TIMESPACE IS OUT!

What's coming out of that funky time machine? It's me with another Timespace post, but this one will change things forever!! Timespace has just been released online:

  Right here. 

It is available either to rent or to purchase. I will perform impromptu my (not-yet-patented) dance... JUST FOR YOU! But really, I will. But also, we would be very grateful if you supported this little project by a bunch of young college and high school kids that by my estimation are some of the most driven and genuinely genuine people out there. So many worked hard on this just because they wanted to and because they were also struck by the vision that director Dan had and wanted to help bring that vision of his to life. 

I don't like sounding like I'm overly gushy, and I write that because I am being overly gushy. These guys all deserve the gush, however.

"Ya wanna know how I got this scar?"

For now, take a look at this early concept piece from months and months before production started and see how things like the wardrobe of the two main characters would end up changing. One fun thing for me was taking these ideas from Daniel's script and visualizing them. It's a unique process because at that beginning stage you start out with these vague ideas and begin nurturing and getting to know these characters and the world they inhabit better. Things change and new things are given to work with. There's very much a sense of building and building very carefully so that there becomes a stabilizing sense of identity when the time comes.  Then getting to see it actually come to life, wowzers! 

I'll discuss this idea more whenever I decide to do a post on the visual identities of the characters. I think my future self might have to come back and do it for me or something. I just don't want to now.

That Timespace poster

I remember saying I wanted to save going wackier for another poster when I was doing the teaser poster, so I started thinking further about some of the thematic ideas present in the film. Took these things and tried to integrate them in a fairly abstract way. Now, the way my brain works didn't allow me to fully focus on the approach I was wanting to take until I finished working on something else.

That's just the way it's gotta be I guess. But when I did finish what I was doing, I was able to get the idea I had down pretty quickly and it's what I ended up settling on. Working through to the actual finished version, it became inclusive of several different mediums. After penciling and inking, I ended up using India ink to give a wide range of grey tones. Then came layers of watercolor on top of that, then gouache.

Timespace poster.
Pencils, inks, India ink, watercolors, gouache, 11x14 on bristol board

The idea was to have James Pratt stepping into the time machine and seeing a bunch of crazy stuff on the inside. But not just any crazy stuff, more specifically the vices or devices he uses to get his means to their ends. All the unruly things he does to achieve his goals, right in front of him leading him to his inevitable destination.

rough layout

Melting clock hands, cyanide in a syringe, cocaine, a single bullet, the hourglass necklace, blood: all being sucked into this rip in reality/space (more twisting of clock shapes for that rip) containing blackness becoming illuminated by white light. Don't want to give away what that is or how any of this stuff directly relates but it is contextualized in the film. Those objects are also referential to the three planetoids floating around. They have faint faces on them- the other three main characters in the film. They are all directly intertwined in the narrative through the choices that are made by James, so that's why they are there.

Original unused layout designs

My original ideas above came several months ago and still was presenting these ideas but in a slightly more literal way. I felt it was more fitting to go for something less straightforward given the nature of the time travel in the film and what state the main character is even in.

Hope these things give you some good thoughts to eat (oh boy yum) and ponder if you haven't seen the film yet. Sometime later this week Timespace is to be released online for rental on Vimeo. I'll definitely be posting a link here when the time comes.

I've seen how the film has come together from working closely on it with it's esteemed writer and director, my good pal Daniel Ziegler since January when it was just a rough idea little idea of a time travel movie in his head. I've seen him finally just about wrap up editing the film this past night after weeks and weeks of working his tush off and it was very surreal to see that end point in sight. Seeing those ideas that were cultivated be there in such a powerful way is totally nifty!

That Timespace teaser poster

My fellow scientists... This is probably the first of what will be a few eventual posts about Timespace. There's still stuff I'm not able to share since the film hasn't been released for the general public yet but once it's out there I'll talk about why I did what I did and what I even did. For now though, here's a teaser poster I painted a few months ago when there was a break in production.

I thought it would be neat for a teaser poster to just have a pretty straightforward image (save the wackier stuff for later, y'know?) of the main character, James Pratt, stepping outside of the time machine... That big ominous dingdong ominously in the background.

teaser poster, acrylics on canvas 8x10

I still wanted to take that basic idea and give it something peculiar with what you see happening inside of the time machine. Swirls of all kinds of crazy space energy, just like some psychedelic vortex you're stepping into. James' body is also vaguely dissipating into that craziness with the little white stars popping off of his figure.

It also helped to juxtapose the brighter colors with the darkness encompassing the rest of the things in the dark desert there. James is a pretty mysterious dude, so it's good. I like using acrylics because you're able to get a good range as well as some more subtle ones, and it's a pretty forgiving medium. It was a pretty dinky canvas I was working on, however. Wish I could have used a better one but alas, it was not to be.

roughs are rough

I was pretty sure with where I wanted to go with this from my first little sketch here. It's fun having James fiddling with his neato little watch ring; a little tic he tends to do. He's got the sleeves rolled up, he means business.

When I can, I will share some cool behind the scenes Timespace stuff. But in the meantime, I am resuming my quest for my studies once more tomorrow- as well as doing other stuff on the side. There will be sneak peeks, I gots the goods.

Polishing That Iron

Okey dokey, I thought it might be fun to share some roughs for that Iron Man story to get a look at what the process goes like for me when making a page. I just do thumbnail sketches of what I'd like to do what the page. Sometimes it may take a few times before I settle on a composition that I like, other times it comes quicker than that. For page 1, it took me a few times before I settled on the shot that gives you some good Iron booty.

page 1 layout

With this, I was also able to get the Mandarin in the shot giving the first words that the script called for along with the mysterious hourglass object that was behind him.

Page 1 inked on bristol board 11x17

For the finalized page, you can probably see where I made changes to the original thumbnail sketch but it overall remains pretty faithful to that concept. Some things added like some smokey mist and good jazz from Iron Man's entrance. I thought the title looked too tacky on the thumbnail so I played around to make it fit more organically.

pages 3-4 layout

Pages 3-4 was a totally zany double page spread. I'd say it was justified because there ended up being 20 Iron Men bursting out of an hourglass, which is pretty zany.

pages 3-4 inked on bristol board 22x17

Double page spreads are a strange thing to do, it's got to be something that's big and doesn't waste the valuable space that's available to tell the story. Keeping our Silver Centurion Iron Man in the foreground and firmly there helped to reel in all the other guys and give them their debut in a way that presents it as kind of surreal, in the sense that it's that Iron Man's story but here are all these other guys jumping in. playing around with the sound is a booming whistle that reverses itself on the other half of the spread since there are Iron Men from both the past and the future there.

page 5 layout

For page 5, you can see where I ended up having some changes in the composition to allow for a more dramatic image. In the script, the final panel here said to just leave it blank, but I don't wanna skimp on anything ever so I just naturally filled it with another 21 Iron Men. Fitting so many Iron Men in these panels was a good time... I'm serious, too.

page 5 inked on bristol board 11x17

One thing I enjoy doing with comic panels or the way I lay out a page is to reflect some of the things happening in the story, so there you guys get some funky iron panels because they're about to iron out Iron Man's kinks.

page 6 layout v1

My original layout for page 6 is above. It was serviceable enough but I didn't feel like it highlighted the situation in a striking enough, or in a less conventional way.

page 6 layout v2

I became more and more interested in using the Mandarin's symbol as a way to capture the moment in a way that catches the eye. The Iron Men were arranged more like a game board in this rough, but that was bothering me because it didn't feel right.

page 6 inked on bristol board 11x17

I ended up solving the Iron Man problem by arranging them in a circular shape more akin to the Iron Man arc reactor- overtaking the Mandarin symbol. Too many symbols eating symbols for symbolism, ahhhhhh! The bottom half of Mandarin's goofy grinning face is situated at the top of the page, with his proclamation being interrupted by some repulsor blast's charging up and taking the eyes into the big circle of Iron Men. Oh boy. Then we get to see the Mandarin's eyes in reaction to this sight, he knows he's about to get thoroughly smashed. Not in a good way, nope.

Tony

Getting to draw 80s Tony Stark with his luscious locks and that fantastic mustache was also a big delicious treat. The manly-ness of 80s Tony Stark is too much to handle. Hope you enjoyed that peek into crafting this piece o work, guys. I will be sitting here just doing the dew of drawing at my drawing board in the meantime.

Iron Man, he's a big Tin Can

Picking up from a gust of wind, here I come blogging like I always have been blogging about my art when in reality this is actually my first post.

colors

Now, keeping with the established theme of diving into this in medias res- lets dive into this Iron Man short story I did with my good friend and frequent collaborator, Tristen Bagnall. This purely for the joy of the craft project, full of copyrighted character goodness came about after a discussion with said Mr. Tristen. Sparing many of the details, it was fun to do and done for good reasons.

cover inked on bristol board 11x17

You can find the full 8 page story over at this folder on my DeviantArt page, I will update this blog as often as I can with whatever rambling or discoveries I make or things I would like to share. Hopefully along the way people will enjoy reading the bloggings of Nick, maybe. That would be good.

thumbnail sketch