May the Fourth be with you: Smurf Wars

It's officially Star Wars Day, and as much as I have to get done for a shoot this weekend, I couldn't help but steal a few hours to finish up part of one of my personal projects to celebrate.

People always ask me what I do when I'm not making stuff. The answer is simple: I make more stuff! But instead of designing for film or commercial product, I entertain myself in the wee hours of the night by creating product-like things that I wish really existed. This blog will introduce you to a prime example of that work.

In the mid 90's, Lucasfilm commissioned me to design and create a logo and a few limited edition collectibles for the first Star Wars Weekend. I was so excited to do the job, and even more excited that they gave me free reign as to what the items could be. The end result seemed like a no-brainer to me: Disney characters portraying the roles of Star Wars heroes and Villains. I created a logo with Mickey Skywalker and Princess Minnie, and a sculpture of Mickey, as Luke, and R2D2. It's one of my favorite pieces to this day. I had always intended to start this blog with a photo of it, but since I decided last minute that today would finally be the day I expose my secret Star Wars project, I couldn't find any! I'll dig some up for next time.

Are you wondering why you never saw my Star Wars weekend Disney items? Lucasfilm decided at the time that they could not "cross-pollinate" their characters with other brands. Donald Duck could be in a piece of art with Darth Vader, but he couldn't BE Darth Vader. So my designs were shelved for all eternity.

I was shocked, years later, to see a flood of different brands becoming the inhabitance of the Star Wars universe! Disney, Muppets, even Mr. Potato Head is a bounty hunter these days!

It bummed me out at first, but being the Star Wars geek I am, I couldn't help but love that all my favorite worlds were melding into one, even if someone else got to do it. That small joy turned to new inspiration when I realized that there was still one aspect of my childhood that had yet to be assimilated into the worlds of Star Wars: the Smurfs!

Photo 1: I've been working on this project after hours between deadlines and I have about 25-30 Star Wars Smurfs almost complete. My goal is to create a Smurf counterpart to each of the original 96 3-3/4" Kenner figures. It may take a while! But to kick things off, in honor of May the Fourth be with You, I want to show a few of my favorites that are finished.

Photo 2: Everybody's favorite scruffy lookin' Smurf herder, Smurf Solo!

Photo 3: I tried to capture the classic pose from A New Hope, as Han, er, Smurf Solo covers Luke and the gang by blasting troopers as they make their way to the Falcon.

Photo 4: These Smurfs are actual scale to real Smurfs, and although they are from scratch, I used my extensive Smurf collection to make sure I matched anatomy and expressions.

Photo 5: And I used my Star Wars figure collection as reference to match all the details. (Yes, I am still 8 years old inside my head!) These Smurfs will probably have a closer resemblance to the action figures than real movie props and characters.

Photo 6: And of course, where would Smurf Solo be without his trusty co-pilot, Smurfbacca!?!

Photo 7: Smurfbacca is technically 6 apples high!

Photo 8: Alright, you got me! The bowcaster is based on the movie prop. Even as a kid, I couldn't figure out why they couldn't make the action figure accessory more accurate...

Photo 9: The biggest question I have is where to draw the line between the Star Wars and Smurf universes? And Smurf rules don't help with the design process, either! One minute they have a skateboard made from a leaf, and the next they are driving a red racing car! I guess I'm safe with picking and choosing the details I like best and leaving at that.

Photo 10: I will post more pix as I finish new batches, but since its a holiday and all, here is a sneak peek at what else is in the works. Tusken Smurf? Smurf Raider? Still working on that one...

Photo 11: The Smurf Wars saga would not be complete without the wise mentor to guide young Jedi Smurfs. And who better to assume the role of Obi Smurf Kenobi than Papa Smurf himself.

Photo 12: Always balance in the force there is! For every hero, there is a villain. And there is no more feared shadow of darkness in the forest universe than Smurf Vader!

Well I hope you had a happy fourth! May your day have been filled with trilogy marathoning and ebay hunting! And I hope you enjoyed my Star Wars Smurfs. There are plenty more coming! Let me know what you think below!

Tempest Freerunning Academy

If you spend half as much time daydreaming as I do, then without a doubt at some point the thought, "What if Spiderman were real?" has crossed your mind. Imagine being able to climb buildings and jump from streetlight to streetlight without utility belts or grappling hooks. To be able to sail through the air and land on your feet like a cat, ready to spring into your next move...

Well, through the science of human persistence, and the art of extreme sport, there is such a way to do all of those super human things! It's called Parkour, a mix of martial arts and gymnastics, designed to allow a person to move fluidly through rural structures. Defined as the art of "finding your own way", a freerunner can get from one point to another without ever stopping, no matter what obstacles are in the way.

The concept of being able to run and duck and leap over anything instantly makes me think of Mario. If only there was a real place that a plumber could practice his moves to improve his chances at rescuing the princess...

And, of course, there is! Check out this video to see some amazing moves. Even better, sign up for classes at the Tempest Freerunning Academy and learn how to be your own Peter Parker!

So why did I post this awesome video on my blog? Can I hurl my body off a suspended pipe and pull myself over a 15 foot wall? Not on my life! But I can paint 8-bit bricks like nobody's business! Many of Team Tempest are also stuntmen, and I've worked with them on various projects. They came up with the idea of painting their 7,000 square feet of freerunning course to look like different environments, so they called me in to do the job.

Photo 1: The "beginner's course" has a series of low level walls and hurdles, and its the first thing you see when entering the facility. The team wanted something that would really pop, and also appeal to the younger audience of future freerunners they are targeting to train. So they came up with the concept of painting it like Mario's world. We started with this image. A more fitting scheme if ever I saw one.

Photo 2: At the back of the gym, they wanted something urban and contrasty to the bright, cartoon like Super Mario course. One of their reference images was this building designed by David Bell. It is both clean and gritty at the same time. Greyscale and colorful combined. So we based the back tower on this.

Photo 3: The entire course was designed by famed X-gamer Nate Wessel. It was constructed out of solid woods, and I found it like this, raw white primer.

Photo 4: Being that each section WAS an obstacle course, there were no wide open walls. Every few feet, there was a step, a ramp, a tower, or a pit. Every wall had 4 surfaces, so there was a lot of painting to be done.

Photo 5: I had to attempt a little freerunning myself, as the small spaces, multiple tiers, and sloped walls made it hard to get stepladders or apple-boxes anywhere that they could be effective.

Photo 6: The first step was to mark off all of the basic color levels. The idea was that everything you could touch would be a solid object, so there was not going to be any sky painted, or murals of floating coins. I was basically laying out the entire course as ground, brick, pipe, and question mark boxes.

It was harder to do than I though, since all of the construction was done to purposely not have any two surfaces on the same plain. It made it very difficult to execute a clean 8-bit look, as all of those lines should stay level at exact increments. Even harder was reaching all the places those lines had to go!

Photo 7: The next step was to put all the base colors on. This actually took a few days in Mario land. I wanted the colors to be solid and even, so it took multiple coats. And since it was all dark colors, we had to be very careful not to overlap designated areas, or the next color applied would take even more coats.

Photo 8: I used high grade exterior deep base paint so the color would hold, and it would last against a thousand pairs of rubber soles clamoring over it. My original plan was to tape everything off, but it turns out that a key component to the construction was to use a rough surfaced wood to allow for more grip. Inevitably, paint would leak into the rough grain and I would end up with a messier line than I would free handing it, so I went with the latter.

Photo 9: The trick with painting a freerunning course is that these guys climb EVERYWHERE, so every surface will be seen. For us that meant climbing over and under every part of the gym to make sure the paint scheme followed through. Here, Red 5 bases out the tops of coin boxes.

Photo 10: I made a few foamcore templates to help speed up the line work after all the colors were based out. I did a light pencil tracing, then Marissa followed through with a ruler, triangle, and sharpie. She made sure everything was straight, and the final black sharpie line made painting all the black more "coloring book" for me.

I do a lot of painting, but rarely so much detail on a standing structure. I was amazed at how much time we spent either flat on the floor, or hanging way up high on this project!

Photo 11: And the painting of black lines commences! You can see from this photo how much they pull everything together, though.

Photo 12: There was just a lot of them...

Photo 13: I took this photo with my phone right before cleaning the brushes. It has no rhyme or reason for being in this blog, I just thought it was a cool photo from the project!

Photo 14: I added a few highlights to the pipes, and Mario land was finished. Team Tempest was excited to get it done. So much so, that as I was putting on the final touches, people were flying over my head, jumping from wall to wall!

Photo 15: Here's a bird's eye view of the first course at the Tempest Freerunning Academy.

Photo 16: So, then it was on to the back tower. This section, too, had multiple tiers, and a sheer drop that landed in a foam pit.

Photo 17: The first step here was also to mark off the color levels, but unlike Mario Land, the math didn't need to be so specific. I chose the layered heights at random, varying from thick to thin and back again.

Despite the fact that these walls also had rough wood, I was able to tape off the colored squares because the more organic nature of the final look allowed for some bleeding between colors. This made painting this section much faster!

Photo 18: After all the squares were painted in a random patchwork of gray scale, a thin black wash was painted over everything, then wiped down to tie it all together. The very top 6 inches were painted bright red, both to add color and to serve as a warning that that level of the gym was off limits!

Photo 19: The finished back course. This is the highest structure at the academy. It houses steep ramps and a vertical tunnel filled with wide spread hand grips.

So, I may never be able to do any of the amazing things that Spiderman can do, but hopefully my artistic contribution to the Tempest Freerunning Academy will inspire you to train with them and give the web-crawler a run for his money yourself!

Adventures in Dinosaur City

While pulling out some reference for an alien paint job I need to do tonite, I came across these photos of an old project I thought you might remember...

Adventures in Dinosaur City was a low-budget indie produced by the same company that did the first feature I ever worked on, Spaced Invaders. Disney also bought ADC, most likely because of the Spaced Invaders theatrical success, but Adventures never hit the big screen. Instead, it premiered on a fledgling cable network called "The Disney Channel". Perhaps it was the lack of content available at the time, but ADC went on to be one of the highest rated DC shows for over a decade.

I got the call to design the Dinosaur characters the summer of '89, and had only gotten about 7 or 8 films under my belt since the first time I had worked with the producers. The project was surprisingly way more ambitious than Spaced Invaders, which was a pretty massive undertaking in itself. There were 6 main dinosaurs, all requiring animatronic heads AND multiple stunt doubles, and then a cast of dino extras.

Photo 1: Rex was the leader of the Dino rebels.

Photo 2: Mr. Bigg was the evil Dinosaur who was trying to take over Dinosaur City. I wonder if he is related to the Mr. Big from Sex in the City. That would be weird...

Photo 3: The rebels had a small "pet" dino called Forry. I believe he was a rhamphorhynchus. Sounds like another Sex in the City joke.. That's actress Tiffanie Poston holding the fully animatronic version of Forry.

Photo 4: My original designs for the Dinosaurs where very different than the final product. My initial reaction to the script was to make them more like teenagers, with a kind of "Grease" feel. I wish I knew Doug Jones back then, cause he would have portrayed an amazing version of this Rex. The dinosaurs ultimately became bulkier and older looking (I would use the words "more realistic" if I thought that could even apply to upright talking dinosaurs) but my maquettes still found a use...


Photo 5: The producers had me cast hundreds of them, and they were sent out as promo pieces.


Photo 6: Rex had a father, and these are the pictures I was shifting through for paint reference. I use a lot of "ring pattern" in my creature painting these days, but I used to use a lot of spot patterning. The thought crossed my mind of trying to go back to some of that for my current alien project.


Photo 7: The hardest part of using a spot pattern is that you have to match it exactly when you have multiple skins, changes of appliances, or stunt heads!

Photo 8: The advantage to doing wilder patterns is that you can use the same sculpture multiple times, but make it look like a completely different character with paint.

Photo 9: I use rubber cement to paint my latex skins. It stays flexible when they move, and it allows for a translucent, organic look. A lot of fx shops use silicone for skin these days, so the whole surface is translucent, but a good layer of rubber cement on foam latex will still give you an effective look on camera without all the extra processes required for silicone.

Photo 10: The rubber cement is colored with Tint All, which you can buy at a professional house paint supply store. The more tint you use, the more opaque the paint. You can see the difference between these two gators, the top being heavily tinted, the brown one below slightly more translucent between layers.

Photo 11: After the rubber cement base is tinted to the proper color, it is cut with Bestine thinner so it will pass through an airbrush. Thinning the opaque cement won't really make it translucent, just watery, and it is difficult to add more cement base to a thinned mixture. So do small batches and experiment of some scrap foam before you commit.
Photo 12: Thinking about it, the spot patterns used to drive me crazy! But I guess I enjoyed them enough that I even took the time to get them right in this ADC promo art. Hmmm, I wonder what direction I should go. There's only one way to find out, so i should get to it...

Another peak at Dragon Age: Redemption!

We are still a while off from getting to divulge all the awesome secrets about Felicia Day's epic web series, "Dragon Age: Redemption", but if you are interested in seeing a little more from the art department, check out the video below! X-Play on G4 visited us on stage for a day, and captured some cool shots of the sets while interviewing Ms. Day.

PC Games - E3 2011 - Dragon Age

You know you've hit the big time when you have molded meat!!! Make sure you get your copy of Dragon Age 2today!

Hammer Improv 2 Year Anniversary Show!

I know everyone is watching the Oscars right now, but believe me when I tell you they pale in comparision to the fun that was had on stage last night, at the Hammer Don't Hurt'em Improv 2nd anniversary show!

Hammer is a comedy improv group made up of Felicia Day, Alex Albrecht, Tony Janning, Sandeep Parikh, Brooke Seguin, Jeff Lewis, Tara Perry, and Eddie Repanich. Their usual shows consist of several acts, each revolving around improv games involving a play on words or scenerios provided by the audience. Last night's show was special, since it marks 2 years that the group has performed together. They were in a bigger venue, with a packed house, and had an opening act AND an intermission!

The night started with an amazing set by Garfunkle and Oates. These girls are hilarious, and their banter between songs was as funny as the songs themselves. Their new hit album is titled, "All Over Your Face", and you can get it at iTunes or Amazon. In celebration of the new songs, a fan threw plush sperm onto the stage. So the comedy was off to a good start.

After the intermission, my favorite game was up. They call it, "Props with Greg Aronowitz", so, you can probably see why it appeals to me...

I've had the honor and the pleasure to work with all of these guys on various projects and shows, and they are all amazing performers. It's very flattering that they have pulled me out from behind the scenes to join in on the stage.

The first prop I brought out was an alien skull from my Sci-Fi feature, "Battle Planet". Felicia stepped up and transformed it into a strange pet that she commanded to "do it's business!"

Next up was a painting I did for Matt Hawkin's Image comic, "Merlin", part of the "Lady Pendragon" series. I think this came as a surprise to the group, but it didn't take long for them to turn it into something hilarious.

Jeff Lewis introduced himself as the class swimming instructor.

And Tara and Felicia used it as a computer screen to scrutinize a potential dating match...

Everybody scrambled when I introduced Ralphie, my Dinosaurs Baby parody for Atom.com's "The Dan Levy Show". Coincidentally, he's from the same episode that Kate from Garfunkle and Oates parodies "Blossom".

Tara fell in love with the little guy, and after the show, Brooke confessed that she almost grabbed him and ran off the stage. Turns out she's a huge Dinosaurs fan. I'll have to blog about my 4 years on the show for her sometime. Lots of crazy stories to tell.

Alex stole the show though, when he and Ralphie potrayed E.T. and Elliot during the bicycle escape.
The biggest audience response for sure was when I presented the Codex staff. You might notice that it's purple instead of the usual green. That's because it was custom built for the greenscreen shoot during" The Guild Season 4". It had to be a different color, because anything green would get lost in the compositing process. So I chose purple, since it's my favorite color.

Sandeep didn't miss a beat in doing a caricature of Felicia as Codex. People were rolling in the aisles.
I love when someone starts a bit, and everyone jumps in with the rest of the props.

This piece isn't so much a prop as it is set dressing, but I thought it could inspire some comedy. Tony used it as a Star Gate dail.

And we'll never know where Jeff was going with this bit! As he stepped into the dial, there was a loud snap! In fear of ruining the prop, they abandoned the sketch. No damage was done, but it proved to be a pretty funny moment anyway. I assured the guys that I wouldn't bring them anything that could be destroyed, so what ever happens next time, just go with it!

The last prop was a giant object that looks sort of like a crescent wrench. Or, at least Felicia thought so as she pronounced her troubles with assembling Ikea furniture.

Eddie jumped in and turned it into a performance enhancing tool, but it didn't seem to please Felicia until Tony limboed under it!

I had a few more surprises back stage, but we ran out of time. Oh, well, hopefully we'll get to do it again. And hopefully you can join us! Be sure to check out Hammer Improv on Facebook, and follow them on twitter (@hammerimprov) to find out about future shows.