Dr. Grordbort's Gelaskins

Yo, Gelaskins - makers of fancy pants stickers that go on your fancy pants Apple get-ups are selling my Grordbort's art.
Now you can make your brand new tech feel all retro and dirty.





Link

District 9 Exo Suit Concept Art - part 2

In this weeks instalment, we see two more of the Exo suit concept pieces - it's like a sequel you see.

The head close up was done for Weta Digital and Embassy VFX to aid the modelling and texturing of the final model. It shows the mandibles that were there to reflect the alien physiology externally. I figured if the aliens had the equivalent of a 'hand' on their face (the complex crab like feeders as well as tentacles) they would use them for communication - a more complex, maybe pictographic version of our facial expressions.
If that was the case, then this would be integral to them and it would be necessary to make an analogue on the robotic suit too.
It also makes it look 'mean as' and also 'muy alarmante'.

The second illustration was a simple frontal plan view - very quick and dirty but showed the frontal proportions for the modelling process.

There were also side on views, internal views and diagrams showing how the chest opened and the internal system extended out to take in the pilot.
But you can't see those here because I have pasted them in using invisible pixels.

Tune in next time when more pictures of things are accompanied by hyper-nerdy descriptions.

District 9 Concept Art - Some Guns...

Guns! I like to design guns. What a sad human being I am.
They're pretend guns so that makes ok though eh? Hello?....

These three designs were all based on a phrase or concept that Neill threw out to me:
An electric 'lightening' gun (the Arc Generator), a Gas Thrower- something that would project out gas or liquid like a flame thrower, but unlit - perhaps some destructive, corrosive gel or gas (it ended up just blowing shit up in the film - corroding humans costs a lot of effects budget...) and an Assault Rifle.
The Assault rifle has all these little tubes down the side - the idea being that each tube discharges an explosive burst of gas one after the other down the length of the barrel behind the projectile - a linear accelerator gun, like a rail gun but without the magnets. Of course it would fire these all rapidly to get a high rate of fire.

That shit is nerdy.

We went through a few colour schemes - the arc generator was originally black with red accents (we tried a few colours) and Neill sent back a tweaked version to me (hence me crediting him on the design, and the leftover watermark).

There were also versions of the Arc Generator and the Assault Rifle adjusted to go on the Exo suit.

ImagineFX Isssue 50 - District 9

Issue 50 of ImagineFX mag is out soon (now?) and has a feature on the conceptual design we did at Weta Workshop for District 9.
There's a good compliment of our concept art included as well as interviews from David Meng, Leri Greer and myself.
There's some really nice photos of David Meng's incredible Prawn sculptures and a lot of Leris' preparatory work for the graphic design of the alien language.

District 9 Concept Art -MNU

images©Sony Pictures
More District 9 concept work.

We built two armoured Hilux's at Weta Workshop and both got pretty messed up on set (as you may remember from the film, one crashed into the Exo suit, and one ended up on it's roof).
Neill provided me with the render of the model which he had added bullbars and guns to, and as a starting point I referred to one of Christian Pearce's very early sketches - that's why I put all three names down as signatures.

I don't tend to work over renders or photographs for the bulk of my work, and almost never for personal work. For a design job like this though, I was adding to an existing vehicle, so I worked into the render adding photographic elements like lights and guns and illustrating the armour panels and anything I couldn't find.

For the final build, we had to lose the MG's and mounts due to cost but everything else stayed exactly the same.

The MNU armour was a lot of fun. This full armour set was intended to be the heaviest version available - some guys would have less, some none.
The idea was to have this armour reflect some of the alien tech, a hint that perhaps MNU had learnt something, however little from the Alien technology over the 25 years or so since arrival.

The logos ( and all the graphic design for the Aliens and MNU) are by Leri Greer - every time I added his logos it brought the designs to life.

District 9 Exo Suit Concept Art - part 1

image © Sony Pictures
image © Sony Pictures
I can finally start showing a little of the concept art that I did for District 9 - these two images along with a few others are up on WetaNZ.com promoting the work on the film we did at Weta Workshop.
I also talked on a Weta podcast a little while back if you want to know more about the process we went through working on D9.

These two images are two of maybe fifteen or so illustrations that I did on this particular design.
I probably did forty or more on earlier designs. (as I mentioned earlier, we actually built a full scale prop of one of the earlier versions but we changed to this design after principal photography was finished)

This version became the final design and went through a few iterations but really didn't change much from the first pass.
It started out as predominately white/grey with black extremities and orange markings. Neill asked that I make it black near the end of the design phase.
Definitely looks more menacing in black, but I kinda liked the mainly white version.
The very first version also had little external arms that Wikus's (or in it's intended form, an alien's) arms would slot into and you can kinda make those out from the back view.

Now that I think about it, I probably did a lot more than fifteen illustrations of this design....
I'll show a few more soon as well as a few other designs.

I've seen some really cool home made models of the Exo Suit now, some in Lego that are particularly good.
This one is great, and this one is proportionately the most accurate.
Pretty impressive considering the lack of decent reference.

More soon.

District 9 Mothership Concept Art

© Sony Pictures 2009

Here's the first piece of my District 9 concept art released on the internet.
This image was printed as a limited edition (150 prints) piece and signed by Peter Jackson.

I'll be showing more in future, but this one is out there on the internet so I thought I might as well put it on my blog too.

The next concept art to be made public will be through UK magazines ImagineFX (a concept art magazine) and sister mag, 3D World.
ImagineFX will feature several pieces from myself, Leri greer and David Meng and hopefully reveal a little of the design process and thinking behind the film.
3D World are doing a feature with Embassy VFX and Weta Digital about their build of the D9 Dropship which will feature my original concept pieces.

Oh yeah, the blurred out part of the image is Chistian Pearces face! It must have been blurred to protect his identity... not now!
In this iteration of the design (which was adjusted for the final build - more booster pods instead of three, a reduced mid section, based on an earlier version of the design etc..) I had advertising hoardings and some grafitti littering the sides of the ship, the idea being that the Mothership has been there for twenty plus years. I thought that not only would MNU have been up to scavenge and salvage, but private firms and individuals would have made their way up and over the course of time, graffitit'd it and added billboards etc..
I really liked the idea that this astounding object could become mundane over time.
This idea didn't make it into the final build for various reasons.

Another subsequent version had the big, graphic patterns on the side. I think this version was the second or third to last iteration.

From a design perspective, I painted this from a pretty tight set of Neill's ideas. He had established by this point of the design phase that it was a classic saucer, something iconic and instantly recognisable - a shorthand. He also wanted it to be slightly de-constructed by MNU's salvaging and to feel like a refinery or mining vessel.
While the forms are all my own, the ideas are for the most part, very specifically Neill's.

For the final model, I think it was Embassy VFX who built the actual model, but Weta Digital added a great deal of detail and texture as they managed the majority of 'ship' effects shots.

You can hopefully read a lot more on this in the upcoming ImagineFX feature.

Victory

My new Dr. Grordbort's book: Victory is finished and nearing it's release date.
Darkhorse are publishing again and they will be releasing it on November the 11th.
As you can appreciate, I've named it something a little shorter than my last book this time: Victory - although it's full title is still a mouthful Dr. Grordbort Presents: Victory - Scientific Adventure Violence for Young Men and Literate Women.



This new book is sort of an adventure annual - although, within the context of the universe of Dr. Grordbort, I consider it propaganda for children. I'll leave you to interpret that as you will.

It fleshes out much more of the Grordbort's world than ever before and I think it is some of my best work so far - but I would say that wouldn't I?
It's not shit, I can promise you that much at least.
Here is a little sneak peak at what to expect!
Enjoy! (or complain - it's up to you. This is the internet after all)

PREORDERS ON WETANZ.COM OPEN NOW

LINK TO PREVIEW OF BOOK ON DRGRORDBORTS.COM

District 9

So District 9 is out at last and the reception has been amazing. I've really only heard good things from people and nothing but compliments for all our work on the film at Weta Workshop.
I saw the film in San Diego while I was over for Comic Con, and I gotta admit, I was nervous. Surrounded by journalists, it's hard to be objective with something you've worked so intently on for so long.

Those nerves disappeared pretty quick once the film got started though - Neill's vision came through so clearly and powerfully, and between that and Sharlto's incredible performance, I was just dragged along for the ride. I even got a little weepy in bits! What a sissy.

Plus I got kinda buzzed when I saw my Exo Suit design running around at the end fucking annihilating everything!
The modellers at Weta Digital and the painters and animators at Embassey VFX just nailed everything I imagined it to be and added so much more.
I can tell you, there's a really powerful childlike thrill that you get when you see something you've drawn and designed come to life like that. It is truly nerdy.
Oh yeah, plus all my guns turning dudes to mist! Ha ha! Fuck, I must be a frikkin' psychopath or something.... I swear, I'm actually a vegetarian!

I'll post concept art from the film as and when I get approval.

You Went Down

Ok, so I like to think of myself as a pretty good illustrator most of the time. I've designed for many movies, illustrated dozens of books, created a whole world of Rayguns, robots and intergalactic racism with Dr. Grordbort's (new book in November plug plug).
So I thought, 'I wonder how excellent am I at animation?".
Turns out, not very.

Nevertheless, the results are out on the internet and hey, all in all, they're kinda cute.

Oh yeah. You might be wondering how these hyper realistic moving images were created. Is it some new version of Maya running on twelve Playstation 3's? Or did he get the render wall at Weta Digital cranking for a few weeks? Neither of these is true.
It's a little app, like Colors for the DS called Animanatee that you can create quick animations on.
I did almost all these lying in bed at night when I shoulda been reading a clever book.


Enjoy.

Link

99 Dodgy Slips Video

Well, I finally got round to uploading a video of some of my 99 Dodgy Slips images being created in Colors.
Christian and I did this during the exhibition, they were on continuous playback for the duration of the show. Now Christians video has had some great success getting onto Jalopnik (a car blog) and Kotaku, one of my favourite blogs entirely about videogames.
So I thought, "You tard, put a video up while you still give a damn."
Here it is!

Watch it while you can. 99 Dodgy Slips, of course, has nudity and reveals parts of feminine anatomy that some people seem to enjoy being offended by.
I won't be surprised if it's taken down quick smart.

The Boozer

He stays out all night, drowning his sorrows.
You'd stay out on the turps too if you were just told by your manufacturer that you were an android and not actually sentient, just programmed to think you were sentient.
That shit is deep. Think about it...

Wha.....

What is this thing? I have no fucking idea.
I fell asleep at the wacom, woke up...hello.... whatever the fuck you are...
If you have any idea, you are probably on drugs.
Remember, winners don't use drugs.
Except for medical mary-jane. Winners love that.
It cures their lumbago.

District 9 Trailer up

The trailer for Neill Blomkamps District 9 is up and I am smiling.
This is the only film I've taken time away from Dr. Grordbort's to work on at Weta over the last couple years, and it's finally nearing completion.
It's personally very exciting for me to finally see this trailer. I consider the design work I've done one this film to be my best so far, and it's incredibly gratifying to see a glimpse of it finally made public.
Check it out here.

Prints and 99 Dodgy Slips Books available

Eyeball Kicks, a great little pop-art (best term I could think of - they sell excellent art prints, books and toys) store in Wellington, is now selling one of my personal prints.
Idrisopod meets Earth man was a painting that I did for a friends son and I believe it's limited to 20 pieces.
They're also selling the 99 Dodgy Slips books for $99 NZD and they ship internationally.

I have various other prints and limited edition posters for sale. These are all from the Dr. Grordbort's world and you can get them at the Wetacave in Wellington or from the online store at WetaNZ.
Check that shit out!
You know, if ya want to.

The Battery Updated

I've been deep in Dr. Grordbort's land writing my follow up book for the last three months so I've barely had a chance to update the blog. In the background however, my good friend David Vega Morales has been updating my main website The Battery.
It doesn't look or function a whole lot differently, but it's now way easier for me to update. So when I have time I'll be able to put up new images etc..
Please come along and check it out. There are a few new images in the latest gallery.
After the new Grordbort book comes out (later this year, look for an announcement at Comic Con), I'll finally put a whole bunch of that artwork up. I'm really looking forward to seeing all this work finally made public. It's been a huge job.
The Battery is now my personal site but you can check out my Battery founding partner, Warren Mahy's work at the Mahy Studio.
He draw good.

99DS Opening Night Photos

OK, so 99 Dodgy Slips & 99 Deadly Sleds is already over, but wanted to throw some pics up of the opening night anyway.
It was a fun night and lots of friends and a few weirdos came along to enjoy the amazing selection of complimentary bananas, banana lollies and banana flavoured milk.
Oh, yeah, they looked at the art too and all of them said nice things so I was very happy.

Many of the prints sold from the exhibition during it's time open, but we still have some available as well as the art books which compile all the images.
If anyone is interested please get in touch via the comments and I'll figure out a way to get them to you.
The prints are from one part of only two editions (edition one of all 99 prints having sold before the opening of the show) and sell for NZ$99 each (roughly USD$50 at the time of writing).
The limited edition art books also sell for NZ$99.
Christians prints and books are available for the same amount.

Thanks again to all that came along.

Photos by Steve Unwin!

Getting Directions....

Sometimes, you just gotta know where the nearest public toilets are.

Imagine FX Dinosaur

Dinosaur! Well sort of.
It's a Dinosaur that I created for an ImagineFX Tutorial (British concept art magazine) and it's entirely fictitious as you could probably guess.
I think I called it Atrocitasaurus, which is derived from a Latin base and means Hipster Doofus Lizard....or something like that. No wait, it means Lasers for Eyes Lizard...
This concept along with a bone diagram and some other supporting sketches became the basis for my friend and fellow Wetite, Steve Lambert's 3D version.
He created that (modeling, texturing, rigging and animating!) for 3D World magazine.

Spam!

Here are a few older pics that I don't have here on my blog. They are at other places on the internet (like my very outdated website) so you may or may or may not have seen them.
All of these are personal pieces that I've done in my spare time away from Weta.
I'd love to add some Weta work at some point but I'm always really hesitant to do so, gotta get permissions etc.. boring shit.
The picture of the boxer is now available as a T-Shirt through my friends at Brawla.
Also, happy new year! It's sunny and beautiful outside, a glorious day. Perfect weather for playing videogames!

99DS -Dodgy Slips and Deadly Sleds

It's been a long time coming from my point of view (I finished the art almost exactly a year ago and planned to have the exhibition early in the year) but the 99 DS exhibition finally has a date and location.
I had finished all my art and was encouraging my friend Christian Pearce to do the same (99 pieces all on one theme or idea quickly sketched on Colors for the Nintendo DS) and the plan was a small exhibition at a small location, very simple. I probably would have had the exhibition even before Christian had finished if things had gone to plan.
Well, the year has worn on, and my work on Dr. Grordbort's and on District 9 at Weta chewed up all my time
Over the year, the plan for 99 Dodgy Slips shifted and changed but all for the better.

The exhibition will now showcase both mine and Christians work - 99 Dodgy Slips and 99 Deadly Sleds.

We'll be having the exhibition in the Wellington city centre at the Civic Square, right outside the City Gallery.
We're fitting out a unique space for the exhibition, two stripped back, white shipping containers joined together with my 99 pieces in one and Christian's 99 in the other.
I think this is way more appealing than either of our collective works on their own.
We also plan to have a couple of monitors showing the actual painting process (at an accelerated rate) which is a really cool feature of the Colors software.
We'll have 198 mounted prints altogether, which will be for sale, as well as limited edition art books containing all the prints.
The whole thing is possible due to a few people and I have to give massive credit to them.
Richard Taylor, my friend and boss man and his partner Tania Rodger have enabled the whole thing, making what would otherwise be a simple little exhibition into something quite unique and special. Linda Hughes and Tracey Morgan are the ones behind the scenes doing all work that goes into actually getting something like this off the ground. They rule - that's a scientific fact.

99 DODGY SLIPS and 99 DEADLY SLEDS
An Exhibition by Greg Broadmore and Christian Pearce
Civic centre
Wellington
New Zealand
1st - 26th Feb 2009

Opening night is on the 2nd I think... come along if you're in town! There's pictures of naked chicks did mention?

www.99DS.net

Dragon Abuse

Another Dragon! Again, this is for French publishers Daniel Maghen who publish a series of books on Dragons.
This image is for Volume 3 which will be published next year some time.
I wanted to create a very different image from the last one I did.
The first one was of a powerful looking beast and this guys almost the complete antithesis.
A meek, brow beaten creature, chained and subdued.
While talking about this piece with my friend Jamie Beswarick, a fellow designer at Weta Workshop , he mentioned the behaviour of a circus or captive Elephant that's been restrained with a small, short chain since infancy. Even when fully grown they think this now pitiful chain will hold them and so don't move beyond it's bounds. That's exactly the sort of mindset I imagined for this guy.
He doesn't know his own strength.
I like the idea that one day, this Dragon will lose it and eviscerate his keeper. He goes Dragon postal if you will.

Brandywine Museum

I recently returned from a trip to the States where I visited a fair few places, spent time in a lot of museums and saw a lot of really inspiring art.
The pinnacle of all this, for me, was seeing the illustrative art of American Illustrator of the turn of the last century N. C. Wyeth.
I made a special trip south of New York city to Wilmington, Delaware where I visited the Brandywine museum.
This simple but astounding little museum contained dozens of his original artworks which were so astounding to me that I can't really put it into words.
For me it was as close to a 'spiritual' experience as a guy who doesn't believe in spirits is ever going to get.
The Museum also houses dozens of Howard Pyle pieces (they've had 100 new pieces donated to them recently which they have on rotation) which are also astounding to see up close.
On top of that, they have many works by N. C. Wyeth's son and grandson as well as a few by Harvey Dunn and Frank Schoonover amongst many others.
If you are ever close to Delaware, go and visit, you won't regret it.
Unless you are suffering from the brain damage...

OW!

This is another quick piece I created for Radical comics.
What's it all about you ask?
Well, sometimes, when a man hates another man very much, he hits the other man with a sharpened stick. In the head. Hard.
That's the miracle of love.
I mean war...

Raygun Princess Deuce

This is the final version of the design that I did for Richard's stylish Citroen Coupe.
It's more Deco than the other design and although I prefer the other design, I would choose this too for a car like his.
A friend, Mike Norman, is sculpting the final piece and I can't wait to see how it turns out.
It'll be cast in metal, chrome plated and then screwed to the bonnet to make the car go faster.
Sexy and aerodynamic.

Angry!!!!!

This picture depicts an angry dude who wants to club the viewer to death.
I wanted it to be an allegory for modern mass media's subliminal bombardment of masculine stereotyping... aaah, I can't keep that up. I don't even know what 'allegory' means.
It's actually another picture I did at Weta for Radical Comic's Hercules property.

Raygun Princess

This piece was done in some spare time at Weta as a design for my friend, and boss man, Richard Taylor.
It's a hood ornament design for his Citroen Coupe . The car is a beautiful old 1930's era (I think) classic that Richard wanted a sleek retro futuristic ornament for.
This design was actually the rejected one.
The final design (I may post it later) was more Deco styled and symmetrical, more suitable for the cars aesthetic..
This one was fun too so I made a poster of it which resides in Weta's design room.

The Hiker

What is the story behind this piece? I can't remember, I was drunk when I drew it.
I don't endorse drawing drunk though.
Stay off the hooch kids.

Invasions!

This piece was done today, took probably two or three hours? Quite a long time for the result really. Still, it's fun, simple and chunky.

Ruric - Medieval Angry Man

More blood and guts. This was done for Radical Comics for their property, Medieval.
It was a really quick piece and took maybe a few hours. Not that I am that efficient all the time.
Initially he had a beard, but it got a quick photoshop shave in the second iteration.
I really enjoy quick illustrations like this, they're the most fun. Best to get a simple concept done and dusted before you have a chance to mess it up by labouring it.
Much thanks to Radical for a fun job.

Here be Dragon

This ornery beast is a Dragon (no shit) that I illustrated for a French publication, L'univers des Dragons Tome 2.
It's not out yet but the previous edition is on sale now and includes the work of John Howe, Paul Bonner and Guillermo Gonzalez amongst others.
I'm not usually really into doing traditional fantasy illustration so much, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to draw a Dragon. They're like wacky Dinosaurs.
I wanted to make it a classic fire breather, as is the implication here, but treat it as just a big animal, not a malevolent intelligence or anything.
You can see the fist book here and buy it here
Volume 2 will be out at the end of September 08.

Hercules and Mates

This line up of ye olde thugs is a piece I did through Weta Workshop for Radical Comics. It's just been printed as a wrap around cover for an issue of their Hercules comic.
I actually went through a few couple versions before I got to this one and it was worth it, the earlier ones were shite.
This version must be better because it has lot's of spilled blood and brains.
Thanks to Dave Elliott for badgering me until I got it right.
You can visit their website here.

When Space was on Drugs....

Here we see a friendly astronaut (or cosmonaut, let's not be racist) greeting a lovable alien quadraped. How fun!
Later they might sit down for petting and cuddles, or maybe the jovial human explorer will glass the planet from orbit and zone it for interstellar strip malls.
I hope it's the first option.
I did this bright and sunny picture for my good friend Steve Unwin's (Weta Workshop photographer) son Idris.
I was sober when creating it.

Robot has body image issues

When I was 12, I wanted to grow up and have Arnold Schwarzeneggers biceps. This didn't happen.
Despite this, sometimes, I think our future robotic overlords will have similar aspirations.

CGNZ Interview

I did this interview a while back now and I really like this site. It's the New Zealand equivalent to something like ConceptArt.org.
I highly recommend it.
Interview here.

STOP!

Even baby eating ogres need a pep talk sometimes.
Go!

99 Dodgy Slips

These are a few of the images that I'll be showing in an upcoming exhibition. I did them all over my three weeks Christmas 2008 holiday on my Nintendo DS with an amazing piece of software written by Jens Andersson called Colors.
Whenever I had a spare 5 minutes, in bed, on the couch at a friends, waiting outside a shop while my girl went shopping, on the can, wherever I was I would draw one on of these.
Most of them took about 2 or 3 minutes, but a few cantankerous examples took almost an hour!
I thought I'd do maybe 100 or so, maybe 125 and then do an exhibition with the results. As it turned out, the software only supported 99 file saves, so I had my total images decided for me by a fucking robot! Still, it was a wise robot, cos I was beginning to get RSI.
Why girls slipping on Banana peels? Excellent question!

Samurai Machine Gunners

This is an image I made a few years back, but I still like it.
It has the two prime ingredients of any great composition: Samurai and a Machine Gun.

Thompson Submachine Gun and Friend

This was a 30-45 minute sketch I did for my little brothers birthday. I should do more like this cos I tend to like em' way more than the laboured ones. That said, when my little brother finds out I spent a measly 30 minutes on his birthday present, I'm going to get disowned.