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.

The Stroll

Nice day for a hikoi.

Neuchâtel Fantastic Film Festival and Imaging the Future

I'll be attending this years Neuchâtel Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland and giving a talk at the 'Imaging the Future' symposium.

I'll be talking about designing District 9 and the creation of the world of Dr. Grordbort's.

Come along and say hi if you're in the neighbourhood.


links

NIFFF

Imaging the Future

The Trapeze

Sweet mother of Chris Christopherson, it's more god-damned music.
I know, I know, you come here for the strange robots and what do you get for your troubles? Half finished, poorly recorded music!
Well, give it a listen anyway. If it sucks, write me and I'll email you back your lost minute.
I promise.

It's another quick loop piece called The Trapeze. Why does it keep on looping you ask? It was made on a loop pedal
Give a cousin a break!

The Ballbuster

Nice robot. He's friendly to children, good natured and clean.
He really is a great robot, but needs more space to run around than what we have to offer. He is a very fast learner, and great company. He is microchipped but not de-sexed.

Hydrochloric Euphoric

I thought I'd see if you can embed music in a blogspot post, and holy crap, you can!
So this is a piece of music I wrote a while back. It's called Hydrochloric Euphoric.
I wrote it under the band name Mucho Pudenda.
Now that I know how to embed an MP3, I may post a little more from time to time , although I very seldom record anything so don't expect a flood.

In case you wonder how it's made, and why it's so lo-fi, it was created in several impromptu takes on a loop pedal.
I play something, and if I like the sound of it, I record another take right over it, and repeat to taste.
You have no ability to adjust levels, and it renders it all in glorious mono, but it's a fun way to make off the cuff music, which is about all I have time for after working all week on Grordbort's and other Weta film work.

Hope you like.

Back from the void

Long time, no post.
Been busy, lazy, drunk. You name it.

I haven't done any personal work at home for months, and I thought, tonight is the night.
I've been pretty slow with my illustrations lately, so for better or worse, I decided to do this in one sitting.
I think it took about three hours (not including the original sketch).

It's in it's original form at the bottom, and because the creature is kinda small in the frame, there's a close up for your edification.


Oh yeah, exciting news on the Dr. Grordbort's Exceptional Exhibition coming soon!
New city, new exhibition partners.
Can't wait to reveal it.

Dr. Grordbort's Exceptional Exhibition - Cyberport, Hong Kong

Next showing of the Dr. Grordbort's Exceptional Exhibition will be at the Cyberport in Hong Kong starting March 24th, 2010.
I'll be there giving a talk on film design and the World of Dr. Grordbort in the first few days.

If you're in the area, come say hi!

LINK

World War Fun

Ok, so World Wars aren't fun, they're horrible.
Nobody enjoys them at the time and everybody complains about them afterwards.
In short, they're crap.

But I did a picture of one anyway, this time with added robots.
Because that's what war really needs, giant fucking robots.

Valentine in Space

Robot meets alien Whatthef...
Tis love.

For Kate

District 9 Concept Art - Dropship

The Dropship from District 9 was developed very quickly. Just a few concept drawings, all of the same design and it was on it's way into the film.

That's a pretty rare occurrence in film design.

Above you can see one of the early sketches that nailed down the silhouette and angular form, followed by a paint-over from a later stage of an in-production film model.

This quick concept sketch shows concepts like the modular slave hold, mimicking an insectile abdomen at the rear of the ship.
The idea was that the Dropship would carry various modular containers and in this case held a prison like container for the worker aliens.

images©wingnut film

The Embassy VFX created the first model from my super basic, quasi-retarded Sketchup mess, but I needed to do this paint-over to illustrated details and construction that weren't evident in the first concept drawings.

In the end, Weta Digital handled most of the Mothership and Dropship scenes in the film and added even further detail so that it held up when the camera got very close.

The Gravy Interview

I was interviewed for a really great art show called The Gravy late last year and it's now out online.
Check it out.

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 .

The Fall

The Robot, he fall.

What is the cause?

It is an enigmatic mystery dilemma that may pain you till your dying day...

Unless I just tell you it's obviously another robot throwing cars at him.

Pow!
Take that Retardmobot!

Doosh

Wrong place, wrong time.

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.

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

images©wingnut film

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...

images©wingnut film

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©wingnut film

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

images©wingnut film

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

images©wingnut film

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.