Project Review Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow PART IX-Flying-Wing Robots

 One of the many grouping shots I delivered to the big Art Direction team over at BLT and associated back in 2003 for Sky Captain, and the World of Tomorrow.

 This was the first delivered grouping with three to four posed wings , as they are robots that flap their wings.

 An overhead shot shows the cabin and forward cannons coming out of the nose of the plane.

 Its magic Hour at night as they fly home to base in this shot.

 Here you can see the geometry of the magic hour shot from above.

 

 This is a underside view of the flying wings.

Project Review

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

PART IX-Flying-Wing Robots

Client: Paramount Pictures via BLT and Associates.

Art Director(s): Rick Lynch, Dustin Stanton, Jeff Barnett, Alon Amir, Zack Ris. 
Project Date: Summer 2002

This is my ninth posting on Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, and today I have posted the flying wing robots from the film that were used on the final posters in some applications after I left BLT.

I built out these little flapping winged beasts from some screen shots we got from the film makers, and as usual I reverse engineered them and built out these duplicates for all the advertising ideas we pitched for the property.

Cheers, THOM

You can see the other posts quickly below in these links:

PART I
PART II 
PART III 
PART IV 
PART V. 
PART VI. 
PART VII. 
PART VIII

 http://www.skycaptain.com/

Personal Project Napkin Sketching and Doodles Part XXIII[23rd]

 A little house way up on stilts!

 A tall and thin four story unit from the Arts and Crafts era.

 Outhouse on a hill side. Stay up wind!

 A little house on a stump sitting in a swamp.

Personal Project

Napkin Sketching and Doodles Part XXIII[23rd]

 

 I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend!

Today after a small break, I have posted up my 23rd doodle and napkin sketches installment,  with four new little cabin sketches to view today.

I have been sketching little playhouses for about a year or so, as I plan to build another one if we end up relocating, so I've been experimenting with various proportions and configurations.

I also did a little out house on a hill, so better be up wind!

Have you drawn today?

You can view the other parts as follows:
PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
PART V
PART VI
PART VII
PART VIII
PART IX 

PART X
PART XI 

PART XII
PART XIII
PART XIV
PART XV 

PART XVI
PART XVII 
PART XVIII 
PART XIX
PART XX
PART XXI
PART XXII


Cheers, THOM

Project Review BATTLESHIP 3D Logo designs PART III

This BATTLESHIP vector file was designed by Calvin Sumler and handed off to me to make dimensional. It came 'pinched' in the middle by him.

Here is the above vector done for Battleship posters, extruded at 400% and we are now below it looking up.

For this Battleship Title design, I did a hollowed out face that is pushed in to create the deep shadowing in the letter face areas.

I took the above Battleship Logo file, and extruded it back into a 3D fog and lowered the camera again on this one.

 A two layer design done for Battleship with the back 'holding device' a bit bigger with a nice overlap to catch the light glimmers.

For this 3D Logo design, I sliced up the model[ adding geometry] so I could bend the face back to get a better reflection across the center.

Here is another version of the logo bent back now a bit darker metal with some red back-lighting

Project Review

BATTLESHIP

3D Logo designs PART III

Client: Universal Pictures via The Cimarron Group.
Art Director: Calvin Sumler.
Project Date:  December 2009.

Today I've  posted my third in a series on the work I did the past few years here and there for the film Battleship for four different advertising houses here in Los Angeles.

Today I have put up my second set of 3D logos I build out for Art Director Calvin Sumler over at my former full-time employer The Cimarron Group.

This second set is based on a few vector files executed in multiple ways as usual. I develop one nice look and then I do alternates on that look. I often will bend or stretch the model as well as adjust and change all materials textures and lighting to provide a good variety of looks the Art Direction teams can pick from.

You can view my prior posts on BATTLESHIP below:
PART I here.
PART II here.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review:The Phantom 2040: PART CI[101st]-Overlay Character Designs

 I did quite a few alternate for the B.I.O.T.'s[ robots] from the TV show, and sometimes it was merely a costume change as seen above, and here, and here.

 A Minor modification to Kit Walker[ aka.The Phantom] I tweaked the roll on the collar of his standard coat he wore in the series.

 I designed the "Dry-as-a-bone' Aussie styled riding coat you see under the overlay, but this sketch was for some hidden chrome armor he wore underneath it. You can see it colored out here.

 Here we  have a pivotal sketch for The Phantom, as up until here I had very organic cuffs here, and here, and Hearst reps from NYC came out to LA, and wanted me to go back a bit and do a blend between the old cuff style and mine so here is a sketch with the new blasters I designed and these modified cuffs and belt overlay designs that went to final here.

Phantom 2040
PART CI [101st]

 Overlay Character design sketches

Client: Hearst Animation Productions.
Art Director: Myself.
Project Date Spring 1993.

This is my 101st post my work from the TV animated series, The Phantom 2040 from in the early ninety's, and today I have posted a few more development design sketches I did as overlay work.

Every artist does overlays, as these allow you to build upon the prior design work, and make the needed changes in a quick production fashion, without the need to start over completely.

I had a few rolls of tracing as well as small cut up velum sheets to overlay characters always by my side at Hearst Animation when I worked on the show, and were used in cases like this.

Today I have The Phantom himself, a BIOT, Guran's armor design, and a quick tweak to Kits coat.

When you do production work with a bunch of 'cooks'[ like 9 bosses!] , you must always be ready to change your designs, and being able to separate yourself as an Artist/Designer, from your work is vital so you can get it all done with a proper attitude.

If they did not like the collar, do another and move on, it's just a collar...
Everyone will at one time or another throw a bad pitch!

If you are a FAN of The Phantom 2040, and on FACEBOOK, there is a group for that....  here.

There is a TAG on the list to the RIGHT for other Phantom 2o4o entry's, but you can click this as well.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review BATTLESHIP 3D Icon designs PART II

A Chrome version of the proposed BATTLESHIP Icon I sculpted in 3D with the red lighting from 'the mouth'.

A blurred reflection on this pass gives a bit of a sandblasted look to the metal, I also dialed up the lower red lighting to catch more edges.

A much brighter reflection map was used for this polished metal look I did for Battleship the film, for the advertising pitches the past few years.

I love doing glass logos[ see here], and this was done prior to bending the Aliens Ships wings down more, but the effect had internal caustics as well.

Here is a Camera view of the final mesh I built for Battleship.

Here you can see the base mesh and final in a birds eye shot.
 
Project Review

BATTLESHIP

3D Icon designs PART II

Client: Universal Pictures via Mojohouse.
Art Director: Andrew Percival.
Project Date:  March 2011.

This weekend the film, Battleship finally came out, so I am pleased to continue with this my second part in a series on the work I did for the advertising pitches around town here in Hollywood. I worked for four different vendors over the last three years on this film, and today I have a post dealing with the Icons I designed for Andrew Percival over at Mojo for the poster presentations.

I worked with Mojo most noted on a finish I did for Sucker Punch, and this task was to create an Icon with a stylized version of a battleship and an alien craft as seen in the film.

At the time I got a concept sketch 3/4 view, and I had to come up with this simple front view based on that one painting. I built it all as a Quad Model, and smoothed it out at render with a Subdivision modifier[ turbo-smooth in 3DSmax].

I wanted it to have a fully molded feel with soft rounds for all edges since I was doing metals and glass as a finished look, and the reflections will wrap the mesh much better in geometry like that as a single object, though it takes a bit more time and effort up front to build this way.

Above I also posted the mesh views, so you can see how I built it out. Look for more posts from the other vendors in the future.

You can view PART I here.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review: BATTLESHIP- PART I

 For this first Battleship Log I built out in 3D for Calvin Sumler at Cimarron, I put a plated metal hull in front, with a polished edge with water behind it.

 Here we still see water behind the logo a bit more green now, with some framing in the foreground.

 I tried a version with horizontal metal elements that break up the plate around the logo cut thru.

 A concave surface with the logo curved around to match the bend.

 A convex variation now with some 'tech-circuits' cut outs on the metal hull.

 A volumetric light coming from the BATTLESHIP logo with blue light beams.

 A nice dark metal with highly polished edge again,with some blue glowing light from behind the cut-out from down below.

 A brighter version with a double plate foreground element.

 A slightly curved back logo with a variation on the tech-web textures outside the font.

 Here is another version of the logo using the same lighting and materials from my X-Men logos I have done.

Project Review

BATTLESHIP

3D Logo designs PART I

Client: Universal Pictures via The Cimarron Group.
Art Director: Calvin Sumler.
Project Date:  December 2009.

Today the film, Battleship finally came out, so I am pleased to start off with this my first part in a series on the work I did for the advertising pitches around town here in Hollywood. I worked for four different vendors over the last three years on this film, and today I start of with some very early work done back in 2009 for The Cimarron Group on the 3D Logo design.

I worked with the Art Director Calvin Sumler there, and for today  I cover my concepts explored for the logo as seen above. You will notice that all ten designs above,are all based on a single illustrator file. Just one design with multiple 3D interpretations.

As a 3D designer when I get a 2D file it can be interpreted in many ways and this post above shows a little of that. The basics I had to follow were that the logo was a hole in the ship itself, or some other alien surface and I was given the font to use.

At the time we had no photos from the film so I worked on heavy metals as rusted aged military green-blue steel was the general fell Calvin wanted to show.

I will have at least three more posts from The Cimarron Group on this as well as the work I did for three other vendors in the weeks to come. Enjoy!

Cheers, THOM

Project Review:Out Takes PART V Universal City Walk 1992

 One main feature we had was an adjustable table height for the main blue-screen operator and this was a CNC milled girder look as seen in this concept here.

 A dimensional tapered armrest with hidden panels as seen in this design.

 A backdrop with design styling similar to this and this.

 The blue-screen backdrop enclosure with a bit more open space so visitors could see a bit better to go with these.

Project Review
Out Takes PART V Universal City Walk 1992

Client: Out Takes Via Eric Allard at All Effects.
Art Director: Eric Allard.
Project Date Summer 1992

Out-Takes was a blue screen photography studio at Universal's City Walk Outdoor Mall in California, and in my fifth posting today, I have some of the detailed parts drawings as well as some alternate blue screen enclosure designs.

I originally designed about 20 looks, with two l picked. The one that went to manufacture was to match the frame and girder look that the motion controlled camera jig was on, ans the second was a enclosed sleeker look with metal wood and composite materials.

I was on-site in Woodland Hills for about a month for this gig way back in the 90's when I was doing freelance before I went over to Walt Disney Imagineering. I had a great time designing these items and I got to sit in the FX house with all the props from the various films them made every day too...[ Demolition Man, Short Circuit].

PART I is here.
PART II is here.
PART III is here. 
PART IV is here.

Cheers, THOM

Project Review Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow PART VIII-Arachnid Robot

 

 A 3/4 view of the Arachnid Robot I built out from World of Tomorrow from back in 03'.

 A Low Angle on the Arachnid Robot from the advertising I helped with on Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

 A Birds Eye view down on the spider robot I built back in 2003.

 Here is the polygon model I built out for this fun little crawler.

 This is a underside view that really shows the 'spider' design nicely for Sky Captain.

Project Review

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

PART VIII-Arachnid Robot

Client: Paramount Pictures via BLT and Associates.

Art Director(s): Rick Lynch, Dustin Stanton, Jeff Barnett, Alon Amir, Zack Ris. 
Project Date: Summer 2002

This is my eighth posting on Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, and today I have posted the Arachnid Robot from the film that I made a 3D copy for the print advertising campaign.

About half my work is reverse engineering a prop from a feature film that is not finished, or we simply do not have access to enough photography, and so I end up building it for the posters, and for WOT[ World of Tomorrow], I did half a dozen various robots from the film for the large Art Direction team for over at BLT.

This one was just over a half day to complete[ about 5 Hrs] and I was able to deliver a few renders for the final presentation of comps to Paramount.

Look for more robots from the film in the weeks to come.

Cheers, THOM

You can see the other posts quickly below in these links:

PART I
PART II 
PART III 
PART IV 
PART V. 
PART VI. 
PART VII.

 http://www.skycaptain.com/

Personal Project Napkin Sketching and Doodles Part XXII[22nd]

 A Robotic Rhino with roller balls for feet.

 A Mini-Vacuum Robot with a extension cord for a ratty tail.

 A knife edged arm character with no hands...

 A little Frankenstein with the full top of the head inside the lower lip of the skull, and stapled in.

[ you can see the lite ghosted neck and bolts (unfinished) in there too].

 An odd little design, not sure what it is.....It is graphically a character in a box shape.

Personal Project

Napkin Sketching and Doodles Part XXII[22nd]

 

 In this twenty-second installment of the Napkin Sketches, Drawings, and Doodles I have posted, today I put up a set of mostly characters that I have sketched out over the last week during my free time.

I love to draw, and that is the first step in being a proficient 3D designer. If you are just going to build in 3D[ a 3D Carpenter], you need not draw much, though it would help a whole bunch, but if you consider yourself a 3D Designer, then the language we speak is the sketch, and the Sculpture.

You can view the other parts as follows:
PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
PART V
PART VI
PART VII
PART VIII
PART IX 

PART X
PART XI 

PART XII
PART XIII
PART XIV
PART XV 

PART XVI
PART XVII 
PART XVIII 
PART XIX
PART XX
PART XXI


Cheers, THOM