Sunday, October 20, 2013

Vintage Serial superheros re-imagined


Back when they were remaking Superman (the most recent time), I was working on creature designs for a movie called R.I.P.D. My boss at that time was designing for both Superman and Dark Knight Rises, so (being that he had his hands full with those two mega-shows) I was happy and lucky to get a call to do some fun monster stuff.

However, a part of me started to wonder what I might come up with if given the opportunity to design a Super-suit.

 Ever since I was a kid, my favorite Superman was George Reeves (mostly, I assume, because he was the first one I was exposed to), so I thought it might be neat to 'update' his look from the cheaply-made felt(?) suits of that era.
(By the way, People have already complained to me of my that lack of a giant 'S' on his chest already, but I always thought it a bit silly to have a giant Letter or logo on heroes, especially in light of more recent incarnations of the Dark Knight.)

I sculpted in a chiseled, angular Zbrush suit in the style of more recent films, and photoshopped George Reeves into it. When I showed this to a friend, he receommeded that I do a whole series of these, and my next choice was 1949's Robert Lowery and Johnny Duncan from the 'Batman and Robin' serial.

I, some time ago, had a dream that I was designing a 'Robin' suit for a film (yes, I sometimes even am thinking up ideas even in my sleep) and made a quick color sketch when I awoke. That idea inspired the ROBIN suit shown here (which I tried to make as badass as possible, since the character's rarely given a chance to shine), while trying to subtly keep in his trademark colors.



Actually, I learned a lot during my research (I had no idea that there was a ‘Captain America’ serial!) trying to find some old-time Superheros of the era, and I have included a few that I ran across in this blog posting.

 

Enjoy,

Michael

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Monday, May 6, 2013

New Skateboard deck

Hi all!
Have been quite busy with a few design jobs, lots going on, BUT....
...wanted to update with this cool skateboard deck a friend of mine in Australia laser cut for me based on one of my drawings. Here are the first pics that have been released.
 
Going to start work on another very soon!
 




Sunday, March 3, 2013

New sketches






Hello my dozen lovely followers!
Here's a gew you may or may not have seen....(most of them are reposted from facebook), A couple of comp-sheets with alien/creature sketches, a zbrush sculpt, and a painting I did for a 'Carrie' book...

Sunday, February 24, 2013

more recent zbrush sculpts...



Here's a couple of more fantasy-inspired guys that i sculped in zbrush, taking advantage of their new lighting options...

....This week's work...


...
...busy with a few little things at the moment. Nothing NDA, So i can share these with my dozen lovely followers:
The top fellah is a Haunted Mansion-inspired painting that I would like to do more of, and the bottom is a ink drawing for an etched wooden skateboard (which should be available soon). I will, however, probably do some painting and color on this guy at some point...
I try and add whatever misc things I can think of to this blog, as I never know who might be looking at it for portfolio purposes, So more to come soon!
Enjoy!