BEFORE and AFTER: "Flying Saucer"

Here was a fun little treasure I found while digging around in my attic. It was probably done when I was in Jr. High, back in the early 1970s.
There are obvious influences on my crayon drawing from some of the sci-fi shows on television and the movies I grew up watching. The short list would have to include the "Jupiter 2" saucer from LOST IN SPACE, the movies EARTH VS. THE FLYING SAUCERS, and of course THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. And who can forget the immortal words spoken to GORT, the giant robot, to prevent him from destroying the earth as we know it..."Klaatu Baradda Nikto!"

So, as part of my "Before and After" series, I couldn't resist updating that drawing with a digital painting. I stirred in of some of those ingredients from the aforementioned favorites. And for extra fun, I thought I'd bring back "The Vark" to help keep our skies safe! Hope you like.

Here's a closer detail view.

ILLUSTRATION - "Out of the Archives"

I was looking through some old backup CDs this weekend and ran across some work from my freelance days. These are illustrations done back between 1999 - 2002 for some of my letterheads and promotional mailers. Almost forgot that I had done them. I mostly used Photoshop for these, but the 3D elements were done with a very basic program...I think it was Strata Studio Pro. Say hey to "AstroLud!"

TABLETOP GAMING - "More Rocketships"

Soon after I made the other "Retro Rocketships" posted yesterday, my friend Jaye was planning to host a new "Flash Gordon-like" Sci-Fi themed game in his basement. (He has an awesome space at his house just filled with the coolest gaming props he's made and collected for years!!) I asked if he needed anything specific, and he requested something like a "Ming the Merciless" ship from the campy "Flash Gordon" movie from 1980. I wasn't trying to copy that design, but there were some definite things that I was inspired by. As usual, I went "dumpster diving" and found some fun things to start building with. To show scale, there's a little figure on the wing of the ship below that is about 1" tall.


Before I show you the early, pre-painted stages, below is what the ships look like after the "primer" base coat. I generally use acrylic paints.


Now you can see the "found object" parts that I used to make this ship. There are a couple of different plastic pop bottles...some plastic writing pen shafts, and magic marker caps. For the doors and windows, and the trim on the tail piece, I used soft foam rubber with a peel-and-stick backing (found at most hobby shops). The nose piece is a wooden ball with a tapered dowel peg glued on. The wings and tail fin I made from wood.


I thought it would be fun to make a little one-passenger "air sled"...I found a nice wedge-shaped medicine bottle for the main fuselage and engine. The thrusters are cut-up plastic pens.

That's it for now.
-W

TABLETOP GAMING - "Retro Rocketships"

The year was 2006, and I had been immersing myself in hours of footage from the "making of" dvds for Peter Jackson's "King Kong" and "Lord of the Rings" movies. The "extended" dvds of those films showcased a virtual "film school" treatment of how the "miniatures" for the fantastic environments were created. I LOVE that stuff, and have always had a huge interest in the special effects of movies.

About the same time, I had moved to a different department at work, where I got to be good friends with some guys who were into "tabletop gaming". While I never really got into the actual gameplay, I was excited to see how elaborate many of the "miniature sets" were. Much of it, these guys had hand-made (or "scratch-built") for their adventures. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to experiment with some of the techniques I'd seen used for movie-making. So I started doing a lot of research online (thanks, Jaye, for all the links!) and began "digging for treasures" in the trash. Throughout the year, I began making "terrain" set-pieces, spaceships, monsters...whatever I wanted to create...and I gave it to these guys for free.


These spaceships were some of the first things I made (from plastic bottles, found objects, peel-and-stick foam rubber, wood...whatever worked). The spaceships were designed to go with a "Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers" inspired theme. I have videos of the old Flash/Buck sci-fi serials from the 1930's, so it was a blast to try to make my own ships, with a huge nod to those "retro-future" spaceships that smoked, buzzed, popped and wobbled through the stars!

The tiny figure in some of these photos gives a sense of scale...that little guy is about an inch tall.

Below is my "Villian" ship...it was meant to be dark, oily, and mean. Much of the design was determined by styrofoam packing that I had found. Part of the fun is to be inspired by the shapes of "trash treasures", then run with it.



The next one below is a small craft that didn't quite make a safe landing...lots of burn marks, and melted rocks around it.


The last one is a "Hero" ship...something Flash Gordon would hopefully be proud to fly.


Looking back at these early models today, I see that my craftsmanship had room for improvement. It was fun making the black and white image at the top of this post (composited from photos taken near my home)...feels a little like the old movies. I'll be posting a lot more of these "tabletop" things later...many with photos of the "step-by-step" building process. Stay tuned!
-W