Wow, I finally actually won an art challenge! Thanks to all who voted for me, and thanks to everyone else as it was good fun. For this month, I challenge you to the task of pre-production for an episode of Star Trek. It's a little different approach to what we've done in the past, but I hope that just makes it more interesting. The idea is simple: We've all seen sketches from various Trek art directors that led to final things we saw on screen. I, for my part, have drawn huge inspiration from the doodlings of the likes of Matt Jefferies, Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, and their fellow illustrators-at-arms. This month, we'll do something similar. Many episodes of Star Trek have a new set, spacecraft, important prop, interesting costume, matt painting, or other object designed by the Art department (or costumes or make-up, no need to be exclusive!) to make the fictional world of Star Trek believable to the television audience. This process involves going through numerous starter ideas before settling on the one that makes into the real production. Your entry must consist of at least three or more concept sketches of the item you are designing. Explore different ideas. These do not have to be finished products, more just quick sketches and notes to define a direction. These are often done with pencil and paper, but they don't have to be. Deep Space Nine and Voyager were both blocked out as simple computer generated shapes to find a direction before final details ere prepared. You must say which series your episode is part of. And you must specify which season as well. You may choose from any of the five live-action telvision shows. No movie era stuff, as we're dealing with TV production, and no TAS, just cause animated shows are a somewhat different process. Be limited by the technology available to the time the show was made. A TOS episode should feel like it belongs in the late '60's. an Season 1 TNG episode should look like the 80's and so on. Two options: you may either 1) "weight" one of your sketches to indicate it's the direction you as art director for the show would like to go (pending producers approval) by doing it in a more finished and colorful way; or 2) make a finished item. If you're designing a small hand prop, why not actually build one out of scrap wood and sheet styrene? If it's a ship and you're a computer modeler, whip something up in your 3D engine of choice. If you're a physical modeler like me, build a paper or wood mock up. (a finished photographic miniature would be AWESOME but clearly beyond the March 31 deadline!) So, 3+ sketches, one of them more finished than the others, tied to a specific season of Star Trek. And bear in mind that on a real TV show, there are cost concerns and plenty of recycling of props used earlier in the show (for example, Klingon disruptors that began life as Eminian Disruptors, Tholian ships being used as stolen space cruisers, any number of TNG alien of the week ships, et al.) If you can incorporate some element that had appeared in an earlier season of Star Trek (or some other show like Outer Limits or Twilight Zone for that matter) in a clever way, go for it! It's not a requirement of the challenge, but it would be cool to see if someone did it. Usually, art directors had a teleplay or at least a synopsis to work with. I'll leave the story up to you. But in case you need some inspiration, I'll give you at least a title: "Ghosts of Conscience" Well I hope that sounds like fun. I hope you guys will come out in force! Have fun with this. You have tremendous freedom to design whatever you want, just show your work! --Alex
All right, so March has finished! I suppose it's time to get a poll ready to vote on the March contest entries. Does Ptrope usually do this or is it my responsibility seeing as how it's my contest? I forget how this works... --Alex
Cool. I'll leave it in his capable hands then. You know, I had hoped to participate this month myself, but things just got too hectic. I'm interested in seeing who takes the cake this time around... --Alex
Sorry, everyone - a few personal things popped up in the past few days and I'm terribly late getting the poll up, but it's going up now.