Gojira, Godzilla, Tomayto, Tomahto.

Oh lookit! Some Godzilla concept artwork!

I barely did anything on Gareth Edward's Godzilla if I'm honest - my mates Christian Pearce and Andrew Baker did the montsers's share (snicker) of the design at Weta Workshop for the big guy himself, but I did devote a few hours and did maybe half a dozen or more early concepts - most of which I've featured here, and are also in the amazing Godzilla: Art of Destruction book.

I've been a Godzilla fan since I was a kid (hell, me and Christian started a punk rock band named in honour of his nemesis King Ghidorah.) so we wanted to keep our Godzilla pretty faithful to the original.

Not that we didn't experiment, but you can see the most conservative of my designs at the bottom here - it's pretty much 1954 Godzilla with mo' scales yo.

I'm not sure why I went all gangster there... anyway...

Some people have said our Godzilla is fat, and it's possible to describe those people with a medical term: morons. These people have obviously never had a good look at Gojira and admired his thunder thighs.

The final design that made it to the movie was pretty spot on I reckon and I'm proud to have played a small part in designing him.

Dr. Grordbort's Exhibiton in Wellington!

What a crazy rushed few weeks it's been for me.
I arrived back from a trip a couple weeks ago and as soon as I got into the workshop Richard, Tania and I were discussing the reality of putting on my Dr. Grordbort's show here in Wellington while it was back for refurbishment.
It's been all over the globe, most recently Dusseldorf and it next turns towards Dubai and the USA, but it seemed crazy to not show it for a short stint in Wellington where it was conceived while we had it here.
It also seemed crazy to put on a last minute show within a week in an unfinished impromptu location...
Luckily Richard is crazy, and Tania must have a little of that too, so with Richard's push we jumped in and set it up.
Or I should say a small army of Weta Workshop ninjas put it up, driven along by Richard's relentless energy.
Much kudos to Eric Heath and Brad Cunningham and their team for putting in the long hours to get it ready and looking incredible, and to Midori Willoughby for coordinating.

The exhibtion has been updated with an incredible Venusian Vista Viewer (you'll have to see it to understand) that was Richard's pet project and with new work from Jamie Beswarick - two of my favourite sculptures that we've ever made.

If you're in Wellington, or able to make it to Wellington before the end of January, I hope you can get to see it!

Dr. Grordbort's Exceptional Exhibtion in Wellington on Eventfinder

Dr. Grordbort's Random Treats

Some random sampling's of the Dr. Grordbort's world for your edification.
I have just googled the word 'edification' and I have found out that it means: "The instruction or improvement of a person morally or intellectually".
Now, I am not so sure that pictures of tanks, angry soldiers and more or less nude-women reclining in a fantasy setting have the power to improve anyone morally or intellectually and most would argue for the reverse, but I like the word and cannot be bothered to find a replacement.

The first is from my new book Triumph and the other two from Victory.
The Moon Maiden image is also available in paper instead of pixel form as a limited edition print.

I've just survived a really fun week doing the CDW workshop here in Wellington alongside ridiculously clever chaps, Aaron Beck and Ben Mauro. Also sharing his insights was the masterful, Robh Ruppel who also turns out to be an all-round top bloke.
I'll be posting some of the images from those 5 days over the next couple weeks.

The event was a surreal experiment for me - I normally wake in the afternoon, but every morning at 9am sharp (it felt sharp at least) I was revealing my crude and rough shod illustrative processes to a more than accomplished crowd.
Seriously, half of those in attendance should have been up on the stage instead of me.

Tintin pt 3

The last wee bunch of pics.
These were fun colour and light studies, and even though we knew these scenes wouldn't be in the film, it was just about examining a possible style and feel.

If you enjoyed the film, or just want to go deeper into the film making and world building process at Weta, I really recommend checking out the Art of the Adventures of Tintin Ipad app. 
It's one of the most elaborate digital books I've ever seen and well worth exploring.

Tintin pt 2

Both Nestor and Haddock were really fun to work on.
I used photos that I snapped of various people from around the Weta design room to construct key aspects, and followed Herge's lines as closely as possible.
I think the mouth in 'spit-gag' Haddock is Christian Pearce.

Tintin pt 1

 

The Adventures of Tintin has been out for a while so I thought I'd show a little of the work that I did for the very early stages of the film.
I have to say, I had very little to do with the film overall, and simply watched as Chris Guise and his team worked their magic at Workshop, while the guys at Weta Digital worked ridiculous hours to bring this cherished world to life.
My small contribution was near the start of the project, and involved simply taking iconic frames or covers from Herge's work and rendering it as realistically as I could in the time we had.
It was a total departure from my normal work, in that I was slavishly faithful to Herge's lines and contours, as well as using photographic elements, which I seldom like to do.
This is not the sort of creative work I usually like, but for some reason I found the whole process quite refreshing.
It's one of the few times that I've just obsessively observed and followed a comic masters work and forgotten about my own creative intentions.
Quite liberating for a change.
If you want to see more, I'd recommend checking out the in-depth art of book Weta has made, and the incredible Ipad version.
More to come.

Weta Artists Rally For Japan

Karim Sahai from Weta Digital is putting together an incredible, highly limited set of prints from various Weta artists and all profits go to assisting the tsunami and earthquake relief efforts in Japan. There will only be 3 sets, so follow up quick.

Details follow:

"A group of artists from Weta Digital and Weta Workshop have produced a series of thirteen beautiful limited edition fine art prints and are donating all proceeds from their sale to the earthquake and tsunami relief efforts in Japan.

These 33x48cm prints are individually signed and numbered by every artist; and are presented in a gorgeous black portfolio box.The stunning prints were made using the finest colour pigments and archival baryta paper. Only 3 prints of each image were made. 

Here is your chance to own a very unique memento from your Weta contemporaries.
It is also an opportunity to turn our best asset  - our creativity -  into compassion, selflessness.

These very limited edition fine art prints are now available for purchase for $950 per portfolio.

To order one of the only three series of prints and assist the recovery efforts in Japan, please email karim at wetafx dot co dot nz

Thank you.

Karim Sahai"

The participating Weta Digital and Weta Workshop artists are:
Greg Broadmore, concept artist * Julian Bryant, compositor * Myriam Catrin, texture artist * Mark Gee, lighting technical directorKen Gimpelson, lighting technical director * Robin Hollander, compositor * Miae Kang, lighting technical director
Dmitri Krasnokoutski, shader writer * Laure Lacroix, texture artist * Paul Redican, compositor
Marcus Schoo, software developer * Malino Suzuki, motion editor * Masaya Suzuki, texture artist.


A small selection from the box set:

DrGrordborts.com relaunches!

 

After months of hard work, I'm pleased to finally reveal the re-launch of Dr. Grordbort's official website.
We started the website to showcase my Rayguns, books and dozens of other curios many years ago now, but after focusing my attention on bigger, longer term aspects of Dr.G  over the last year, it kinda fell out of my day to day focus.
No more!
DrGrordborts.com is back and better than ever.

The website is the result of a lot of hard work by amazing artist and graphic designer Hans Kleinenberg, and futuristic space coder Eli Thomas.

So please, hop over and enjoy the new site, and check out the new Dr Grordbort video, Onward to Victory, animated by Steve Lambert.

Keep checking back - we have some exciting news on the horizon!

DrGrordborts.com

The Bestiary of the Cosmos Part 3

The last in a short installment on the exotic creatures from Dr. Grordbort's Venus.

Check out more at DrGrordborts.com

The Bestiary of the Cosmos Part 2

More xenobiological oddities for your amusement!


Discover some scintillating scientific facts about them at DrGrordborts.com

It'll make your brain happy!

The Bestiary of the Cosmos Part 1

Here's a few space critters I've done over the years - most featured in my book Victory from Darkhorse and  on the Dr.G website DrGrordborts.com.

Alien design is one of my favourite things to do in concept design, and creating beasties for Dr. Grordbort's is the most satisfying of all.

If you haven't seen them before, check out our Dr. Grordbort's Bestiary of the Cosmos Weta collectibles sculpted by Jamie Beswarick

 Here, here and here!

More to come.

Dr. Grordbort's: RAYGUN App for Iphone

Yo! Apologies for the lack of new artwork round these parts. I did some really great stuff, but the dog ate it, I swear.

In the meantime though, check this shit out - We went and made a Dr. Grordbort's raygun app!

Well, more accurately, Touchcast and Carnival Labs went and made it, and I looked at it and said "oooh, that looks nice!".

Now, those high falutin' types who have an iphone can get their hands on one of my rayguns and do what they've always dreamed of - Turn a defenseless animal into giblets and mist.

ZAM!

Link to app on Itunes

Link to app at Touchcast

Dr Grordbort's Exceptional Exhibition moves to Shanghai

After Sichuan and Hong Kong, it's time for Dr Grordbort's Exceptional Exhibition to travel to Shanghai.

This was announced at a press conference with actor Jackie Chan, director Stanley Tong and Richard Taylor. The exhibition will open in Shanghai on 8 August, during the World Expo that's currently taking place in Shanghai.

I just copied and pasted that from our Weta newsletter. What a lazy cunnagle I turned out to be.

Yes, you read it right - Jackie Chan! The proceeds of the exhibition go to his charity.

I can't tell you how spacked out I am by this.

His films ruled by pre-teens. I think I ruined the Whakatane video stores VHS copy of Project A when I was a kid, by watching Jackie fall down that clock tower again and again.Pow! Right on his head! Maniac.

Anyway, geek out aside, it should be a great exhibition. This time I will be alongside some incredible artists and hopefully these will be publicly revealed soon.

On top of that, some previously unseen Weta movie props will be showcased, and my good friend and fellow District 9 designer, David Meng will be coming and exhibiting his sculptures.

Looking forward to it already.

District 9 Gun Replicas

Behold, as I unleash my inner company shill!

At long last, we finally have things in place to release the District 9 guns as collectible replicas.
These are both made from the original masters that I designed and oversaw the construction of during the production of the film.

They're about as close to the actual movie props as you could ask for.
If you wanted to go hog wild, you could buy one of these US$560 (approx) limited edition babies (I think we're making only 200 of each), and cover em' in rubbish, slime and maybe a few handfuls of fecal matter to make them even closer to how they were treated on set by Joe Dunckley and Sarah Rubano.

But that's your prerogative.

So far, we have the Arc Generator and the Gas Thrower, but keep your eyes on the WetaNZ site for more collectibles in the coming months.

Head on over to WetaNZ to check them out in detail

-A big thanks to Tim Launder at WetaNZ for all his hard work making these happen.

UPDATE - The Arc Generator has sold out .

Grordbort's Exhibition in Chengdu, China

This is my first post about the Exceptional Exhibition that we put on in Chengdu, China at the Sichuan Provincial Museum
Chengdu is the first city in the world to see this exhibition, that in it's Grordbort's form will continue to tour the world over the next several years.
I would have written about it sooner, but it was a crazy whirlwind of action just putting the thing together, and shipping it to China, all in a ridiculously short amount of time.

The exhibition, entitled this time round, the Exceptional Exhibition: Weta Workshop presents the World of Dr. Grordbort holds around 150 of my Grordbort's paintings and roughly 30 sculptural and model made pieces - the Rayguns themselves as well as mounted Venusian heads, Venusian bugs by Jamie Beswarick some incredible Grordbort character sculptures by Max Patte.

Many of the Grordbort's illustrative pieces are over 3 metres in length and almost 2 metres high.




On top of this, and just for the purposes of this first exhibition, we took a multitude of Lord of the Rings, Kong and Narnia props as well as, for the first time in China, Richard Taylors 5 Oscar awards.

In the rush to put it all together, I only took Iphone photos (very blurry unfortunately), and very few of them, so here are a few of the photos taken by Jacek Irzykowski at the event.
It gives you an idea of the exhibition, but barely scratches the surface.


Richard and I did several talks to universities and schools while in Chengdu and that was a really great experience. We were treated like kings where ever we went. Red carpet, bouquets, the works.
I really found Chengdu to be an incredibly welcoming place and everyone we met was incredibly warm to us.
There seems to me to be a massive and burgeoning enthusiasm there in the younger generations for science fiction and fantasy and that was really cool to see.


The exhibition will continue to tour the world, and perhaps grow a little with a few more Grordbort's pieces as it goes and is set to go to India, Switzerland, and France amongst many others.
I would personally love to bring it to the US and back to New Zealand where I have had such great support from fans as Grordbort's has grown.



Massive thanks go to Sarah Morris and Andrew Gillespie for their tireless efforts bringing this all together in such short order.
And on the IDF and Greenleaf side (who worked relentlessly over in Chengdu to make this all happen) a monumental thanks to Xiaomei Liu, Gavin Crombie and their team, pushed on by the brilliant Hai Dong Liu.

All proceeds from the exhibition in Chendgu go towards the Sichuan Earthquake Relief effort.

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.

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.