The 50th Anniversary of “The Giant Gila Monster”

June 25th, 1959

Well, this one is a bit different!!  It has all the best of the 50’s monster movie clichés, a big ugly creature, some cool model and FX work, a trip to lovers lane in some big beautiful 50’s cars, a dance at the hop, a teen hero and his country girl next door love interest, some real good jump out of your seat moments, and in the end the kids save the day!!  The strangest part about this movie is that the teen star sings and plays a mini banjo…not once but constantly!!!! Very strange indeed.  Sometimes you forget your watching a horror movie and the idea goes thru your head that you’re really in a chick flick!!!  HAAA!  A lot of fun though; this one ranked high enough to land a showing on Mystery Science Theater.  Awesome saturday night fodder!!!

some cool oriental style opening credits

one of the few B-movie posters that did not have a lovely girl being taken away by the creature!

June 25th 1964, first flight of the X-15A-2

June 25, 1964 = North American X-15A-2 (p: Maj Robert Rushworth).

X-15A-2

56-6671

First Flight 2-32-55

June 25, 1964

Rushworth

Today marks the 45th Anniversary of the flight of the X-15A-2 flown by Robert Rushworth.  The X-15 is a wickedly beautiful, ultra fast piece of aircraft developed by the North American Aviation.  Categorized as one of the Blackbirds (Sr-71, U-2), it was the fastest of all the manned experimental  aircraft.  Pretty much, it was a seat strapped to a giant rocket engine, and it made it to the incredible speed of 4,534 MPH and reached an altitude of 354,200 feet.  One incredible machine, this is one of my favorites and inspired the look of many Star trek vessels throughout the course of the films and shows!  Tony Landis, A buddy of mine who works out at Edwards AFB, got together with his friend Dennis Jenkins and wrote an incredible book called “Hypersonic, The Story of the North American X-15”  and a followup book called “The X-15 Scrapbook” filled with the extra photos that they couldn’t fit in the first book.  This is one awesome read full of facts and some incredible and rare images.  Tony is also a big Star Trek fan and has a shuttle named after him in the bay of buddies about one of the Enterprises.  Here are some pictures of the ship and some links to read more about her incredible history, also one to Amazon in regards to Tony & Dennis’s awesome book.   These two also did a book on the Valkyrie, but I am saving that intro for the XB-70 day. Enjoy.

http://www.aztecdoug.com/X-15.htm

http://www.amazon.com/Hypersonic-Story-North-American-Specialty/dp/1580071317/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245941666&sr=1-2

Robert Rushworth hopping into the Black beauty!

the awesome X-15A-2 on the lake bed

 

the ships of “the Seventh” Enterprise ep. #33

This was a wild episode to work on and the show called for a Vulcan cargo ship that was broad at the hip and narrow at the nose! A very fun departure from the sleeker side of the ships called for in the previous episodes, this one was to be a frumpy, gritty cargo ship that you would not want to fly into the vacuum of space with. The ship went through about 6 to 8 variations and here are the final 4 plus some great CG modeling by Eden’s Pierre!!! Enjoy the bumpy ride and be sure to buckle your safety belts!!

the desert turtle shell version

the fat grasshopper version

we love it, now go change the cockpit!

pen and pencil only for the final, no time for a splash of color!

Pierre #1 lots of engines for that smoky reentry.

where can I pick up a CB radio to go for this crazy space truck!

the dish acts just like a doorless microwave so you can enjoy a nuked bean and weenie steaming hot combo platter by just waving the plate in front of the deflector for .005 secs

lots of nooks and crannys for hobos to hitch a ride!

Robert McCall

Coming later this week,  the art of my childhood idol, Robert McCall.  Stay tuned for more fun than a magnifying glass and an ant hill!!!

 

one of Bob's book covers!!! Awesome!

The Art of Ryan Church

Many of you know of Ryan Church from his recent work on Star Trek which seems to be the bulk of the interests of the folks that come to the blog here, but Ryan’s work covers a broad range of organic as well as industrial designs. His skills and talents are incredibly displayed in his images created using primarily Painter and Photoshop.

I met Ryan about 10 years ago on an ILM animation project called “XO”. It had a brief but awesome run and some incredible art work was generated in the short time it was up and running. Everyone in the art department were still using pen and ink and other traditional media to render out their ideas and concepts. Ryan had a keen eye for the industrial side of things and was working on some pretty gnarly robot characters in the vane giant mechanical armor wrapped around soldier.  Mr. Church had some pretty awesome pencil skills that reminded me a lot of the tech version of (Crash McCreery) who is the king of graphite in the creature world!!! The show only lasted 9 more days after I got there and most of us went back to LA while Ryan stayed on to work on a possible CG version of Frankenstein. That one didn’t happen, but Star Wars did and somewhere along the way he lost his pencils and picked up a stylus and a new creative force was born. I am a big fan of so many of the illustrators and designers I work with and Ryan is one of my favorites. Hope you enjoy the sneak peak of some of his awesome work and be sure to visit his page regularly because there is always something new to see.!!!

Enjoy

http://www.ryanchurch.com/index.htm

War Of the Worlds

Something cool from Star wars!!!

 

Star wars the factory, WOOO feels pretty hot in there!

THESE were the coolest things ever!!!!

Ed McMahon passes at 86

A true Hollywood legend passed away today at the age of 86.  Ed will always be known as the original and #1 sidekick, working on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson from the 1960’s until 1992 when Johnny retired. Always a gentleman and quick with a comeback, Ed had the most contagious laugh that you couldn’t help but laugh with him once he got going.  He will be best known for his line: HEEEEERE’S Johnny!!!!   Copied by many announcers over the years but was so perfectly mimicked best by Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.”

We will miss you Ed.  Thanks for all the fun memories growing up in front of the tube!

A great shot of Mr. McMahon

starships of the day

From the Perpetual files come three more vessels from the long extinct ST Online game created by Perpetual Entertainment.  Sadly, this project disbanded over a year ago, and the creative forces have scattered across the USA in pursuits of other work and projects. Ryan Dening and Todd Ramen were the two guys I worked for, and their roles were as the production coordinator and production designer. I really miss working with these guys as well as the whole team. They were doing some amazing work and everything was looking pretty darned incredible, but $$$ to produce a game is high and funding issues left this one smashed against the rocks.  Fun times and fun crew.  Here are some renderings they had me working on, and they were a lot of fun to draw up.

Enjoy.

A Ferengi style boomerang ship!

loosely based on the Andorian vessel from Enterprise

always fun to do a Vulcan!!!

exciting images from the TOS bridge rebuild for “Enterprise”

Here are some lovely images that I took just before the set got busy!!!  The crew was coming in by the time I got up to the permanents to get the aerial shots.  Enjoy and more to come throughout the week!

tos1

tos2

tos3

Hand mixers and the space craft from “Enterprise” episode #22

Episode #22 “Needs of the One” [later renamed “Vox Sola”] was a story in which the Enterprise gets infected by a life-form that sorta cocoons whoever crosses it’s path.  The life form is transplanted by another ship that is docked with the NX-01 and hides in one of the cargo holds. It’s not such a bad alien once you get to know it, and the crew winds up returning it to it’s home planet by the episode’s end!  Three versions of the alien ship were drawn for the new race, and a hand mixer was used for the inspiration for the approved concept #3.  #1 was my fav and I forgot about it after the episode was done or I would have tried to pitch that one in a later episode.  HAAA!!!  Also are the sketches for how the creature would look, the web it would weave and two versions of it’s home world.  Lots of fun from the first season!

Jack Lalanne inspired mixers/inspired these spacecraft!

#3 was the one that made it to the show

June 20th, 1959, 50th Anniversary of “Teenagers from Outer Space”

If you haven’t seen this one yet, you’re missing out on a true (cheesy) B movie endeavor at it’s finest.  Available in about three or four different DVD packs, I highly recommend this one to watch with a bunch of friends on a Saturday night,,, Not too late though, because it is a pretty long movie with way too much dialog.  It’s a science fiction story full of teenage rebellion,,,which obviously occurs on other plants besides Earth, Alien bullies and murderers, brilliant and reasonable scientists. Some awesome Hollywood locations from the 50’s, a cute little puppy, space ships and giant lobster monsters, a really cool ray gun that equals Decker’s gun from Bladerunner, and as a special treat there is an early cameo appearance of the skeleton from “Lost Skeleton of the Cadavra” (This must have been some of the skeleton’s early work because he has no speaking lines, and he played all the parts that needed to show some bones falling to the ground.  The Skeleton had to wait 40+ years to get his big break in Hollywood.  He was rediscovered wasting away in an old lab by Larry Blamire, who immediately cast him as the star of his film and then later the sequel).  Anyway, all of this is wrapped around an intergalactic love story that will make all you lonely teens out there feel warmth in your hearts and even bring a tear to your eye.  It is a definitely a campy adventure that is a lot of fun to watch.  The movie will end leaving you wanting more so you should make it a double feature night and get “Lost Skeleton of the Cadavra” too.  I’ll do a special post on this one and the sequel soon but for now here is a little fodder for those that love the best of the worst of the B-movies from the  glorious atomic age.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenagers_from_Outer_Space

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053337

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3l.html

the poster