VW SCIROCCO

OK, so most people who know me know I'm a VW freak, so when VW announces a new car like the just released Scirocco, I'm all over it. Now the first thing that needs to be said is that this new VW WILL NOT be sold in North America....GGRRRRR!!! That's doesn't mean that it won't ever, but many of us die hard VW fans are hoping for an even better one by the time it hits our shores. So even though the photos have only been out for a day or 2, I had to take a stab at making the US Spec version :P
So at first look I thought, Cool!, Not bad. Then I thought, hmm those head lights are too BMW-ish and the center is oddly long.
But overall decent. So my first attempt was to do what Audi did with the R8, and try and kill the odd length in the center by visually breaking it up with an off-color 'side blade'. And the usual bigger rims and lower stance. I also mildly changed the blend to the taillights.


Then I decided I might as well go all the way to a redesign, so I looked at some old Scirocco and Corrado's and then got to work on slopping the back, flaring the fenders, deepening the side sculpt, reshape the rear, and redo the front for a more aggressive retro muscle car look. Below is the result. I'm pretty happy with it. And I've recieved some good reactions on VWVortex too :).
hopefully we'll see something like this here in the next year or two....let me know what you think!

Bitter Sweet Oscar's 2008

Well, the good news is I was invited to the Oscar's this year to support our nominated Transformers VFX crew, Scott Farrar, Scott Benza and Russel Earl, the bad news of course is that we didn't win. Much to our and seeming every one's shock! I think even including the crew of the Golden Compass wich took home the gold this year for "Best Visual Effects". Many have chalked it up to the Mr. Bay boycott, the ILM snub or just that there were more big name actors in 'Compass... Anyway, congrats to all parties.
Before the awards was the most fun anyway, getting all dressed up, getting in the limo and walking the red carpet. It was all very surreal to be there and have bleachers on either side of the road and the carpet full of people taking pictures. Then there was the "oh look there's Dennis Hopper, pardon me Cameron Dias, oh hi Jason Bateman etc...' yeah... that was fun/weird.
The bomb was dropped 4 awards into the show that The Golden Compass won over Transformers and Pirates 3, and I think everyone who had anything to do with Transformers was so in shock or upset that most of them left the theater and never came back in. I went back in and watched the rest of the show, well because I was there! ;-P
Pictures to come Soon!
Anyway, back to regular life.
I've been sketching a bit more these days with the old school pen and paper, as well as a few in the box sketches too. I'll be posting some of those soon.
enjoy
-Alx

VES ruled by Robots!

The 2008 6th annual VES (Visual Effects Society) Awards were Sunday night Feb 10th. The VES honors mixed media from Film to broadcast TV to Video Games, and is made up of outstanding professionals in those fields. So it was an honor that I was included in the nomination for Best Models and Miniatures in a motion Picture for Transformers, along with fellow ILMer's David Fogler, Ron Woodall and Kerner Optical's Brian Gernand. Transformers won nearly every catagory it was nominated for including Best Visual Effects in a Visual Effects-Driven Motion Picture.
It was a fun evening where we found ourselves sitting at a table between Steven Spielberg and Brad Bird, and dozens of other VFX legends like Douglas Trumble, Ken Ralston, Denis Muren, John Knoll and Lorne Peterson. Even Michael Bay was there to cheer us on as well as Megan Fox(Transformers), Patton Oswalt(Ratatouille) countless others. Steven was there to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award from the VES and did so with a grateful heart.
In the end ILM walked away with 25 statues in 6 catagories!

Transformers:

Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Motion Picture:
Scott Farrar, Shari Hanson, Russell Earl, Scott Benza

Best Single Visual Effect of the Year (Desert Highway Sequence): Scott
Farrar, Shari Hanson, Shawn Kelly, Michael Jamieson

Outstanding Models or Miniatures in a Motion Picture: Dave Fogler, Ron
Woodall, Alex Jaeger, Brian Gernand

Outstanding Compositing in a Motion Picture: Pat Tubach, Beth D'Amato,
Todd Vaziri, Mike Conte


Another ILM project that took home a few statues:
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End:

Outstanding Animated Character in a Live Action Motion Picture (Davy
Jones): Hal Hickel, Marc Chu, Jakub Pistecky, Maia Kayser

Outstanding Created Environment in a Live Action Motion Picture: Frank
Losasso Petterson, Paul Sharpe, Joakim Arnesson, David Meny


Congrats to all! And all the hard working dedicated crews at ILM! Whoo hooo!

Merry Christmas 2007

Merry Christmas everyone!
I hope everyone has a fun and safe holiday with friends and family.
And have a happy and wonderful new year!

Gnomon Workshop Live

Just got back from an exciting weekend in LA where myself and several other working professionals spoke to both students and professionals alike in a series of demos and lectures. Mine specifically focused on the topic of making sure your design, whatever it may be, services the story, and is believable within that context. I also stressed the importance of thinking through your design from all angles and creating orthographic views and creating reference and material sheets to pass on with the design to the next phase of production artists.
It seemed to go well, and I believe that this is something that is lacking in many of today's film designs. Everything is getting too "hey look at me!" for the sake of design, and not believable within the context of the story. I hope those that were there were able to take away a bit of knowledge about this topic and will implement the points I discussed in there future projects.
It was also nice to meet many of the people there, some were still students, some were working professionals there to glean a bit more insight into how others work. I even met a few CCS alumni and local Bay Area folks as well.
I enjoyed seeing the talks by the other speakers and got to see how talented they are as well. It was an honor to get to meet them and put some faces to the names. If you were one of the people who were able to be there, thanks for coming and listening to me, I hope you were able to learn a bit more as to what makes good design and how you can apply it in your own job or project! And special thanks to Travis and Alex and all the Gnomon crew!
Think above and beyond!
-Alx

Slipstream

Hey there, wow, it's November already!? Well, here's piece I did recently that started out as a doodle. Basically a retro inspired streamlined racer. I love those old open top racecars and the graphics in that era. All 'in the box' and straight to to you. I hope you enjoy it!
-Alx

American Le Mans!

Just thought I'd share some photos I took last weekend at Laguna Seca at the American Le Mans Series races. It was an ear pounding blast! The race was exciting with the Penske Porsche Team going head to head with the Champion Audi team from start to finish. Although I have to say that even though the Porsche kept it exciting, the Audi clearly dominated the race. The V10 Turbo Diesel Audi was both insanely fast and incredibly quiet! While all the other cars roared by rattling every fiber of your being, the Audi would whoosh by almost sounding like a high power electric car. It would start at the head of the main straight in 4th or 5th place and halfway down it had passed every car and was several lengths in front by the first turn, incredible!
There were a host of other notable cars present including 2 Audi R8's and even the new S5 sedan. Several Porsche GTS R's and about 100 Ferrari's. The race went from 3:30 until 7 or so in the evening, so the last dozen laps were in the dark making for a dramatic finish. The results were obvious though, the Champion Audi V10 TDI's came in 1st and 3rd with the Porsche's 2nd and 4th.
Hope you enjoy the pics, I know I enjoyed the race! :-)

See you in LA

Well I mentioned that I'd have some news to report soon and here it is. I'll be speaking at the Gnomon School for Design in LA on December 1st! I'll be joining a host of other great artists from film and games. Check out the event page to see more info. I'll be talking about the need to make designs that work, or at least look like they work, and how that effects the outcome of the final product no matter what medium it ends up in.
That's all, hope to see you there!
-Alx

hot off the wacom...

Here's the final versions of the sneak peek I gave in the last post. They are mainly just 2 designs, but I thought I'd do a rally version of the one since when I designed it I had that in mind. So these both started out as ball point pen sketchs, but the line work from the pen is not really visible in these. The original sketch was no more then 3 inches across for each.
Hope you enjoy these as much as I enjoyed drawing them. I just finished them an hour ago and thought I'd just post 'em up!
Enjoy!
-Alx

Over 5000 views!

Wow, thanks everyone for stopping by the site, since March of this year this site was looked at over 5000 times! whoo hoo! I'm sure that's no big deal to some, and I'm sure it's nothing to brag about, but I just noticed it on the counter and figured I'd mention it to start out today's blurb. So thanks everyone!
OK, well I can't believe it's fall already and this month is almost gone! We started up our local church college group this past friday and there were plenty of eager new faces ready to learn more about Genesis which is our focus this year.
Other than that there's no real news to report, just working away and still drawing! I'll have more to announce at the start of next month, but for now I'll just post a sneak at some recent sketches I've working on here and there.... and yes... more cars:-)