Author Archives: djuby

Every now and then a piece of art just stops me in my tracks. Calvary_Red's entry this week falls into that category. The composition, detail and colour are all outstanding. The piece has this misty, vintage, sepia thing going on that is really top notch. Congrats on a well deserved win!

On July 6, 1919 - A British dirigible landed in New York at Roosevelt Field. It completed the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.

Your challenge this week is to create a dirigible. Maybe it is a classic airship, a steam punk war machine, or a futuristic monolith. Your choice, use your imagination.

You only get one entry so be creative, and above all else, have fun!

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine forums,ImageShack, PhotoBucket, or whatever);

• Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
• The image must be new and designed specifically for the Pop Quiz;
• Please name your files as [your name]-[character name].[file extension] before you upload it. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his “Bayou Belle” character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
• Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this). See this post on how to get the direct link for most sites.

The contest closes at 9:00am eastern on Sunday, July 7.

Three time Academy Award Winner: Restoration, Dangerous Liaisons, The Last Emperor.

The SciFi Connection: Dr. Who

The Superhero Connection: Spiderman, Daredevil, Man of Steel

“Every moment is a moment of research. The more curious you are about everything the more enriching life is and also the more information you have when you try to come to design something. It might be the way the light falls on this spoon, it might be a reflection, it might be something really subtle and sensitive. But the thing is you have to try and stay open to those things.” – James Acheson

COSTUME DESIGN CREDITS

2013 Man of Steel

2010 The Warrior's Way

2007 Spider-Man 3

2004 Spider-Man 2

2003 Daredevil

2002 Spider-Man

2001 The Mists of Avalon (TV movie)

2000 The Little Vampire

1998 The Man in the Iron Mask

1996 The Wind in the Willows

1995 Restoration

1994 Frankenstein

1993 Little Buddha

1992 Wuthering Heights

1990 The Sheltering Sky

1988 Dangerous Liaisons

1987 The Last Emperor

1986 Biggles

1986 Highlander

1985 Brazil

1985 Water (as Jim Acheson)

1983 Bullshot (as Jim Acheson)

1983 The Meaning of Life (as Jim Acheson)

1981 Time Bandits (as Jim Acheson)

1972-1976 Doctor Who (TV series)

Interview Excerpt:

Q: What about the long Doctor Who scarf? Was that your creation? How did it come to fruition?

A: The bloody scarf. It’s amazing how often it comes up. So extraordinary. There are these Doctor Who nutters and it’s the 50th anniversary this year. I’ve even been approached to dig out my old drawings of Doctor Who including, particularly, the drawings of him wearing the scarf. The story is, I thought it would be interesting to give this new Doctor Who a scarf. I don’t know why, it was such a long time ago. I didn’t know anything about knitting but I knew I wanted these colors so I went to this wool shop and bought all this wool in these different colors and I had a friend who had a friend whose mother could knit. Some Doctor Who nut even tracked down this woman, who’s still alive, Begonia Pope. So I went to Begonia and I said, “Look, start knitting. These are the colors, the repeats are here.” I went back a week later and the scarf was 22-feet long.

Q: So you didn’t ask for it to be that long?

A:.No, she just used all the wool up! The actor who was playing Doctor Who was very tall. He sort of wrapped it around him and was like, “Yeah, this is great, we could use this.” The image we used [to create the character] was based on a Toulouse-Lautrec poster so that was why he had the scarf. Tom Baker, the actor, thought he could use it as a prop. So it stuck. I think we shortened it a little bit though.

Only 4 entries this week, but the creativity was overflowing! Congrats to all those who entered...great job as always. As for a winner this week, I have to give it to the entry that made me laugh out loud - RasHead's "Alexander the Grape Soda". Very clever idea and nicely rendered. Congrats sir!

Gotta give Atomic Punk credit for this idea. He came up with it ages ago and the time seemed right what with summer here and all.

Using the pop can found in Items Right: Miscellaneous, create your own soda can logo and flavour. Maybe it is a flavour that the world will love, or perhaps one that would only appear on Survivor or Fear Factor. Be sure to scale up the image so that we can see it clearly.

You only get one entry so be creative, and above all else, have fun!

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine forums,ImageShack, PhotoBucket, or whatever);

• Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
• The image must be new and designed specifically for the Pop Quiz;
• Please name your files as [your name]-[character name].[file extension] before you upload it. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his “Bayou Belle” character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
• Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this). See this post on how to get the direct link for most sites.

Contest closes at 9:00am eastern on Sunday, June 30.

A huge part of Game of Thrones' success has undoubtedly been the sets — which jump between Northern Ireland, Malta, Croatia, Iceland, and Morocco — and the meticulously detailed costumes, rich with furs, leather, metal and just the right amount of sex appeal. Michele Clapton leads the design team, who won an Emmy for their work on Season Two and has only upped the ante for Season Three.

Clapton's work and the general popularity of Game of Thrones has been gradually seeping into the mainstream design world. Clapton used to style musicians for video, including Suede, Coldplay, Boy George, R.E.M., Garbage, George Michael, Annie Lennox, and the Spice Girls, among many others, before she switched gears to dressing those who sing A Song of Ice and Fire. She answered questions for SPIN, ranging from how she prepared for the job to how they make the imagined world so realistic.

What was the transition from your previous work to the fantasy of Game of Thrones like?
Before Game of Thrones I worked a lot with period costumes. I always tried to put a twist on the look, to reference living conditions etc., and not lift it directly from a visual reference of the time, as this is usually styled be the sitter or painter. Once you get to the age of photo documentation then you can truly believe the period.

How did you prepare for Game of Thrones?
Research everywhere! Looking at how different people lived in different climates and times, at the availability of colors and fabrics that would be available, and making techniques. I then make a series of boards representing the different areas of Westeros so as to be careful to define them. I now do this throughout the year, storing away images that might be useful.

Did you try to stay true to the books or collaborate with George R.R. Martin? In what ways do things need to change for television?
I agree that books allow the reader to create images in their head, and I do the same but have to share them! But actually it's more complicated than that. Sometimes there will be something that I think is really important to show in a character. For instance, Mance Rayder’s cloak with the patches of color which represent his reason for joining the Wildlings — this was discussed and on this occasion it didn't happen. We don't always agree, but then I'm only looking from the costume viewpoint. Another issue is [the] principal [actor's] hat-wearing north of the wall. Of course they should wear them but, as it is explained to me often, we would not see who was who. So we work as a team, as we should. I have spoken with George but only really on the pilot; he does not visit set very often. I'm sure it isn't what he had in his mind but then some of the descriptions of the costumes in the book would be hard to translate to screen and would really dominate characters. It would be a very different show.

Is there a certain emphasis on sexy that you need to keep in mind? In some cases the sex is even toned down — for example, the Quartheen gowns in the book that Daenerys wear expose one breast.
I had actually designed the dresses to reveal one breast and was surprised when they didn't want to go in that direction. But actually, we filmed that in Morocco and it would have been very difficult to find the number of women required to do it. Even to just film it would have been hard.

Sometimes the clothes seem to foreshadow certain things, is this intentional?
Yes. I love to try and indicate the emotional state of characters through their costumes, and also to indicate their influence over other characters and courts. Sometimes this says so much more than words.

How have the clothes changed in Season Three? What's stayed the same?
Poor Maisie [Williams, who plays Arya Stark] is still in the same costume! Along with the Hound, they are travelling so it makes no sense to change their clothes, and that in itself tells their story. Whilst in Kingslanding, Margery [Tyrell] is beginning to influence the dress of the younger girls in court, whilst the older girls continue to follow Cersei [Lannister], even though she has shifted her style to a previous Margery-like look. A cruel blow for her and this makes her hate Margery more!

Is production on all the clothes done in-house?
Armor and costume are 99 percent made in-house, and we have a wonderful range of artisans: leather workers, dyers, metal workers, cutters, printers, and embroiderers.

Are some of the clothes aged or worn in for a realistic look?
All costumes are aged — be it a little sweat or full on rags — and it is one of the most important aspects in the costume department. We have a team of approximately ten people including painters and textile artists whose job it is to age the costumes appropriately.

Wow guys great work!

As always this is a tough decision. Each of you created very distinct characters and used the 3 parameters very creatively. But since there can only be one winner, I gotta give it to...

NHA 247

Congratulations, and thanks to all those who took the time to enter.

Your challenge this week is to design a superhero or supervillain using the following three parameters:

You only get one entry so be creative, and above all else, have fun!

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine forums, ImageShack, PhotoBucket, or whatever);

• Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
• The image must be new and designed specifically for the Pop Quiz;
• Please name your files as [your name]-[character name].[file extension] before you upload it. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his “Bayou Belle” character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
• Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this). See this post on how to get the direct link for most sites.

Contest closes Sunday, June 9 at 6:00pm eastern.

One Star Trek: The Next Generation episode that would have a huge influence on the future of Star Trek was “Q Who?,” which marked the third appearance of the popular Q, played by John de Lancie. The episode also introduced Star Trek‘s nastiest villains — the Borg.

The Borg were intended to provide the series with a deadly, remorseless enemy that could not be reasoned with or defeated. Budget restraints kept the Borg from being depicted as insectoids as originally intended although the hive concept survived. Though they would appear in only five more episodes throughout the series, the Borg would make the jump to the big screen in Star Trek: First Contact.

Designing the very first ever Borg costumes presented TNG‘s resident costume designer Durinda Rice Wood with a challenge; these half machine, half human creatures were meant to look like nothing the viewer had ever seen before. “They said to me this is going to be the new bad guy of the universe. They gave us a little extra time. I think we got two weeks instead of one week!”

Wood’s original design was inspired  by H.R. Giger, known for the film Alien. Wood explains how she sought to integrate the Borg’s face with the rest of the body. “I wanted it to melt into the costume more but they wanted the face to be bright white. The thing is, we couldn’t do it. We just couldn’t do it in a week — we could have done it in three weeks. For something that the world has never seen before, you need time to develop it and invent it!”

One of the biggest factors that had prevented her from making the original design into a reality was that there was simply not enough time to cast new moulds for the various Borg parts. Fortunately, she found a company of ready made body part moulds, which featured in all her subsequent designs. At around the same time, she came up with the idea of running tubes from one part of the Borg costumes to another. This helped to make it clear that each Borg drone was unique.

Wood found that actually putting the finished costumes together was a far from simple matter. “The way they were first done, it was an ordeal! I had a basic jumpsuit made out of Spandex and I found that one side of Velcro would stick on to the fabric. We built it so that all the tubes and things could stick on to the suit and you’d get the guy in the suit and then you’d stick the parts on and it was a real organizational challenge!”

Michael Westmore, makeup supervisor, was asked to design the makeup for the new Borg aliens after the overall look was approved. “The idea was that the Borg were almost drained of their blood. I couldn’t give ten Borgs to ten makeup artists and have them turn out exactly alike. Everybody did something a little different in their touch so it became easier to literally line them up, have everybody glue their heads on, get their white faces on them and then I would take an airbrush and in one minute do all the shading on a Borg’s face. That way they all started to look alike.”

The original headpieces Westmore designed were relatively simple and featured the tubing Wood had designed for the costumes. Most drones had full helmets but when Patrick Stewart played Locutus, Westmore designed a smaller headpiece that featured a tiny laser found by Westmore’s son. They had no idea if the effect would work but the phone rang and it was Rick Berman. “Oh, my God, what a great effect!”

For Star Trek: First Contact, production designer Herman Zimmerman had hired artist Ricardo Delgado, who had previously worked on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, to work on Borg concepts. Sadly, Delgado was unable to continue his work for the feature due to the demands of his work for Disney. The task of creating a look for the sinister and seductive Borg Queen then fell to Debra Everton who did all the costumes for First Contact, save for the Starfleet uniforms which were designed by Star Trek veteran Robert Blackman. Everton designed an entire new set of suits, which went on to be used on Star Trek: Voyager.

Makeup on the Borg again fell under the supervision of Michael Westmore, who looked forward to having the opportunity to refine the Borg’s overall look. For Westmore, that meant that what had taken two hours for a makeup artist to create a television Borg, now took five hours for a motion picture version. “Instead of having an entire helmet,” said Westmore, “now we have these individual pieces that are on the head, so you get this bald look. That way the pieces look like they’re clamped into the head individually.”

The Borg’s makeup grew more sophisticated as shooting advanced. “When we first see the Borg come into the nightclub,” says Westmore, refering to the holodeck scene, “they look great. But by the time you see them in the hive, the early ones are simplistic compared to the later ones.”

The movie also marks a first for the Borg. Previously, all Borg appeared to have been created from the bodies of human or humanlike entities. For the first time, Star Trek fans get to see Borg assimilated from Klingons, Vulcans and Bolians, among others. “One day for the fun of it, when I came in they had thrown some Bajoran noses on some Borg,” recalled Westmore, “so we had some Bajoran Borg. Then near the end, I asked Rick [Berman] about letting me do a Cardassian Borg. You have to look quick for him because he only worked two or three days.”

This week's winner is TOOL. Awesome detail and brilliant face. Great job! Thanks to all those who entered. Really beautiful work. Particular standouts were Gargirl - which was the original idea for this quiz (get out of my head!) and nha247's stunning colour choices. Also loved the backgrounds on phatchick and Skybandit's pieces as it really framed their work beautifully. Quark's colours were rich and really added a lot to the character, and HerrD's humour shone through in his moody piece. Finally, Renxin did some pretty nifty masking and got a truly menacing result; great job. See you on the 8th.