesis”.  The 3/4 view is of Jays 3D model with the pattern simply photoshopped on while the plans depict a rough top and bottom of the saucer with the patterns applied.  Lots of fun to put these together so hope you enjoy what was at one time going to be.

the Aztec paint scheme

Jay’s “E” with aztec applied