Cyfa's art challenges and other bits & bobs

Oh, good, thanks Michael
And yes, Kimolu (and Matt) is pretty forward, but in this case, Rutherford offered himself to them. I get the impression from "First First Contact" that the three of them seem pretty comfortable with each other, and I imagine they've "splashed about" together more than once after their duty shifts

- Oh, definitely. And they're not the only ones!

- Thanks, Santaman!

Anyway, here's the finished item:

 

For this month's 'Trek Craft Inspired by a Car Manufacturer" art challenge, I immediately thought of Alfa Romeo having recently said goodbye to my almost 20 year old Alfa 156 .
However, my starship art rarely makes it beyond the sketch stage because in my head the finished article looks like a proper CGI model - something that my impatient, hand-drawn style can never hope to achieve, so I very quickly consign my ideas to closed pages of my note/sketch book and move on to something else (such as an almost naked Rutherford...).
Anyway, for curiosity's/completion's sake, here are my brief and hasty sketches of an Alfa Romeo-inspired starship:

From the beginning of the month, all I had going on was the distinctive shield grill as a nav deflector, and the latest triple headlights as windows. As you can see, I quickly gave up on the starship idea for something a bit simpler (a Lower Decks-style shuttle), that never happened.


Then, on Christmas Eve, I revisited the starship idea, but this time using the traditional Alfa red colour, the teledial wheels, and the emotional aspect of the design & driving experience that Alfa's often evoke (that's not the right word, but I can't think of it at the mo) as inspiration. And what came to mind? Yes: Vulcans! Because of course Vulcan's emotions surface in their starship design

And this is as far as I've got. And I very much doubt I will get any further now, especially as I've been at the gin, and also want to loll around in the bath for a couple of hours...

 

First of all I have to express my condolence for loosing your car.
Its interesting that I went through similar stages in my design. But instead of vulcan I wanted to make it a romulan alfa d'deridex (basically just slap a giant alfa grill on its face and make it red...).

Now I cant stop thinking about Spock...sitting at the steering wheel just smiling. McCoy has to step in because vulcans might get into a pon farr like state when they are exposed to italian cars for too long.

 

Pon Ferrari?

 

^^ Ye gads, that's so funny and yet so wrong..

Can't wait to see what you're going to come up with @Cyfa

 

~ Oh, yes! I can see it now - sinister and stylish!

~

~ I didn't find any time, unfortunately, so I'm giving this one a miss. Although, this month's challenge looks like it'll be 'Design Evolution', so depending on whether a specific theme is chosen, I might just continue with my Vulcan Alfa starship?

 

In between other things, today I managed to find time to flesh out an idea I had a week or so ago for the second in the "Rutherford as a cetacean plaything" series. This time he's teasing those frisky belugas in cetacean ops with the proper version of the fan dance he performed in LDS: "Veritas".

[Don't worry, the suspicious looking thing on the right in my sketch book is the Vulcan museum guard's phaser rifle - I imagine that Rutherford had to do the "regular fan dance" that the guard wanted in order for him and Shaxs to get away. I was going to just do a scene with Rutherford and the guard, but then thought this could work as an action figure instead, so dropped the guard (and his phaser).]

This is the feature image:


And this is the hastily finished concept complete with action figure packaging:

[The moon and palm fronds are inspired by Uhura's original fan dance in ST V, but everything else is from "Veritas" - except 'SEXY MODE' which is from "No Small Parts"]

I need to take some better photos in daylight (rather than under my little desk lamp) and re-do the packaging. Well, to be honest, I need to re-do the whole lot, but I know I won't as I'll want to work on the next action figure instead: Medical Experiment Victim Rutherford (including zap pads and pears)!

 

The placement of the sticker is even better this time.

 

- I almost didn't include it! Then I had second thoughts and almost covered Rutherford's bum with it, but he's got such a cute little bum that I moved it to the current position

 

Could have tilted the sticker a bit to the right. But maybe that would have been a little too obvious. When saw the image I had to think about this immediately. Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) - unmotivated butt-in-the-moonbeam walks (with english subtitles) - YouTube

 

that sticker placement is indeed super funny.

 

- Hah ha haa! I remember that scene now!
I thought about tilting the sticker, but that would have meant fiddle-farting around in MSPaint 3D (which I don't get on with very well - we're barely speaking). Or, rotating the image then opening it in Paint, adding the sticker, then rotating it back again once saved (and I'm too lazy/impatient to do that). But, as you say, I think a tilted sticker might be taking things a bit too far... (maybe?)

- Well, you're in luck, because here comes another one (if a joke's funny once, it's funny every time! - I can't remember who said that now? Possibly Calvin of "and Hobbes" fame?)!


Yep, I managed to churn out another Rutherford action figure today. However, this one is for the Gorn, rather than those belugas in Cetacean Ops: Gorn Wedding Crasher Rutherford!

This one was inspired by Rutherford's unwilling - and unwitting - adventures in LDS: "Veritas". I found it curious that although his uniform was shredded, Rutherford himself was unmarked by the Gorn "attack". Perhaps there was another reason that they were so intent on removing his clothes...?

[The bride didn't have a bouquet, but she did have a head-dress made of flowers. And the "bite radius" bit on the warning sticker is inspired by Mirror Phlox's line about an adult Gorn having a bite radius similar to that of a Velociraptor (from ENT: "In A Mirror, Darkly, Part II") - I changed it to Deinonychus because Velociraptors are quite small (their size may have been inflated in the Jurassic Park/World movies, just as they were in the original novel).]

 

In between life stuff (barely any of it my own), I've been working on my Rutherford Action Figures - repackaging, and adding a new edition: Hungry, Hungry Hulk-Out Rutherford (from LDS: "Trusted Sources").


And here's the design evolution of the Full Moon Fan Dance Edition for January's Fan Art Challenge:

 

while not my type of thing, I do admire the skill and creativity and dedication to keep at it when time is precious enough. A labour of love,

 

Really well done, and yeah very creative.

 

Thanks @gazomg and @Santaman

I managed to drag myself away from my Rutherford action figures today and make a start on this month's challenge - "I like the Old Stuff better than the New Stuff".
I returned to an idea I had for January 2018's "Your favourite Trek moment" challenge, and which has been languishing in my files since then. I'd got as far as selecting some screen caps from ST III: The Search For Spock (my favourite ST film) and making a very quick sketch of how I wanted to put them together, but that's it. I'd named it Uhura: Queen of Starfleet!

Anyway, today I chose some more screen caps (from TrekCore and Cygnus-X1), resized them, roughly "cut them out" in MSPaint, and slapped them all together:


Then, I set to with Paint's brush and spray can thingies in an attempt to make the cuts look less obvious:

[Oops! Looks like Excelsior's lower saucer could do with a bit more work]

Finally, I ran it through an Expressive Brushstrokes filter in FotoSketcher to see if I could get it looking a bit like a movie poster:


This was supposed to be just a trial to see if I could actually make something that resembled an 80s Trek movie poster, but it turned out much better than I expected - although, this extremely amateur effort is clearly not a patch on what you regular Photoshop (and the like) users could have come up with, that's for sure.

I definitely need to sort out the background around Excelsior's saucer, and I want to try and blend the background edges of Mount Selaya and the Vulcan priestesses in a bit more, but otherwise I'm quite pleased with my afternoon mucking about in Paint & FotoSketcher. However, some (gentle) pointers and critiques will not go amiss, so please let me know what you'd change or amend.

Speaking of, I have no idea what to call this 'movie' (this is labelled ST III: Pon Farr just because of Saavik's & Spock's finger thingy) so any suggestions will be gratefully received

 

I prefer the second the most, not a fan of the arty , cartoon type over filters, each to their own I guess.

would you not download even photosho CS3 ,would certainly make easier work for you, believe that was free for a while.

Even though I have cs6, and lightroom, I have never used them once, doing everything in cs3

As for a title, Out of their Vulcan Minds !!!

 

Thank you, @Michael and @gazomg

~ I must admit, I didn't really think about the lighting, as is probably quite evident from the vignettes I've chosen - the light is hitting each character from a different angle which, along with my extremely basic non-PhotoShop "skills", doesn't help with bringing any cohesion to the whole thing. I'll try and add some highlights as you suggest and keep my fingers crossed

~ I must admit, the filter could do with being dialled back a bit. I've had a few goes at it, but I always seem to make it worse. And some sort of blending filter is definitely needed to cover up my terrible edges

I've thought about Photoshop CS3 on and off for a little while (I think you suggested it to me before, as I recall? Borgman did, too), but never got around to doing anything about it. Learning how to use it puts me off a bit, but I might be imagining it to be more complicated than it actually is? I've got some time off in March, so I might have a go at it then.