This is the mystical MacGuffin of my film. It's rumored to be a sword given to Sisyphus by the Greek Goddess Circe, but it really doesn't matter. Glowerston collects old relics and he wants this one. This illustration is a prop for the reshoot coming up on the 28th. Nemo (of Nautilus fame) discovered this sword in the wreck of a Dutch ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

This is the sword Mulvey and his stalwart manservant Grimmauld go looking for, and find, in act one. However, during the course of the adventure, it is damaged and leads to a parting of the ways between the inventor and his benefactor. I can not wait to make this next piece!

I almost named it insidiarum fabrica, which is "plot device" in Latin. As it stands, it means "Sisyphus' Despair."

It's a mystery, what can I say? I'm pretty happy with the image and when I printed it out, it's pretty much life size...

Another piece of advertising art!

This is the advertising poster you can see from the street in the opening shot of my film. It's on a billboard and I think Dr. Grymm looks quite handsome in his brass goggles. The main logo was actually designed by Joey, and the photo was taken by the guys at Ajar Studios. I had to clean up the border and add the taglines and posterized treatment of the good Doctor.

Here's a brief glimpse into the Steampunk Bizarre

I shot this video while I was at the show. I apologize that it's the same music as the other one, but for some reason the new music I put on, while not copywritten per se, was rejected and the soundtrack muted.

Oh well. This is really cool.

All done for now...

The props done. The poster's done. And finally, in a little over eight days I pulled thirty greenscreen keys and rendered out two hires renders of the Hypatia and the loading dock that looked fantastic.

The dvd went out this morning, winging its way to Connecticut. Final length? Six minutes.

Six minutes of cheese, that had my wife laughing out loud at my hammy acting. It was great.

So now I feel empty inside.

But not really.
*whew*
I'm done.

Well, it's late, but...

Looks like everything is on track for the Steampunk Bizarre. I printed out those posters (an 11x17 version for framing, and 19 6x8 postcards for purchase) and they look fantastic. The only thing left is for me to edit a sort of "making of" video that will be eternally looping behind some of the props.

Originally, it was just going to be the story reel and some art sort of stuck together.

But as a test, I decided to make a three minute intro to everything with the fictitious producer, Herman Ivey Copperthwaite. He's something of an idiot.

I donned part of some costumes I had lying about, trimmed my facial hair into something ridonkulous and put on some makeup, then hopped in front of my camera for the better part of four hours. We shot everything I needed.

I imported all that footage, and by eleven Friday night had a pretty funny six minute piece, complete with dialogue cards (it is silent, after all)! I was down in San Diego seeing King Lear at the Old Globe on Saturday, but on my return I printed out the posters, framed `em and then got started on making keys and putting Herman into some old movie studio pictures I found.

I've done five in about four hours. And, they look pretty good. This was sort of the proving ground for Adventures in Science, and it's going to work. Hopefully my story is compelling enough.

I'll post the finished result once the Bizarre is over.

All aboard the Hypatia!

Well, it's finished, more or less. I am still debating about the leafy things going up the sides there, and I'm also thinking about moving the Glowerston coat of arms down where the GAS logo is at the bottom so the whole thing is balanced better.

Nevertheless, these will be for sale at the Steampunk Bizarre in larger scale. I'm actually quite happy with most of this; I haven't really done any printworthy art since I was in my early twenties (ironically, Joey helped me out there, too!).

The Hypatia looks great (IMHO!) and I think I've succeeded with the Victorian ad quality; the red white and blue coloring of the type is just patriotic enough. (Glowerston wears patriotism on his sleeve- think Halliburton and you know what I'm going for.)

Any opinions you have are, as always, most welcome!