Comicon 2008

The San Diego Comic Con is coming up! Unfortunately I can't attend this year, but I'm making plans to be there in force next year!
If you are planning on going be sure to look for some of my friends and co-workers. Christian Alzmann has a booth this year and will be selling many prints of his work be sure to check it out. Wayne Lo and a few of his co-workers will be selling their new book called Battle Milk at the Lucas Film booth so be sure to stop by and pick one up as well as some others. Derek Thompson will be at the Maverix booth with his new monster annual with 365 new monster sketches. Derek also has a new Gnomon DVD out at the Gnomon School booth.
There will be tons of other great artists there as well as all the cool movie stuff and great books to get, but I'll have to let you enjoy it this year and I'll see you there next year!
Have a good time!
-Alx

My Gnomon talk tank

above the Gnomon final, below a close up of work in progress.






Well, I know I promised this a while ago, but better late than never. Here's the examples I made for my talk at the Gnomon school in LA about making sure the design fits the story, and is not just fluffy Hollywood slick design. So for the talk I made up a sample story in order to establish "the problem". At it's heart that's what design is, problem solving. So in order to design something for a purpose you need to establish 'the problem' and/or design constraints. I'm going to save some of the details for a later offering, but here's the jist of what I came up with. The basic design problem was a tank, that could do nearly 250 miles an hour, go on and off road, carry up to 5 crew and be low enough to fit under underpasses. Armed with some sort of pop-up turret and the ability to smash through road blocks and keep going. So first I started by doing some small sketches and some research to explore some existing tank tech, and find some cool shapes. After a few pages of exploration I weeded out the impractical designs that didn't fit the needs of the story, and combined the ones I did like. Above are some of those sketches and what I had finished at the time of the talk. I've since worked on it a bit more, but I may save that for a later offering...hhmmmmm. :)
OK I hope you enjoy these and Happy 4th of July!
-Think Above and Beyond!
-Alx

Go see THE FALL....now!

WOW, I usually don't recommend films but I can't believe that this film hasn't been widely released! The Fall is an amazing fairy tale that will make you remember the whole point of film making... a beautiful art form in which to tell a tale with drama, humor, sadness and breath taking visuals! Not to mention the most honest acting performances by the 2 lead characters, one of which is a 5 year old girl. I'm confused as to why the movie was rated R, because it's not as violent as many PG-13 movies and it has a beautiful redemptive story line. So go search it out, and try and see it on a big screen if you can. It took nearly 4 years to complete it and was shot in 18 different countries around the world, that's right, no blue screens!
Don't read the so called 'critics' reviews, their inner child must be dead, because this movie has heart and a vivid imagination and is a film lovers film, not a shallow popcorn flick like most films these days. I've seen it twice now, and my wife has seen it three times. It is a joy the second and third time because you get to pick up other details you missed the first time.
Go see it and let me know what you thought!
http://thefallthemovie.com/
check out the clip "I'm touching one" for a little taste!
The Fall Trailer and clips!

10,000 hits!

Thanks for all of you who check this blog every now and then and for all of you who have left comments! The Blog just rolled over the 10,000 hit mark! Nothing to brag about in terms of #'s in comparison to other's sites, but not bad considering not that many people know about it. So please pass it on to your friends and thanks again for stopping by! I'll try and post something soon to celebrate, unfortunately my home computer is down and out right now :( , so please be patient.
Thanks again and keep thinking Above and Beyond!
God Bless
- Alx

Dressed up a sketch

So it's been over a year now since I started this blog. I hope to keep it up longer than I did the now defunct 'Sketch of the Day' I had on my website. But no worries, I am still sketching on a mostly daily basis, and have even had a chance to dress up a few of those sketches into more finished pieces. Like this one from May 6th. I did a series of racers and chose to flesh this one out a bit in color. I started with the original sketch and basically re-drew it with a bit more gesture. And cleaned up the sweeps with the path tool in photoshop. I dipped into Painter X for a second to add some smeary streaks and puddles on the ground and also played with a program called Alchemy to creat a splashy background element. It's never too late to keep learning new programs. I love having another arrow in the quiver.
enjoy and think above and beyond!
-Alx

Ye 'olde Pen Sketches from 1993

Hard to believe these sketches are that old already. These were done for a story I wrote back in college while attending CCS. It took place in Detroit in 2073 where C.Y.C.O. (CYbernetics Co.) was making advanced body modifications which then were used by gangs and so forth. The police had to counter the stronger gangs by mechanizing themselves in these power suits, created by who else.... JaegerTech :) So our hero, Sgt. Kyle Anderson is seen here wearing the JaegerTech bluesuit. Much like the Knight Sabers from Bubblegum Crisis it uses display readouts instead of clear glass visor. Each joint is powered by it's own flat-disc motor and the whole suite is powered by a near perpetual motion JaegerTech frictionless generator the size of a small frisbee. The whole story was going to be made into a comic book series but the company I was going to do it for vanished... It was also the start of me moving away from car design and into more concept design for stories.
Originals are ball point pen on 8.5x11 plain old Kinko's copy paper. Enjoy!

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!