Full Noon, Update 1

Preproduction is underway on Full Noon, a comedy/horror feature film written by myself, my girlfriend Felicity, and her two friends Leota and Ashley.  I'll also be directing, while my co-writers will star.  We've got a script, we've got a budget, and God willing, we'll have a movie this summer.

We're currently in the early stages of securing funding.  A grant/pitch contest didn't pan out, so it looks like Kickstarter is in our future.  Until that happens, I'm going through and storyboarding the film, which is what a responsible director does anyway...

Be on the lookout for future updates, including our fundraising demo and trailer.

Basement

I've returned to film.  Following the disaster that was Compulsively Yours and my disillusionment following film school, I've started to make movies again.  First was the short Mint In Box.  Next is the feature Full Noon.  But right now is Basement, a film my writing partner/girlfriend Felicity Hull and I developed for the Project Greenlight Reel Fear contest.  While creating the pitch video to submit to the Project, I made a few concept drawings to illustrate some of the visuals we envisioned, as well as a creature design modified from an unproduced animation project that I did some concept work for.  Please enjoy!

The Mysterious Fate Of Mister Hinson Totoro...

One should never say never, but...  It looks like Hinson Totoro is going on indefinite hiatus.  Even if I do finish the first game (Only 2-3 videos and some voiceover to go!) I will never truly be able to finish this first arc, due to the passing of my father, one of the key actors.  So, to not let so much work go completely to waste, I proudly present ALL THE BACKGROUND PLATES!  Created entirely in Photoshop using primarily pictures scrounged from Google, these took... a lot of time, and may have indirectly led to me failing a class.  What fun!  Hope you enjoy, and if you have any questions as to the specifics of these pics, please comment below. 

The Pale Man...

Show of hands, who's seen Pan's Labyrinth?  I know, it was good, right?  Anyhoo, an interesting guest recently dropped by my school...  Doug Jones, the actor who played both the Faun and the mind-numbingly terrifying Pale Man (amongst many, many other roles.  Dang, I feel like going out and having McDonald's tonight...)  Having had some forewarning about the Jone's arrival, I set to work sketching the image above, based on a Google reference image.  The picture... isn't that great.  But you know what?  It was signed by the Jones himself, so I'm happy.  And below is a photo of the three of us!  Such fun we had together!  My beard was stroked...

Gigawatt! again...

Hey, remember Gigawatt from two posts ago?  Well, he's back.  For those who don't know (surprisingly, I don't think I've mentioned it on here yet), I'm writing a book, published sporadically on my other blog, The Realms of Neldak (the link is in the bar on the left, but here's another: http://neldak.blogspot.com/ )  Anyhoo, in that book, Gigawatt is nothing more than a fictional character, and one of the characters has a Gigawatt action figure with a broken leg.  Thus the joints, thus the severed leg.  Seen here is a corrected, colored version, and the original ball-point version, captured using my snazzy scanner, a.k.a., my camera.  Also, I'm putting a tag in for Action Figure, even though this isn't really, just for theme's sake.  Please enjoy!

P.S.  First post from my new apartment in L.A.!

Bald, Bearded Man

Sketched out on August 12, 2012, at church.  Graphite on paper.  Its primary reason for upload?  I was playing with my new phone's camera.  Still, I like the picture...

Update: Pounded out a rough colorized version.  I didn't have access to my sketch tablet, so this was all mouse-work.

Minotaur

Wow, digging way back into my sketchbooks here... A minotaur. Can't remember much about this, but based on the date, I'd say it was drawn shortly after seeing the first theatrical Narnia film... Definitely one of my 'early' works, shortly after I got into art. Pencil, with ball-point overlay.

Agabis--Initial Sketch

The Agabis... Undoubtedly the best work I've ever done. Also one of my first forays into digital painting. Just what is the Agabis? Look up. You see that bizarre winged creature at the top of the page? That is the Agabis. It is a creature, mechanical in nature, that I sadly have no backstory for. It is an image, wholly unconnected to any fictional world I have created. As I said, it is one of my earliest digital creations, and one that I am still working on. I occasionally doodle out other pictures, different versions, etc. I'm also still at work on a city-scape for it to dwell in that I am wholly satisfied with. Ah, well.
The Agabis started innocently enough. Following the release of the second Transformers film in 2007, I found myself drawing a lot of rather strange mechanical creatures very much in the style of Mr. Bay's behemoths. Sometime late in the year I was in church, drawing one such creature (Sadly, I can't remember which), when the man sitting behind me noticed my work and asked if I could design a tattoo for him: a bio-mechanical angel. I quickly roughed out the image above, with the intent of scanning it in, detailing it, and mirroring it for a final image. To simplify the story I did so, then proceeded to paint that sucker.
I intend to show many more derivations and permutations of the Agabis, including the computer line work and rough paints, but those will all have to wait for another time...

Darth Vader

This is the companion piece to my previous post featuring my Obi-Wan redesign; in fact, both were originally drawn on the same page. This design change falls a bit more into the story-changing category I alluded to in the last post: this is not merely a more armored Anakin Skywalker, this is an injured and partially cybernetic Darth Vader shortly before the climactic battle with Obi-Wan that robs him of his humanity and leaves him as the black-clad villian we all love to fear.

Again, just like Obi-Wan, the design made the jump to 3D.

Come to think of it, the figures may have actually come first, followed by the sketches; it's rather hard to remember...

Obi-Wan

One of my early inspirations in art (and narrative, and life in general) were the Star Wars films. They... moved me. As these films were such an important part of my life, I was profoundly displeased with the last two films in the series. Due to this, I spent a bit of time redesigning the series in my head, rehashing the story and redesigning some of the characters.

One of the characters was Obi-Wan Kenobi. I felt that, as a Jedi Master and a general in the Grand Army of the Republic, he should look more like a medieval warrior rather than a medieval priest. I drew up the sketch for this sometime in late 2006 (I think) and later scanned it in and colorized it in Photoshop.

I later took this design and launched it into the 3rd dimension by way of a rather basic custom action figure. More information can be found on the figure's entry in the link "Custom Figures by Hrothmeir" found in the links section on the left-hand side of this page.