The big hump.

This is the shot that I've spent the most time on, mainly because I wasn't sure how I was going to pull it off. I had the original background image that I cleaned up, but I wanted the camera to reveal how big the Hypatia really is. After adding all the bunting and getting some needed advice from my friend Mark, I was able to come up with something I'm pretty proud of. I also really like the birds- they really give the scene some kinetics that make it feel more alive and not just a flat picture.

How would you like your own personal blimp?

This is a test I did to see how well I could blend a live action shot I did with an actress/steampunk named Cherie Savoie and the blimp I made for the first establishing shot of Boston. I think it turned out pretty well- Although at four minutes a frame, the sequence took 24 hours to complete. I would like to add a little rock and ease that stop a little more, but as a test, I think this looks awesome.

Well, it's been a while, but there's a lot of new stuff coming. Here's the finished monorail train, as well as it's station. In the context of the shot it's in, we'll never get this close, but if there is, at some point in time a webseries, well, this is where some of the action might take place.

This is essentially a reversed steam engine. I referenced the back end as the boiler and the front end as the cockpit, although I'm not sure a forwards view is even necessary.

From the other side. The notion is, the supports are on the left and the rail mounts are on the right.

I based the cars on pullman style coaches from the late 1800's. The first class and the second class are identical on the outside, but the inside is much more plush for the folks paying more. Not that I actually built that or anything.

This is all part of the Boston Horseless Transportation Company. Now, Some people have pointed out that the support arms for the trains should be bigger, and I agree. But, if I want to finish this shot I have to call it out as a CBB, or "Could be Better." If there's a need for this in upcoming episodes, well, I can always put em on.

The station is sort of a combination of a regular train station and a subway station. The "G" stands for Glowerston, a major stockholder of BHT.

The bunting is because it's the fourth of July. And the day the Hypatia sets sail.

I rigged the trains to stay on the rail, and these last two are renders with motion blur.

Boston Power Station!

Yeah, these shots are getting better and better. This one is the second establishing shot of a retrofuturistic power station situated in the Boston Commons. It's a work in progress for sure, but I think it shows a lot of promise.

The loading dock- it's really long and looks pretty cool!

So yeah, I started in on the backgrounds for the long haul. This is one of the ones from the "telegram" scene and once it's populated with people, I think it will look pretty good.

Another zeppelin for the background...

This represents the last of the throwaway models for the first (and most likely all of the) scene(s) that establish a Victorian Futurism for my film. I still have a few cars that are mostly built and I will show `em when I am done! I also have the Vasa to build. Eeeesh.

Two new pictures!

These are pictures of a throwaway model I made to add some movement far in the distance of the first shot of Boston. It goes about 15 miles an hour and is powered mostly by steam.

The dying Swift. This is how the flashback starts.

I built the wreckage of the Swift based on a real ship, the Flying Cloud. At the time, she was the fastest thing afloat, and set a record for the trip between San Francisco and New York. Anyhoo, I spread the love between the fore and aft section of the boat, with a gaping hole in it exposing decks and ribs. I added some barrels and boxes and then set the whole thing ablaze.

The wreckage of the Swift.

We never see this much detail in the actual shot; it's blurred and there are a ton of fire elements as well as smoke a a foreground actor. But I really like the mood this sets. Pirates of the Caribbean in Paris was, when it was built, the crown jewel of all of them. There's several wrecks the bateaux pass by and they all have this crazy hot/cool lighting that makes them look surreal. Well, I don't know if I captured it, but I got something I really, really like.

The aerobus!

I designed this blimp as sort of a public transportation air bus, for those ladies and gentlemen who don't wish to walk to the street to get a conveyance. I based the seats on the ones in a red car, which we got to ride out at the Orange Empire Railroad Museum. The props spin down (they have an elaborate gear system to be able to reverse quickly, while the main motor sits atop the cabin roof) and the passengers enter from the rear.

First animation test! It's the robot!

Big Steam + Loading Dock = awesomesauce

Here's a render I did after I threw in some rudimentary animation on Big Steam No. 6. I can't wait to see him moving!

Big Steam number 6

I know it's been awhile since the last update- I got done with the shoot, and started editing and then I got assigned to a new show with tons of OT. Ah well. Here's some pictures of a labor automaton that Mulvey invented. There will be several of these guys loading the Hypatia in the prologue.

Enjoy!

Golightly ver. 2.0

So I was perusing the web the other night, looking for inspiration for alternative vehicles to populate my opening shots with and came across this:

This was a logo the wonderful Voyages Extraordinaires had used for a while. It turns out there was this fellow named Charles Golightly who patented an aerial steam rocket in 1841. Though it was never built, (probably because to have done so would have instantly killed any rider brave enough to give this thing a go!) the device became quite popular among newspaper editors and political cartoonists. There is an excellent history here.

From a personal standpoint, I thought this was the very thing my film needed. And so I present the Golightly ver. 2.0!

Truthfully, this thing couldn't really fly either, but it looks awesome and after all, that's what really counts. Right?

Finally- The finished personal blimp!

Well, here it is. I've been working on this thing off and on (mostly off) for a week and a half and We never get this close to it. But, the details are all in there, and once I get the pilot and his lady modelled, I'll be ready to drop it into my scenes.

This is closer to how big it will be in frame, although it still is pretty large.

This shot is most likely how we'll see it- Flying away from us and towards the main event at the Glowerston Aeroport.

Here's a nice view of the details that I put in- There's even a connection from the boiler to the engine and from there to the motor.

The finished trolley!

A while back, I showed a couple of friends a test I'd done for the first shot in my film. They thought that despite some of the things that were in it, it looked a little too conventional. so I went back to the drawing board and came up with this. Let me know what you think!

Props for the shoot!

Here's my spread Friday night. Blimp/spaceship- mostly done. Book? Not even started.

Here's some of the props in their "native" environment. Mad scientist blocks, a toy fishing boat I picked up last May in Greece, a Primer and a Battledore from the eighteen thirties... Once the kids were added, it started looking crowded!

This is the book that has young Mulvey entranced at age eight- the thing that is going to inspire him for the rest of his life. I made it out of cardboard. What's really cool is that Jules Verne mentions a bunch of scholars, priests and writers that wrote about travels to the Moon and back before anyone really applied science to the problem. I used illustrations from Cyrano de Bergeracs story about the Moon, Edgar Allen Poe's tale of moon travel and a score of others. The results were pretty amazing.

I'm not sure if they even had a book like this in 1851.

This is the rocket ship that Fanny found so inspiring. 5$ bird house from Michaels, with a bunch of rivets to add a little foreshadowing.

This lantern was made from CB2's gear candle holder. We found these cheap wall sconces at Lowe's, pulled out the wiring and hot glued the gear onto it. Then we added the glass cups. Wow. Too bad you can't really see them in the shoot.

And here's the final blimp toy. Since the birdhouses were pretty cheap, I bought a damaged one as well. I ripped off the nose, sanded a part of the rim down so it could lock on to the back and then I made the gondola out of some thin wood sidings, balsa accents, wagon wheels I found at Kit Craft and rivets. Lots and lots of the little buggers.

Exciting News!

Hey guys. Sorry it's been like a month or two since the last update.

I've been sick as a dog for the last week and a half (since returning from Europe!) and despite that, have some interesting stuff that will be going up on the blog by the end of the week.


One of the most exciting things that's happening right now is that a good friend of mine who's pretty much embedded in the Steampunk movement is putting on an art show out in Connecticut. In addition to his day job, Joe builds props for movies, designs puppets for plays, illustrates graphically and somewhere in there has the time to curate the Steampunk Bizarre.

This year he asked me to be a part of it.

So despite being sick, I've been madly scrambling to get `er done. My biggest fear is disappointing my friend with substandard stuff (you should see some of the real artists who are contributing to the show! Amazing!) so I've been working my butt off to make some good art.

I'll be contributing some props and miniatures from AIS as well as putting together a DVD with the completed story reel, some tests I've been doing and I'll be selling a poster advertising the Glowerston Steamaeroship Hypatia.

It will be inspiring and fun and I'll be able to hang with some really cool people.

Come back on Friday. I should have some interesting things to post then!

Kit bashing and all that goes with it...

For the second story in my film, a lot of action takes place in Rock Hill, the site where the Baltimore Gun Club built their mighty Columbiad. My job is to make it look like after ten years, it's quite the tourist attraction. There will be tents and popcorn vendors, palmists and tea leave readers, and a number of permanent buildings; an ice house, the main train station and a few more. My plan is to make/buy a number of Victorian era HO scale models and use them as backgrounds.

Now, I'm not sure if you've ever seen one of those building kits, but they look really fake. Plastic. As an experiment, I bought a train station in N scale for my home layout. I removed the plastic brisk base and created a more appropriate wooden one using this unique balsa wood that had been scored or etched by a laser to look like 2x4s.

Then I went to town and weathered the whole enchilada and added some mud on the ground and at the base of the building. I think it looks rather... used.

Terry gave me some awesome pointers, so the next ones I do are going to look even better. Plus, they're twice as big, which will make it a little easier.

Here's a miniature rail car from Huzzah the Moon!

I found this great place online that sells little tiny models in HO scale from the late 1800's. This will be part of the Columbiad set where the train with Mulvey's moon ship pulls in. It's been ten years since the Baltimore Gun Club made history by going around the Moon, and Mulvey intends to make history by landing on it and returning. In the intervening years, Rock Hill (Tampa) has become something of a theme park- part carnival, part beach resort. The set will be built about eight feet by eight feet in HO scale and I will be building a full scale set of some of the tents in my backyard and augmenting them with greenscreen combined with minatures and matte paintings.