It's an honor to be chosen to be one of the 'class of 2015' to the Academy of Motion Pictures! And last Monday night was a event to toast all the new members, including many actors, directors, producers and even a few of us Visual Effects folks. Fellow ILM'ers David Nakabayashi, Wayne Billhimer and Carry Philips, along with actors Elizabeth Banks and Jason Siegel among others. It was a great evening to hang out and meet the fellow new members as well as the esteemed staff and leaders. I would like to thank the Academy. :)
WIRED just released their newest edition featuring ILM's 40 years of Magic with some great stories from a slew of key people, and even a few quotes from me! Dan Winters did all the photography for the piece and it turned out great! check it out!
The awesome chaps at Platige Images sent me the 3D prints of my robot designs from the ebook 'The Old Axolotl' look closely, they even included my signature! buy the ebook and you can print these too! Now available in English on Amazon. These are 'Startrooper' and 'Al-Asar'. Startrooper is a contemporary industrial robot, inhabited with a human 'download' and Al-Asar is a 1000 years advanced robot with a formless head that displays emotions when needed and is described as if it was made from cinnabar, a translucent red stone...
Here is the 2015 VW e-Golf, an ALL-ELECTRIC VW with LED headlights, 'C' shaped day time running lights, aero alloy wheels EPA rate 116mpge and an average range between 70-95 miles.
Ok, so the car doesn't come like this, but I couldn't help myself, and this time I went beyond photoshop and actually made the custom vinyl myself.
I used my wife's paper crafting cutter to cut out the fender decals out of 3M 1080 Cosmic Blue and Metallic Silver. Created the graphic in illustrator after a rough tape version I made to get the size and angle correct.
I also wrapped the underside of the rear spoiler gloss black like the GTI. Then I had the roof wrapped in gloss black and the mirrors in cosmic blue by VinylStyles in San Carlos.
There is still one more piece to do and that is a cosmic blue stripe just under the door opening to help ground the car a bit. Debating getting the Eibach sport lowering springs to drop it a bit. In addition to these exterior touches I also added the metal pedals and dead pedal, LED bulbs in the rear lights and power folding mirrors.
As far as the experience of switching to an all-electric car after coming from a GTI and R32, I gotta say that it's pretty darn FUN!! Sure it's not as 'sporty' due to the low rolling resistance tires, but the power delivery is quite addictive with 200ftlbs of torque at any point it takes off quicker than a GTI from 0 and since it has no transmission it just keeps pulling without hesitation and even stranger, without much sound. So much so my boys call it "the zippy car"!
Eco wise is very efficient even in it's full power 'normal' mode averaging over 4.2mpkwh on my daily commute and that's without any sort of sacrifice of driving style. So I can whoomp on it and just use the brake regen modes wisely and still get 4+ mpkwh. Yes going uphill drops that pretty quickly, but going down brings it right back up. It also is way more responsive than a Nissan Leaf which to me felt squishy and soft in pedal feel and is plain ugly. The Fiat 500e was also fun, but way too small for our family. The BMW i3 was more powerful and futuristic, but also weird for no reason and $15,000 more for the same range performance.... and kinda ugly too. The e-Golf also offers more modes than all the other EV's out there including a coast mode (D) that's turns off the regen completely, as well as 3 increasing levels (D1, D2, D3) and a 'Brake' mode (B) that is strong enough it makes the brake lights come on as soon as you lift your foot off the accelerator.
In all I gotta say that this will not be my last electric car, in fact it may be the first of a long line of nothing but electric cars in my future. I choose to lease the e-Golf in hopes that Tesla would have their cheaper Model III ready, but I'm not holding my breath at this point since the Model X still has yet to appear and the gigafactory has barely been started.
So for now I must commend VW for such a fun and sensible electric car that ticks all the right boxes and still makes driving a fun event! And I don't miss having to stop at a gas station!!
