Motorcycle Design / Orthographic Turnarounds For 3D Modeling: THE BLACK TEMPLE

Orthographic Turnaround Blueprints Redesign by Arthur Nichols

3D Modeling of The Black Temple Motorcycle

Sometimes a job just turns out amazingly well.  It sure did here, and this is only one small part of an overall huge project!

The Black Temple - a 3D-animated feature film being developed by Cameron Chrichton of Sub Zero Media Productions - is a heavy metal fantasy.  A psychedelic quest of barbarians, she-demons and monsters.  Based loosely on Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf, the aging warrior Seven is introspective & philosophical, yet verging on the brink of insanity.

Cameron is a talented Animation Director & Visual Effects Artist in Melbourne, Australia.  In addition to directing video game cinematics for EA, BioWare, Atari, THQ and Activision, he recently worked on visual effects for the movie Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance.  

Hey, not too many people get to brag about how they got to set Nicolas Cage's head on fire for several months!  This is but one of the many fun visual effects that Cameron did for that film.

As Cameron is developing The Black Temple into a feature film, he's doing it in a way that flies in the face of  how things are usually done.  He's funding the film himself, and through online donations, which is the burgeoning new trend in entertainment funding.  It's going to be a long and difficult journey, but so far it's achieving excellent results!

Cameron hired me to storyboard the entire film, which is a phenomenal undertaking!  An exciting responsibility.  I love the idea of seeing a film completed that I alone would have storyboarded.  As we geared up to get started on the storyboards, we hit a slight snag... 

Here's a good way how to talk yourself out of a paying gig you had right in your hot little hands just a few moments before: 

After Cameron and myself had our first big conversation about how to approach the storytelling, I kept asking questions about how to improve this aspect of the story, and I suggested something for that aspect... and after a while, I had talked myself out of my storyboarding job!  He blames me for postponing the storyboarding aspect of the film, because I apparently helped put better ideas into his head that he had to include into his story.

Geez, I should have kept my mouth shut.  But that's okay!  Cameron told me this is only a temporary delay until the screenplay is rewritten.  In the meantime, he assigned me to work on redesigning, and then drawing up the orthographic turnaround blueprints for The Black Temple's main character's motorcycle.

The process of creating an asset such as a futuristic motorcycle that is used in an apocalyptic fantasy isn't as straightforward as you might think.  As it turns out, there are many hands involved, many 'cooks in the kitchen', as it were.  It's like a creative relay race, one person contributing something and then handing it off to the next person.

Here, I'll take you through the process of how Seven's Chopper was made...

STEP ONE - CONCEPT ART:

Nick Martinelli, a Senior level Art Director/Visual Development Artist who works out of Bangalore, India did these terrific designs.  They set a great visual tone that fits wonderfully into the world of The Black Temple.

Concept Illustration by Nick Martinelli

Concept  Illustration by Nick Martinelli

STEP TWO - ORTHOGRAPHIC TURNAROUNDS BLUEPRINT DESIGNS: 

Mr. Martinelli didn't have time to do orthographic turnarounds of his designs, so they can be made into 3D models, so it was assigned to me.  The task was to take all of the really cool elements of  Nick's designs, and adjust those designs into a practical motorcycle that would function believably within the animated film.

But as it turns out, when you're trying to build a model of a motorcycle in 3D, you find out that a cool design doesn't always result in a 'real world' working vehicle.  We had to make sure everything worked in a practical sense.  For example, if you look at the concept designs, you might realize that one cannot really steer a motorcycle with the steering mechanism welded into the unmovable gas tank.  We realized that even though it's a cool concept to have a 'side-car gas tank' as you see in the design, there was no place for the character who drives the motorcycle to place his right leg.

So, what to do?  We replace the impractical (yet still very cool) elements with more workable parts.  We also had discussions as to the other things that needed to be tweaked.  We did a lot of  adjustments here and there, rearranging things and finding a finished design that would look as real and as convincing as possible.

As we went along, I added the dragon design element and did a lot of research on motorcycle engines and contemporary wheel mechanisms to help give a more practical, believable look to everything.

I completed the orthographic turnarounds for the 3D modeler to build his model, being as detailed as I could.

Here are the orthographic turnarounds I did:   

Orthographic Turnaround Blueprints Redesign by Arthur Nichols

STEP THREE - 3D MODELING:

The orthographic blueprints were sent to Sankalp Chandra, in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India.  With what you see below, Cameron Crichton thought everything was looking cool, but he felt that the motorcycle was looking too much like an action figure toy.  He wanted a final product that had as much realism as possible.

3D Model by Sankalp Chandra

3D Model by Sankalp Chandra

STEP FOUR - FINAL MODEL TEXTURING:

The final model had the pipes placed in the back, the dragon shell was removed, and some other things were arranged and adjusted for ergonomic reasons.  Treads were added to the tires to round out the overall character of the bike, and the final texturing is simply terrific.  

3D Model by Sankalp Chandra

Changes like this happens with every job.  This is the process.  It's worth all the back-and-forth frustrations when you end up with results like this! 

Character Design / Orthographic Turnarounds For 3D Modeling: THE BOOK OF ESTHER 3D-Animated Feature

Oh well, nice try...

Greengrass Studios contacted me one day, telling me they had a shot at becoming the primary production company for a 3D-animated feature film based upon The Book Of Esther.  They felt very good about their chances, so they hired me to produce a character design for the main character of Esther.

I had literally a day to come up with the character design, and then to produce a color presentation piece, which you see above.  The Greengrass guys were very pleased with what I did.  I offered to do a set of orthographic turnarounds to show what the 3D model would look like (see below), which I completed soon after.

As with many of these pitches, nothing happened.  In this case, apparently the people who owned the rights to this particular adaptation just couldn't ultimately come up with the capital to get the project off the ground.  We all waited and waited, and there were adjustments here and there to scheduling and budget in hopes of wedging all the elements into the right place at the right time, but to no avail.

These things happen.  You just have to do your best, and hope that all the stars and the moons align properly to allow the project to become real.  When it doesn't, you get a good night's sleep, and move on to the next 18 projects you're working toward.

If it had become a 'go' project, that would have taken me out of the freelance arena for at least six months.  That would have been nice.  The goal of any long-term freelancer is to land those bigger and more permanent jobs.

Hey, regular paychecks are a good thing!

Previs / Prop Design / Orthographic Turnarounds For 3D Modeling: BOZ THE GREEN BEAR NEXT DOOR DVDs

While working at Reel FX Creative Studios, I did storyboards, character design & prop design for BOZ, The Green Bear Next Door for Exclaim! Entertainment, who specializes in the creation, production, and distribution of character-based children's properties.  My prop designs were used in all the Boz DVDs; Thank You God For Colors And Shapes, Adventures in Imagination, Thank You God for B-O-Zs and 1-2-3s, A WowieBOZowee Christmas, Thank You God For Bananas Bubbles And Busy Bodies, and Thank You God For Friends And Helpers.

I'll talk about my storyboarding & character design experience in another post.  My prop designs for Boz were the first time I had been given a direct lesson in how to cater the designs to a preschool-level aesthetic.  Reel FX's spectacular production designer Robert St. Pierre was creating the most beautiful previsualization for the 3D modelers to work from.  While he was doing this, he needed someone to do some prop designs, so I was assigned.

What I learned about doing prop design for children's animation, is that not everything has to be perfectly symmetrical, or realistic-looking.  In fact, it's desirable if you take a recognizable shape, and kind of 'goof' it up a bit & play with the standard design so as to give the object a bit more of a 'cartoony' character that would fit into the 3D-cartoony world of Boz quite well.

Softer edges on things to make them look less harsh, sometimes simplifying what would otherwise be something with a bit more sophistication... it was a matter of making sure there weren't any harsh contrasts that would stand out like a sore thumb.

Conversely, if the overall style were to have been sharply-cornered like Dexter's Laboratory, then any props would need to be attuned to that standard.  It's just a matter of making sure things are consistent looking throughout the design of the whole show, whatever show you happen to be working on at the time.

Robert St. Pierre is a very good teacher.  He has such a brilliant mind, and you can see it in his work.  After I completed this assignment, I knew I was so much better in my work than I was before.

Previs Concept / Character Design: DREAMWORKS PICTURES - SMALL SOLDIERS

A while back in my life, I got a call out of the blue from the toy company Hasbro.  I was told that someone had recommended me to do some concept work for some kind of movie, which was a nice surprise.  I wasn't told much about the project because Hasbro wanted to be as secretive as possible.  I didn't even see a script or story outline.  I was just told that there were some monsters and a lead character that had to fight these monsters.  Oh, and the characters were toy action figures.  Living action figures.  

The person (whose name I cannot remember) told me that Hasbro was trying to explore various approaches to the characters they were assigning me to work on.  "Go wild", I remember hearing.  I was clued into the notion that the characters were soldiers of some sort.

This was a helpful hint, as the project it turns out I was working on was Dreamworks Studio's movie Small Soldiers.

I did a number of sketches of various kinds of characters, none of which were being received so well.  I kept hearing comments about how things were generally "not what we're looking for".  This was frustrating, as I wasn't getting a whole lot of direction.  The development team at Hasbro literally was in the initial phase of exploration, and they quite literally didn't know what they were looking for until they saw it.

I ended up taking one of the scribbly sketches that were faxed to me, and I concentrated on developing that.  I went with a more futuristic soldier theme, and added some tech to his body armor.  I basically started designing what I hoped would be a cool-looking action figure that I would have liked to play with when I was a kid.  Okay, or even then at my age...

I had sent this one in, and I got a huge reaction out of it!  I was told that this design (the first one posted above) captured the essence of what this character was all about.  I was very happy I had achieved this for my clients, and was looking forward to doing more design work.

A few years later when I was working on GI Joe: Spytroops at Reel FX Creative Studios, there was a huge initial project meeting where bigwigs from Hasbro flew down to Dallas from Rhode Island, along with original & longtime GI Joe scribe Larry Hama (who gave me my first mainstream comic book assignment while editor at Marvel Comics) who flew in from New York City.

I sat in on the meetings for the whole day, and when there was a lunch break, I walked up to Steve Drucker, (Vice President of IP Development at Hasbro) and introduced myself.  I asked him if he was involved with developing Small Soldiers, and he said he was.  I showed him the illustration designs I did for the movie.  His face lit up with a smile and he said, "Wow, it's really nice to meet you!"  He told me how my soldier design was pivotal to the development to the lead toy character (voiced by Tommy Lee Jones).

I was stoked!  It's really great to hear that kind of stuff being said about my work from someone like that.  I had a great time working for and with Steve Drucker on GI Joe: Spytroops, and GI Joe: Valor vs. Venom.  Steve is one of those people that if you're able to be around him for even a short time, you learn a lot from him about how things work in the toy & film industries.  It doesn't hurt that he's a very nice person, too.

Unfortunately, after I had done the soldier design that got such a great reaction, I was assigned to work on the monster characters.  After what I had designed (in the second picture posted above), they again said things like it was "not what we're looking for".

But abruptly, my assignment ended.  Just like that.  No explanation.  I was told this happens a lot, and since then I've discovered that it truly does.  Just one of the really annoying aspects of this kind of business. 

It was a very short and wild ride.  But at least I was able to get confirmation that my soldier design had a significant effect on the development of the lead toy character.

Previsualization / Concept Art / Environment Design / Comic Book Pencil Art: FUTURISTIC CITY

In this post and this post also, I wrote about illustrating samples for a supposed video game company that ultimately expected the work I did to be done on 'spec'.  This is the last of the designs I had done to try to get the job that turned out not to be the kind of job you get paid for.

At the time of the job posting I saw, I didn't have anything formal in my portfolio that would serve to demonstrate my abilities for designing environments.  So when I saw this ad, I illustrated these pieces as fast as I could, but I was afraid I had taken too long and missed any opportunity for this 'job'.  I contacted this 'client' to let him know I was completing things for him, and I then sent him what I had already done.

In the description of this 'job' ad, the 'client' was looking for a futuristic city to be designed, along with roller coasters and an armored warrior woman.  I had continued my theme of placing all of these designs in the form of a comic book page (or in this case, a double-page spread).  

After I sent the initial pieces I finished, that is when I got a very positive reaction from the 'client' who asked me to send the piece you see above, even though it wasn't finished.  When I sent this to him, the 'client' slathered me with compliments, and told me all about his project, and then that's when he told me he wanted me to work for 'back-end' pay.

It's such a sucker-punch when you do all the hard work you can to get a job, only to get the carpet yanked out from under you.  It's an education on what is real, and when you should develop a sense of when it isn't.

One day, I'm going to carve out time and take this piece to finish.  I'd love to see how the roller coasters will turn out.

Previsualization / Environment Background Design: WOLVERINE and the X-MEN

Above are some of the background designs I did for the Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon series for Marvel Animation, Toonz Entertainment & Noxxon Entertainment Inc.

I illustrated these designs for producer Susan Norkin at Kickstart Productions.  As Head of Production, Susan has overseen all aspects of production since the founding of Kickstart. She recently produced the animated series, Finley the Fire for Hallmark Entertainment, and animated pilot The Amazing Scew-On Head for Sci Fi Channel.  She was an Associate Producer on the Emmy-award winning Babylon 5, it's spin-off Crusade and Hypernauts.   She was the supervising producer on the 3D animated series Voltron: The Third Dimension, Max Steel and Dan Dare.

I try to only work for the best, you know.

When I had started working on these Wolverine backgrounds, I had been used to working at a more generous pace for other clients.  It took some getting used to for the more fast-paced scheduling required for such a tightly structured cartoon series.

I feel I did a good job with the quality, but I do look forward for the next time when I can keep that same quality at a faster pace.

Previsualization / Concept Art / Environment Design / Comic Book Pencil Art: DOME CITY

I was scouring through ads looking for work back in 2002, and came upon an ad looking for a Concept Designer.  In this ad, it specifically asked for designs for a number of things, including a domed city in a desert.  I spent several days working on these various environment concept designs, and sent them out to this company.

I got a call back from the person in charge, who told me how much he really liked what I did, and would absolutely want me as a part of the development team for whatever video game that was being produced at that time.

One catch: all my work was going to have to be on 'spec', and I would be paid on the 'back end'.  To be clear, when someone asks you about this, this PLAINLY means that they want you to work for FREE.

They have no money to pay anyone.  More likely they have money, but they just want free work from you so they can lay claim to ownership of the designs you did (because you "worked" for them on their project).  They also have no business model with which they can demonstrate to you that if you do the concept design work for them, once they sell 'X'-amount of units of said product, you would then get 'X'-amount of dollars for it.

These are hard lessons to learn...

Previsualization / Environment Design: Kurt Busiek's ASTRO CITY

When Kurt Busiek started his Astro City comic book series, he asked me to do an illustration that would be the background for his 'letters pages'.  What was suggested as a spot illustration on the top of the first page, turned out to be my suggested 4-page spread illustration, muted down in tone to lay underneath the printed letters and information at the end of each issue.

Essentially, I was the first to be able to establish the actual full look of Astro City.  Just a baseline design from which to springboard to the absolutely amazing work Brent Anderson has done over the years, illustrating this incredible comic book series.

Kurt sent me (at that time, I think it was by fax... you know, back in the 'olden' days) a drawing of a map, delineating the various sections of Astro City.  I did 2 passes on it, the first one being the rough concept sketch posted below the Astro City logo, above.  The second was the design you see at the top of this post, which Kurt liked because it looked as if you the reader might be flying above it.

The only Absolute Requirement was to have the Atom symbol atop the tallest building in Astro City be in the very spot that would follow the logo atop the first page of this 4-page letters section of the comic book.

The final piece was penciled & inked, approximately 18" x 47" on a single board.  This being the first ever previs concept design I had done, it was a daunting challenge.  Since I had never worked on something so large before, this piece took me a full month to do, what seemed to be forever and a day to complete.  It didn't help that I really pushed my job up to (and a bit beyond) the deadline, which frustrated everyone.  Especially myself.

With years more experience, I'm definitely a lot more efficient than I used to be.  However, this piece felt like it almost did me in.

Orthographic Turnarounds For 3D Modeling: WILLIAM JOYCE'S DINOSAUR BOB

Sometimes you get to be near giants.  You either get to work with them, work for them, or just witness them as they walk past you as you stand there in awe of them.

William Joyce is one of those people.  As I paraphrase and lift directly from wikipedia, I can tell you he's written and illustrated so many wonderful books like George Shrinks, Santa Calls, Dinosaur Bob and his Adventures with the Family Lazardo, and Rolie Polie Olie. 

He did conceptual characters for Pixar's Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Robots (for which he was both producer and production designer).  He's currently working with Blue Sky Studios on a feature based on his award winning book, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs.  Joyce is writer, producer and production designer on the film.

In 2007, Disney released Meet the Robinsons, a movie based on his book A Day with Wilbur Robinson, and he designed the opening title sequence for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.  He is currently in agreement with DreamWorks Animation to provide the source material for a 2012 film called The Guardians of Childhood, based on an upcoming series of picture books.

Joyce is also currently co-founding a Shreveport, LA animation and visual effects studio with Reel FX Creative Studios co-founder, Brandon Oldenburg, called MOONBOT Studios.

When I was working at Reel FX, I got the opportunity to produce thorough orthographic turnarounds of Joyce's character Dinosaur Bob for 3D modeling.  Reel FX and William Joyce had been in a long-standing collaboration to develop entertainment properties.  Tests were being made for how Dinosaur Bob would look in 3D.  I was asked to not only do turnarounds of the exterior of the character, but to literally build him from within.  So I did passes on his exterior, the muscles that overlaid the bones, and then the bones themselves.  

I purposely drew these turnarounds with lines, and not graytones, because the specific directions of the linework gave the 3D modeler Ramahan Faulk precise direction on the dimensions of the character's face & features.  Brandon Oldenburg was originally worried that I wasn't working in a 'painterly' fashion in my orthographic turnarounds, but Ramahan told Brandon that those lines gave him exactly what he needed to build an accurate 3D model, because my linework was a great guide for his 3D sculpting.  The direction of the linework demonstrated very well the shape and contour of the character.

If I were given more time, I would have done some gray-tone modeling in Photoshop.

Before I began all the under-layers, I did a front-and-side pass on the exterior as accurately as I could, which was then sent to William Joyce for approval.  He sent back his size and proportion correction notes on top of what I had drawn, which allowed me to proceed to the finished pieces.

One day I'll tell you about how I got to storyboard an animated short film for William Joyce called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, which is currently being completed over at MOONBOT Studios in Louisiana.

I may never rise to the giant level of William Joyce.  But I got to stand near him several times, which has made me a whole lot better at what I do.  I'm just happy he didn't step on me... =P

Previsualization / Concept Art / Environment Design: HASBRO GI JOE Commercial Ad

My very first job at Reel FX Creative Studios was to work on the second all CG-animated one-minute GI JOE.com website commercial.

The opening shot of this commercial was of a destroyed Cobra base of operations.  I was asked to come up with a design, which I turned in the next day.  In that design, I augmented the pencils with graytones from markers.

I went right on to storyboarding the commercial.  Several days later, I was shown the opening shot.  It was awesome!  Creative Director Brandon Oldenburg took my Cobra base drawing, did a color treatment in Photoshop of it, then had it pasted on stock footage of a mountaintop pan shot with smoke billowing out of it!

It was only a 3 second shot, but it was simply amazing to see how things get put together.

Concept Art / Previsualization: CREATURE DESIGN

I'm always in the middle of some sort of 'pitch', doing character designs for film or animation projects, designing various things for people in the hopes that something gets picked up along the way, becoming an actual 'live' project.  When that happens, then we've literally created work for ourselves.

This pitch is a good example.  Francisco Castro, a talented writer and good friend of Reel FX Creative Studios Creative Director Kevin Althans, wrote a horror movie screenplay called Desolate.  That screenplay was optioned by the Stan Winston Studio!  Very exciting!  I and others were asked if we all were interested in taking a go at designing the creatures for this movie project, in hopes that these visualizations would somehow jump-start the entertainment company's desire to place his screenplay at the top of the 'active' pile.

What you see above is my contribution to the effort.

As with many of these pitches, this one didn't go anywhere.  But it sure was fun to work on!

Penciled, then scanned & colored (with other tonalities) done in Photoshop.

Character Design / Orthographic Turnarounds For 3D Modeling: BLUE STOP ARTHRITIS OINTMENT

Working for Green Grass Studios, I was called upon to design a mascot character for Blue Stop arthritis pain relief ointment.

After a whole lot of variations on the design, we settled on this one.  The big boots were used from a previous design version I did.  I did the orthographic turnarounds, and I think the 3D modeling results turned out pretty darned well.  I'm guessing they left the mustache & goatee off his face, as he maybe looked too much like Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies.

Penciled, then scanned and colored in Photoshop.

Previsualization / Concept Art / Environment Design: ALIENS COLONIAL MARINES Video Game

Every so often you pitch for a project, and nothing happens.  That's the way it works sometimes.

Brandon Oldenburg from Reel FX Creative Studios asked me to work on a pitch for a job doing environment designs for what I was told to be the Aliens: Colonial Marines video game.  It would have been a nice job to get, to develop all the elements and assets of a complete video game.

I worked up several environment designs in pencil, one of which I finished in ink.  What a great job this would have been, if we had been awarded it.  But alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Oh, well.  On to the next pitch!