September Sketch Fest Part 55

More selections from Sketchbook #29.

I like C-3PO.

I've been drawing Star Wars imagery since the first movie came out in 1977 when I would have been all of five years old (turning six in October of that year).

Preliminary sketches for (abandoned?) puppet show.

That's right: I was going to make a William Shatner-as-Kirk hand-and-rod puppet and perform Shakespeare monologues with it. I figured performing this material would be easy, since I could sorta do a passable Shatner impression and memorization* wouldn't be an issue because I could refer to the script while being hidden from view myself. I thought I might take it around to various venues in Prince Edward County, singing for my supper, so to speak...maybe open for real performers...

I hadn't (and still haven't) built a puppet of this kind, but once the idea entered my head and I started sketching, I grew more excited about the proposed project. Will it ever happen? Who knows? The night is still young...

Jim Kirk–on...tour?

It had to be Shatner in his Captain Kirk costume from Star Trek for recognizability and for fun. Making this kind of hand puppet would allow for a pretty good likeness, depending on my sculpting/modelling skills, but I began to feel that a sock puppet alternative would allow for greater expression. I guess it depends on the puppeteer; a good one could "act" well with the original design.

The inner workings.

Not that this was necessary, but my excitement got the best of me and I did this funny but redundant drawing showing how my hand would operate his head. It did, however, show potential scale issues relative to hand size.

WTF?

I don't remember exactly what this was supposed to be or what it was for, but a friend sub-contracted me to conjure up an illustration of a very complex geometric structure for a project he was working on. I realized this in the end in the computer using CorelDraw, but this preliminary drawing helped me to figure out what the heck was going on with all those curved planes. It's pretty –and pretty interesting, actually.

*Normally, my terror of having to memorize anything for a performance would sabotage any attempt at such and I would fail, miserably. I'm more confident speaking in front of a crowd if I know the material very well (like telling a story from my life) or if I could refer to notes (or both!).

Comments

Axel Foley's Chevy Nova (1/25 scale model)

Multiple tributes, here. I remember first seeing Beverly Hills Cop on video at my friend Chris K's house, 'cause his family had a VCR and we'd watch tons of movies (and record music videos) together. The summer of 1984 was a special time for us (having created a strong bond in school since Grade 6 a few years before), going on biking adventures around the 'burbs and into the city, etc., and home video played an important role from then until I moved to the opposite end of Scarborough just before we started high school. We liked the movie a lot, both of us fans of Eddie Murphy from his Saturday Night Live days. I don't think I'd seen the movie since then (it would have been 1985, probably summer, since the movie came out in late 1984) and I became curious to see if it still held up. It did. It does. I found Murphy as charming as ever and the comedy (and even the action) holds up very well and its very re-watchable and very entertaining. Beverly Hi...

U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701-D (1/1400 scale model)

Seven decades after Kirk. I'd been hooked on Star Trek since I was a wee lad in the 1970s, watching reruns of the original series from the '60s, and I enjoyed the movies that came out afterward. When a new series was announced to debut in 1987, I was excited and interested, even though I felt the subtitle "The Next Generation" was cheesy. Nearly 30 years later, I've definitely gotten used to it (but "TNG" is easier to say and type), but I still find it kinda bland. Anyway, the show had fresh new technology and a spanking new design for its main ship, the U.S.S. Enterprise , NCC-1701-D, now the flagship of the Federation. Andrew Probert 's design took some getting used to for me; it had the same basic elements of the original Enterprise (saucer, neck, cylinder, and two cylindrical engines on pylons), but the shapes and volumes were distributed differently, weirdly. Everything looked squished and soft. The organic look of this new ship had me ...

U.S.S. Enterprise, Refit Restoration, Part 1

"All I ask is a tall ship And a star to steer her by" – John Masefield The original U.S.S. Enterprise , NCC-1701, designed by Matt Jeffries, first flew across TV screens in 1966 and was redesigned (chiefly by Jeffries, Mike Minor, and Andrew Probert) for Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1979 (explained in the movie as having undergone a refit). I like the original design for its simplicity and elegance, but the refit really does it for me with its swept-back warp pylons and overall updated-yet-still-futuristic detailing. It's no wonder I picked this ship for my very first ever model. Check out this gorgeous scene of Scotty giving Admiral Kirk a tour 'round the outside of the Big E in TMP (with beautiful music by Jerry Goldsmith). Which one did I build? The Star Trek V AMT/ERTL kit was issued in 1989, but I built it in the winter of 1991 (I remember there was snow on the ground in downtown Toronto, so it may have been early 1992, which means it ...

The Naked Silo

Search This Blog