Donny's Non-Trek Stuff

[137th Gebirg]

Always loved the Sterling design. Although as far as WWII weapons are concerned, I’m most enamored with the German STG-44 Sturmgewehr which, incidentally, was given a Star Wars treatment for the rebel forces on Hoth in ESB (hint, hint) .

 

[Tallguy]

I can almost hear the Wilhelm scream.

 

[BK613]

Outstanding!

(and whew!, All your threads had fallen off the front page, a bit worrisome in "these uncertain times.")

 

[Donny]

Outstanding!

(and whew!, All your threads had fallen off the front page, a bit worrisome in "these uncertain times.")

Oh, I'm still working. But I'm striking a balance with letting myself breathe and not be so damn busy all the time, which has been helpful in isolation. I say that, but I also look at this massive body of work I've pumped out in isolation and I wonder, have I actually slowed down?

And with the SW stuff, I'm less inclined to post WIP shots on this board.

And please don't think I've fallen out of love with Trek or anything. The Refit project is still there in my mind at times. But, I am enjoying the break from Trek for now (except for my day job, of course!)

 

[BK613]

@Donny Sounds like a sensible approach. Just know that your wiliness to share with the community is appreciated.

 

[sintesi]

Excellent work here, as usual! Out of curiosity, have you ever considered rendering "Valley Forge" from Silent Running, or anything from 2001? I'd bet you'd knock those out of the park.

 

[Donny]

Excellent work here, as usual! Out of curiosity, have you ever considered rendering "Valley Forge" from Silent Running, or anything from 2001? I'd bet you'd knock those out of the park.

I have to admit I'm not familiar with Silent Running (I know, I know). But yeah, I've considered doing some 2001 renders. I'd like to model it all, but I wanted to start with the interior of the Orion III. Maybe one day.

 

[sintesi]

Silent Running was (I believe) Doug Trumbull’s first major SFX work post-2001. Valley Forge is a really interesting ship design, and the film is pretty good overall—it’s Trumbull’s directing debut. It was part of a five-picture project out of Universal Studios using different genres and directors to produce high-quality, low-budget films. Each film started out with a $1M budget: American Graffiti (George Lucas), The Last Movie (Dennis Hopper), Taking Off (Milos Forman), and The Hired Hand (Peter Fonda) were the others. Trumbull made his million dollars go a long way.

Stock footage was used for The Starlost series, and Valley Forge also shows up as the 'agricultural' ship in the Colonial fleet in the Glen Larson Battlestar Galactica. The BSG reboot riffs off the Valley Forge design for a couple of ships: the ship left behind in the Cylon attack with the little girl aboard in the pilot film and, later, the "Cloud 9."

 

[Redfern]

And Bruce Dern's character along with the drones "Huey, Dewey and Louie" were partial inspirations for Joel Hodgson when he developed "Mystery Science Theater 3000".

 

[Michael]

Add me to the folks who are singing the praises of Silent Running. It's as slow as your usual 70s sci-fi flick, but the production design, the acting and the music are top-notch. Personally, I listen to the soundtrack often. To see someone do Valley Forge fan art would be all kinds of awesome. But I total get you, as an artist you just *have* to keep to the stuff you're most emotionally invested in yourself; otherwise you'll burn out pretty quickly.

 

[publiusr]

I would have liked to have seen all those biodomes in a ring...like a cityship

 

[FormerLurker]

the ship left behind in the Cylon attack with the little girl aboard in the pilot film

I thought that was a little boy, specifically the RDM version of Boxey. Or were there two kids?

 

[cardinal biggles]

There were two different kids: Boxey was one of the lucky people who got a ride off Caprica on Boomer's Raptor; there was a little girl named Cami who Roslin talks with on the Botanical Cruiser and gets left behind.

 

[FormerLurker]

Okay. I remember both scenes, I just forget their context. I haven't seen it since it originally aired.

Edit: everyone can now go back to their regularly scheduled activities. That is all.

 

[Norsehound]

If we're talking about sci-fi movies from the 70s, there's always Dark Star out of left field. It's not one of my favorites but I thought the ship was cool.

 

[Redfern]

But without "Dark Star", we might not have gotten "Alien" and one of the most memorable creature designs in cinema!

Supposedly, Dan O'Bannon, who worked on "Dark Star" and years later on "Alien" said something to the effect, "Well, if I couldn't get them to laugh, then instead I'll scare the h3ll outa' them!"

 

[FormerLurker]

Just don't let the audience see the outtake of the guy in the suit scooting around on his butt. It blows the whole illusion.

 

[Donny]

Hey, peeps! It's been a minute since I've posted any work on these boards, basically because a bulk of what I'm doing is now going into the Roddenberry Archive and I can't share that stuff for now.

Anyway, seeing the The Batman in the theater a couple of weeks ago triggered my childhood obsession with Batman, so I've been nerding out hardcore on all things Bat lately. Got it in my head I wanted to model something from the franchise, and since I grew up with and have an affinity for the Burton/Keaton films, the 89 Batmobile was what I settled on.

This lady is tricky because there aren't any accurate schematics of this thing publicly available that I could find, so I had to resort to a new (to me) method of reference. The AMT model kit is fairly accurate in terms of proportions (but glaringly inaccurate in just one or two details), but having a model kit next to me at my desk is no match for schematics. So what I did is actually invested a nice camera and did a very rough photogrammetry scan of the AMT kit which I bought, assembled, and painted matte grey. The results weren't nearly as clean as I wanted (probably due to my not being able to photograph it in nice, even lighting), but it did give me a rough 3D model with more or less correct proportions to bring into 3Ds max to build a much cleaner model on top of it. It's served as an invaluable guide.

I was also down in Los Angeles last week for some work stuff, and while I was there I went to the Petersen Automotive Museum which had an accurate replica of the 89 Batmobile there. With my new camera, I took lots of pictures to supplement the references.

I've spent most of the time just getting the shape of the body just right before I started cutting in all the details. I don't think I've ever tackled something with so many curves that flow into each other before...this really ia a beast! I spend a couple days on the fins alone. Anyway, here is where it stands as of now! Very very WIP.




Hope you all are doing well!

 

[cardinal biggles]

That's beautiful. All these years later, the '89 Batmobile is still my favorite, and it looks like you're doing her justice. I miss you sharing your Trek stuff, but I'm glad your work with the Roddenberry Archive is going so well.

 

[ashleytinger]

YES!