My father served in the Navy from 1964 - 1968 aboard an aircraft carrier. Growing up I got to hear stories of his adventures (some I could tell by heart now). I was always fascinated by his photos of the ship he was on (Bon Homme Richard CVA-31), the planes, helicopters, and various ports around the world. He is very proud of his time in the Navy, and of course we are very proud of him and thankful for his service to our country. During the early part of his service, my mom had bought him a model of the Bon Homme Richard made by Revell when she visited him in San Diego. No doubt he appreciated it very much. At some point after, he started to put it together, but then lost interest. To my knowledge, he’s never been into building models at all, and the sheer amount of pieces and complexity proved a bit overwhelming to him. Many years later my brother and I found it, and with my dads permission, decided to finish it. We did an absolutely horrible job. We didn’t know what we were doing, used way too much glue, never painted it, even broke some pieces in the process. We played with it a lot, then it got put away somewhere. We were young kids and didn’t realize the significance (as my brother would later put it). It’s a good thing my dad wasn’t into scale modeling, or he might have been a bit upset at how we treated it. Sadly, that model has been lost to time and long forgotten. My brother barely remembers putting it together with me. Even I had forgotten about it for a long time.
Important Backstory Stuff:
My father served in the Navy from 1964 - 1968 aboard an aircraft carrier. Growing up I got to hear stories of his adventures (some I could tell by heart now). I was always fascinated by his photos of the ship he was on (Bon Homme Richard CVA-31), the planes, helicopters, and various ports around the world. He is very proud of his time in the Navy, and of course we are very proud of him and thankful for his service to our country. During the early part of his service, my mom had bought him a model of the Bon Homme Richard made by Revell when she visited him in San Diego. No doubt he appreciated it very much. At some point after, he started to put it together, but then lost interest. To my knowledge, he’s never been into building models at all, and the sheer amount of pieces and complexity proved a bit overwhelming to him. Many years later my brother and I found it, and with my dads permission, decided to finish it. We did an absolutely horrible job. We didn’t know what we were doing, used way too much glue, never painted it, even broke some pieces in the process. We played with it a lot, then it got put away somewhere. We were young kids and didn’t realize the significance (as my brother would later put it). It’s a good thing my dad wasn’t into scale modeling, or he might have been a bit upset at how we treated it. Sadly, that model has been lost to time and long forgotten. My brother barely remembers putting it together with me. Even I had forgotten about it for a long time.
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This is part 2 of the story - see part 1 for the backstory of why I built this in the first place. The first step was to get everything out of the box and inspect. Then I did a thorough reading of the instructions and formulated my plan for proceeding. I wasn't building the Oriskany, I was using this as the base, and building the Bon Homme Richard as she appeared in the 60's, so I always had reference photos at hand to make sure I stuck as closely to that goal as possible. The lower part of the hull came in one large piece, but a lot of the upper portion needed to be put together and then attached (platforms, lifeboats, elevator guides, etc.). Nearly everything had some extra flashing (plastic overflow from the injection molding process) around them so each piece had to be carefully trimmed with an X-acto blade before gluing and attaching. That definitely made things a bit more time consuming. Next I trimmed out the deck and set that aside. Then I built the control tower which had a lot of very delicate pieces so I set that aside until nearly the end of the build to avoid anything getting broken off or damaged.
Back Story:Let me start off by saying - I’m a huge fan of all things TRON. It’s definitely my 2nd favorite sci-fi storyline right behind Star Wars. From the first time I saw it, imagining exploring inside a computer system, identity disks, the grid, the light bikes, the recognizers, I was immediately hooked. Then, in 2008, when TRON Legacy was released, I saw it in all it’s glory in IMAX 3D. I absolutely loved every second of it - from the music, to the updated designs. I thought it was the right mix of a nod to the original, yet passing the torch to the next generation of fans. A little side note, I had the great privilege of meeting Daniel Simon, the vehicle designer for TRON Legacy. See my blog post about that HERE. Inspiration:In looking for a challenge for my next personal project, I decided to do a completely illustrated movie poster. I wanted to do everything by hand from start to finish. I also wanted to work in a different style than I normally do (realistic portrait). I wanted the finished piece to look more stylized, like an old-school comic book cover. The first movie that came to mind was of course TRON. Honestly, I can’t believe I haven’t attempted this before. Preparation:I wanted the piece to first and foremost be about the characters. Particularly TRON himself. I wanted him to be center stage and build the composition around him. I wanted to of course include Flynn, Yori, and Sark. As for vehicles, what TRON poster would be complete without at least light bikes and recognizers. I set about to sketching ideas, and finally settled on one that I liked. Still keeping things pretty rough, I did slightly refined sketches of all the characters individually, in various poses. Once I was happy with those, I brought them all into my main document and arranged them into a composition.
Here's a fun little comparison of my progress with digital painting. I started experimenting with digital art on the iPad (making the transition from traditional drawing/painting) in December of 2015. Being a huge Star Wars fan (like most people on planet Earth), my first ever piece was a portrait of Darth Vader. With another installment to the Star Wars saga released just yesterday, I decided to do another Darth Vader portrait as a fun benchmark of my progress. Here is the result below. I obviously still have a long way to go, but it's encouraging to see a little improvement.
Both were done on an iPad with Autodesk SketchBook. What I Use:
For digital art projects, I’m currently using a first gen iPad Pro 12-inch and an Apple Pencil. I love the larger screen size for drawing/painting, and the Pencil is one of the best input tools I’ve ever used. I just wish they had designed it so you can flip it around to the other side and automatically activate the eraser tool in your app like some others do. Although I have used several, my app of choice is Autodesk Sketchbook. You get a mobile and desktop version for the same cost (I use it on my Mac at work too with a Wacom tablet). It also has a free version you can play around with to see if it’s a fit for you. Procreate is also an amazing app as well for the iPad Pro, but Sketchbook is my go-to app because I’m most comfortable with it (and because I can use it cross-platform). https://www.sketchbook.com/?locale=en My wife works for a local staffing agency that specializes in digital marketing and IT. She regularly has awesome ideas and has great long-term vision. Because of this I'm constantly asking her feedback on some of my wacky design concepts. Every once and a while she comes up with a project that she will ask for my design help on. This was one such occasion. She was recruiting for coding positions and was growing weary of the same old methods for finding people and wanted to try something a little different. She came up with the idea to design a series of "memes" that could be used in social media to speak to her target audience in a way that hasn't been done before. These would borrow from something in popular culture, something her target audience would get right away and associate with, but the message would be changed and aimed directly at them in a positive way. This is the first in the series. The idea was pretty simple - to use the phrase from AC/DC's famous album "For Those About To Rock", and change it to "For Those About To Code - We Salute You". Borrowing heavily from the look and feel of the album cover itself, I did an illustration of a hand holding up a keyboard (to replace the cannon image), and used a very similar type treatment for everything else. Here's what we came up with. She's had some success and positive feedback form the short time it's been uses so far. This was a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to working on the rest of the series with her. I'll post more about those and how they've been working later.
Ok, first a little background - I got into building papercraft projects a while back as a way to inexpensively fill out my son’s model train layout. I found that I could acquire really great designs on the web, print them on card-stock and build them myself - basically for free. A house or building roughly the same size from a model train company like Lionel would cost anywhere from $40 - $150. Funny thing is, I discovered I really loved doing the projects and got a great deal of personal satisfaction from the finished piece. I started doing ones for myself just because I enjoyed it so much. Perhaps I'll post about some of those another time. This brings me to this latest project - the Millennium Falcon. Who doesn’t love this ship? Even as a kid growing up with the original Star Wars movies and toys the Falcon was always my favorite. I had an 8 or 9 inch long diecast Kenner toy version of it that I played with all the time. I wish I knew it’s whereabouts today. I have entertained the thought of purchasing one from ebay for nostalgia sake. Anyway, I found this papercraft version online and couldn’t wait to give it a go. 9 pages of parts, nearly 15 total hours of cutting, folding and gluing - not for the faint of heart. This was by far the most difficult papercraft project I’ve ever done, but also most rewarding. The amount of detail is incredible! There are multiple layers of the outer hull to give it a more textured, realistic appearance. The turrets, the satellite dish, the engine heat dissipation ports - everything is considered and rendered beautifully. There’s even a stand you can build to display it on when you’re done. For now, this definitely fills the void I was feeling with not being able to find my old diecast toy. Things I might do differently if I do it again: 1. I would like to try printing it on larger paper, like maybe 11x17 instead of 8.5x11. This would have scaled everything up and yielded a larger finished product (the one I built is about 8.5” long. This also would have made some of the really small detailed and delicate parts a bit easier to work with too. 2. I would have taken more process photos while building it. I didn’t really start taking pictures until towards the end. I really wish I had taken the time to document it better. Next time! I should note, the name of the artist that designed this awesome papercraft is Shunichi Makino. If anyone would like to try this for themselves, here is the link to download. http://www7a.biglobe.ne.jp/~sf-papercraft/sf/falcon.html On Tuesday, January 12th, I got the distinct privilege of meeting one of my heroes in the design world. Daniel Simon gave a talk at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit (where I got my degree). He was in town for the Auto Show and was kind enough to make time to speak to students and professionals alike - the event was open to the public. Of corse I stayed after to speak to him and ask if he’d pose for a photo. He was so down-to-earth, well mannered and open to answering questions. He was Just a really cool and inspiring guy. Later at the Auto Show, he received an award for 2016 Industry Innovator of the Year. A well deserved honor for sure. (see photos below). If you don’t already know who Daniel Simon is, he got his start in Germany designing real-world vehicles for companies like Volkswagen and Bugatti Automobiles. He had a book published in 2007 called Cosmic Motors, which as you could guess featured futuristic race cars that he designed as a personal interest project. This opened the door for him to come to the U.S. and work as a concept designer for films like Oblivion, Prometheus, Captain America, and my personal favorite, TRON Legacy. Anyone who knows me knows this is no understatement - I am a HUGE fan of all things TRON. It was Daniel’s work on the vehicles in that movie that caught my attention in the first place - particularly the light cycles. Once I saw his other body of work, I became a fan instantly. As a graphic designer, I have great respect and admiration for people that do concept design work. To draw/sketch and design vehicles, characters, environments from your mind - now that’s creativity at it’s core. In many ways I almost wish I had chosen that as my major when I went to CCS. But, I’m happy to be a graphic designer and I love the work I get to do as well - particularly when I get to use my love for drawing/sketching and make something creative too. Anyway - do yourself a favor and keep an eye on this guy’s career: Website: http://danielsimon.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielsimonstudio Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielsimondesign/ Note, with the exception of the 1st image with me in it, these photos are the property of Daniel Simon Design and Disney. I recently started an Instagram account to post content from my sketchbook. Mainly pencil/charcoal drawings, but there are a few other types of media thrown in for good measure. My sketchbook is my creative outlet that I carry around with me just about anywhere. When ideas strike, or when I just feel like drawing people sketches, I always have my trusty Moleskine with me and some pencils. You can view the account here: https://instagram.com/sketchdraw_j5/
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All blog posts are written by Johnathan Schaaf unless noted otherwise. Archives
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