H.R. Giger - Biomechanical Genius

It seems like only yesterday that I was celebrating the work of a visionary and here we are again...

Hans Ruedi Giger (1940 - 2014)

H.R. Giger

A legendary Swiss artist who is most famous for creating the monster for the sci-fi horror classic Alien (1979).  However, his art spans a period of almost 45 years and many different mediums.  To really appreciate the breadth of his talent, I heartily recommend you buy one of the Taschen Artbooks which feature his collected works.

Films

He worked on a number of films over the years mostly in creature design applying his signature style of monochromatic airbrushed biomechanical to a variety of costume and set pieces.  

One surprising design was his radical reimagining of the Batmobile for the movie Batman Forever (1995) which would have seen Val Kilmer cruising the streets of Gotham in a nightmarish twiglet.

Batmobile by H.R. Giger

Album Artwork

He worked with many bands creating some pretty iconic album covers,  Most famously depicting Debbie Harry on the cover of the album "Koo Koo" and giving Emmerson, Lake and Palmer's "Brain Salad Surgery" and Industrial edge before Nine Inch Nails were a glint in the milkman's eye.

Notoriously the Dead Kennedy's used his painting Landscape #XX as the inner gatefold image for the album "Frankenchrist" and the ensuing obscenity lawsuit almost bankrupted Jello Biafra's label Alternative Tentacles.  You can see a high res version of this image on the Rolling Stone website.

The action arose at the same time as the infamous PMRC founded by Tipper Gore (The wife of Vice President Al Gore) and Susan Baker (wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker).  The famous "Tipper Stickers", which fearful record execs agreed to add to the album sleeves, had precisely the opposite effect to that intended.  In fact in the 80s you couldn't call yourself a serious musician unless your latest release sported its badge of honour.   

Bubble Babies

My personal favourite Giger artwork is his disturbing Landscape #XVIII one of a series of baby landscapes

Landscape XVIII - H.R. Giger

The Giger Museum

If I ever get to visit Switzerland I will not be visiting the cuckoo clock factory instead I will be soaking up some culture in the Giger Museum in Gruyères.

Big Box Project - Part 3 - Happy belated Aliens Day!

Can you believe that it's 34 years since the release of the movie Aliens!!  Man I feel old.

The Bugs Won

Unfortunately due to the current lockdown all non-essential stores are closed which meant I couldn't purchase the black paintpen needed to complete my UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship noseart and I missed publishing this on #AlienDay.

However, it has come on leaps and bounds in the last few days and I am on the homestretch.

Cutting out the Stencil

This was a bear of a job and makes me yearn for a stencil cutting machine or a laser cutter.  Being a complete idiot I didn't think about printing the stencil on my 3D Printer.  Once this is over I will design one and put it on thingiverse and save everyone the tedium of hand cutting a stencil.

Airbrushing the Graphics

The original artwork is a bit flat and I wanted the elements to have a bit of a 3D feel to them.  Once each base coat was dry I shot the eagle with a lighter brown in the middle, then both text ribbons got a darker bottom shade of blue and red respectively and the beak got a light yellow highlight.  I did not highlight the boots, soles or the bullet casings as these were relatively small areas of colour and could not be masked easily.

Peeling off the masking

I asked one of my similarly aged work colleagues "What is the most fun you can have with a bottle of Copydex glue?".  I was not dissapointed when they responded with the answer "peeling it off your hand like it's rotting skin".  This was a a rite of passage in the 80s.

The act of peeling off the masking gave me the exact same satisfying feeling mixed with the rush you get when you open a mystery present or solve a really hard puzzle.  The results exceeded my expectations.

Blacklining 

As I mentioned above the blacklining needed a thin black marker and all the shops are shut due to the lockdown, so this had to wait until I made an "essential" shopping trip a few days later.  I managed to get two sharpies a fine and ultra fine twin tip and a fine tip for just £2.  The process of lining was pretty simple and I'm sure you will agree it makes the world of difference.

Panel Lines & Rivets

The piece de resistance in this artwork is of course adding the panel lines and rivets, after all this is supposed to be painted on the side of a USCMC Dropship.  I followed the excellent Youtube tutorial from Airbrush Asylum and I think it turned out okay.

Video

For those interested (probably not very many) I did put together a little montage of the stenciling part of this project.  Enjoy...

Big Box Project - Part 2 - The Flap and Preparing to Stomp Bugs!

Work on my Mobile Painting Workstation continues

Installation of the Flap

The bottom section of the box is pretty innacessible and therfore lends itself to long term storage of the compressor, rotary sander, hot glue gun and other larger items such as brush boxes and palettes.  I also wanted a second shelf so the obvious answer is to make a flap.

Keeping the cost low, I used some sections of laminate flooring made from Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF).  This is good enough.

A little pull tab cut from an old lanyard was glued to the bottom of the flap with some 5 minute epoxy.

More Exterior Decor

As I mentioned in Part 1, Aliens Day is just around the corner (April 26th) and I wanted to get the iconic Bug Stomper noseart added to the rear of the box.  I found a suitable graphic but I didn't like the black centre so I fired up GIMP and removed it.  This is now my stencil.

The paint scheme of the UD-4L Cheyenne Dropship is a predictable military green.  However, you can't get a tester pots of emulsion in military green so I went for the nearest I could get, Wilko's Jungle Green Emulsion.

I didn't have a reference image to hand and this colour in hindsight is way too light but that can all be fixed later.

This was liberally applied to the back of the box in two coats.  Coverage was surprisingly good.  When I painted the sides of the box with automotive paint there was some kind of chemical reaction and it didn't want to stick to certain parts of the box.  No problems with the emulsion and it went on quickly.

Next job was to cut out the badge from the center of the paper giving me 2 masks.  One to paint the white circle backgound and one for the details inside the badge. 

Careful measuring and marking in pencil will ensure that the outer mask is aligned so that the hole is directly in the centre of the box.  I used some Repositionable Mounting Spray to affix the mask and the newspaper but you could use a gluestick at a push.

 This is then liberally coated in white spray paint,

Removing the mask and the newspaper leaves a neat white circle the exact same size as the badge.  Take more care than me when masking and you won't end up with annoying bits of overspray like me.  A quick touch up with some Jungle Green and all is well.

The it's time to add the noseart circle.  Same drill, spray on the adhesive and align with the white circle.

I'll be covering the hard part, cutting out all the different areas of colour, in the next gripping installment

The Big Box Project - A Mobile Miniature Painting Workstation

Having gotten back into painting recently I have consequently developed a living space problem...

My dining table has succumbed to The Law of Flat Surfaces and is covered in painting tools and half completed projects.  It has just frankly gotten out of hand. 

I am a a firm believer in the reuse part of the recycling mantra, so when I found a wooden Carpenters Tool Box abandoned on the stairs of my apartment block a few months ago, I had to grab it.  I knew that when time became available it was going to be put to good use and become my mobile painting workstation.

This is no vintage hand crafted thing of beauty.  It's a roughly made carcase of 1/2" (57mm) thick pine with the front and back skinned in thin plywood, the edges of which are splintered in places but the box is solid enough.  The front hinges down to create a sort of sloped shelf.

The plan is to get the majority of my mini power tools and accessories installed into the box permanently.  I want to include a power strip and some form of worklight.  This is not an exhaustive list of what needs to go in their but it's a start:

Power Tools

• Rotary Sander (aka a nail file)
• Air Compressor (& airbrushes)
• Micro Drill
• Anglepoise Worklamp

Accessories

• Paints - A mix of Vallejo / Scale75 / Army Painter dropper bottles and various GW / Tamiya / Daler Rowney pots and bottles.
• Big Bottles - Airbrush thinners & cleaners
• Paint Palettes - Wet and Dry Palettes
• Water Cups - 2 water cups, one clean and one dirty
• Glues - Superglue
• Brushes - a good selection of miniature painting brushes.
• Sandpaper - Sanding Sticks
• Miscellaneous Tools - Pin vice, side cutters, needle nose pliers, tweezers, painting handles, coffee stirrers, clamps, sanding papers and sticks
• Cutting Mat - I'd like this to fit one inside the lid.
• Collapsible Spray Booth - I want this to double up as a spray booth so need to create a stowable cardboard spray shield  

As you can see this is quite the project and fitting everything in the list above into the box would challenge even the best TARDIS designer.  Lockdown is the perfect opportunity for me to get this done. and I have already started to tackle some of the exterior panels.

I'm going for that distressed WWII Warbird meets Cyberpunk aesthetic.  For the back I think I'll have to have a go at painting the "Bug Stomper" noseart from one of my favourite 80s films "Aliens".  I should have it done in time for Aliens Day on the 26th April 2020.

Progress on the interior has begun with a shelf and a storage flap in the base.  The exact configuration of the interior is likely to be very moveable flexible as I learn what works and what doesn't.  For starters that shelf needs a lip because as soon as you lift it up, anything unsecured falls off the shelf.  Don't ask me how I know...

French Space Opera - Time Jam: Valérian and Laureline

I've mentioned several times on this blog that Luc Besson is one of of my favourite directors/producers/writers and I always keep up to date with what projects he is involved with.  Back in 2012 he announced he was working on a Valérian movie, which for those who don't know, Valérian is a French graphic novel first published in Pilote magazine (Nov 1967) and written by Pierre Christin with art by Jean-Claude Mézières.

Just a few of the many aliens from the Time Jam universe (centre: Valerian and Laureline)

Besson has always been a fan of the original comicbook and so he hired Mézières and Jean Giraud Moebius to do the concept art for a little sci-fi project he was putting together which ended up being "The Fifth Element".  Besson's production company, Europacorp, also colaborated on a 40 episode anime series loosely based on the comic book, first aired in 2007.  Besson is not the only fan to be inspired by and some of the original comicbook has bled through to Star Wars.  Jeffrey Willis has a good write up of some of these on his blog The Geek Flag. 

The series follows the adventures of junior Space Time Agent Valérian, voiced by Nigel Greaves, who travels back to medieval France to undertake cultural observations for the Oxford Intergalactic University.  Needless to say his first mission goes spectacularly wrong and he ends up escaping feudal justice with a headstrong peasant girl called Laureline, voiced by Alison Dowling.  When they time jump back to 2417 they discover that the Earth has disappeared and they spend the rest of the series as the only humans in the galaxy trying to find out what has happened to it.  

The universe features a plethora of alien species, cultures, planets and technology, most notably the insectoid Vlargos who are intent on dominating the Galaxy.  Valérian and Laureline have to constantly thwart their devious plans as they ply their trade as space adventures.  One of their patrons are a trio of weird small winged entrepreneurs with trunks know as Shingouz.  Much like Star Trek's Ferenghi they are always in search of profit and end up sending Valérian and Laureline on quite a few dangerous missions to retrieve various objects. 

Their encounters often occur on weird planets that try to kill them or have been rendered dangerous by some legendary artefact they must recover and they are assisted by ship's computer "Rondha" which fills in some of the blanks for them and the viewer.  There's plenty of variety in setting and plot for each episode as the pair embark on various missions for their different patrons and they end up making just as many friends as enemies.

With the exception of the bizarre "Space Dandy", it's been a while since I've seen anything that I would class as "Space Opera".  By this I mean in the spirit of of E.E. "Doc" Smith's classic Lensman, a light hearted, galaxy hopping tour of the universe with only a laser blaster and a well timed one liner for defence.  It's pitched at an early teens audience, the tone is firmly in the "mild peril" zone, but it's good inspiration fodder for any Space Opera RPG and could be easily "hardened" up for more engaging adult sessions.  I would recommend using it as an alternative setting when you want to drop your players in at the deep end and watch them gradually learn about the universe as they play.

Awesome Aliens T-Shirt

The guys at fingerfunk.se have produced this awesome Chestburster Augmented Reality T-Shirt. 

Chestburster!!

Download the accompanying ChestBurster app from either the iTunes or Android store (depending on your mobile OS) and then point your smartphone camera at the image on the T-Shirt for a surprise!

You can buy the high quality printed t-shirt from fingerfunk or just do what I did and print it onto iron-on inkjet paper.

My 10 Favourite Sci-Fi Posters

Thanks to Davis Chenault for his post highlighting the IGN 25 Top Sci-FI Posters.

Here's my top 10 (in no particular order) with some alternate versions thrown in for good measure:


1. MAD MAX

Original Theatrical Poster	UK Poster

I love the graphic simplicity of the original release, but the UK poster (which I remember from my childhood) makes me wanna see the movie NOW!.

2. DUNE

UK Poster

Japanese Poster

The haunting alien vista of the UK poster is infinitely preferable to the car crash of bad airbrush art that is the Japanese version.  Who is Paul Atreides supposed to be kissing, cos it sure doesn't look like Sean Young.

3. BLADE RUNNER

Original Poster

Directors Cut Poster

The crazy angles and harsh edged look to the original composite are given a more sympathetic and dreamlike treatment for the directors cut.  Much better poster IMHO.

4. THEY LIVE

Original Poster

Marc Palm Homage Poster

Rowdy Roddy Pipper eyeballs your "alienness" in the original, but there's a nice subversive edge to Marc Palm's "Hope" version.

5. STAR WARS

Original Poster

Olly Moss Homage

The original is a masterpiece of both composition and oil painting, even if the blasters seem to be firing light-sabre beams.  The Olly Moss homage is an elegant piece of graphic design genius.  I'm officially torn between the two.

6. ALIEN

Original Poster

Polish Poster

The minimalist original has it all, black for space, weird cracked egg with green glowy yolk, scary byeline and alien eggbox landscape.  The poor poles have no idea what they're letting themselves in for with their bizarre blood vessel drawing of what I can only presume is a facehugger?

7. ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

Original Poster

Special Edition Poster

The Big Apple has gone all to hell in the iconic (if a little cliched) original as the characters are caught in a spot of mid escape terror.  The Special Edition looks like one of Snake Plisken's holiday snaps, posed right after he's brought down the Statue of Liberty in some sort of explosive mayhem.

8. SCANNERS

Original Poster

Italian Poster

In the definitive original, Michael Ironside's about to explode!!!.  But I love the comic book style and vivid fiery reds in the Italian version.

9. GODZILLA VS MEGALON

Original Poster

Alternate Poster

Godzilla is kicking Megalon's butt in the original and classic poster.  In the alternate version The Lost Continent of Mu has been given the boot in favour of a battle on top of the Twin Trade Towers which due to the exaggerated scale makes both these Kaiju look a bit puny by comparison.  Nice idea, poor execution (and the typeography lets it down as well)

10. THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN

Original Poster

Ken Taylor Mondo Poster

The arthouse style original with its dirty steampunk qualities are eschewed by Ken Taylor for a heavily inked composite illustration evocative of a Hammer Horror movie poster.