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Triple Animal Cracker All The Way!

Dude, Neill, look at that shit. My buddy Wigg's gave it to me. Soak it in. View it's majesty. What does it mean? What the fuck is it? Zoo animal orgy? Some sick doctors experiment? Alien life form? Message from God? 2012? We may never know. It's a grand mystery that has no answer.

No, it's totally a zoo orgy, and that cat thing in the middle is both getting and giving; if you know what I mean. Wink wink, nudge nudge.

Have a good weekend dude.

Doug

THUNDERSTRUCK!

Sup Neill? Looks like my internet intervention worked. Despite the hard evidence of internet journalists, it looks as though you are not making The Hobbit or District 10...yet. Tetra Vaal has posted the intervention thread below that you are working on a film called Elysium. Now why the fuck a combat robot would even care what your working on is beyond me, but by his lug nuts, it seems to be true. Actually, why a com-bot would be using a AOL account is also fishy.

So Elysium...did you know the very first game I ever worked on back in 1997 was called Elysium. Except my Elysium never came out, and yours will. The game was basically Inception meets Stargate meets Dreamscape meets the X-Files, and took place in a world that existed somewhere between full on dreams and reality. It was the 90's so shit like that worked. I need to dig out some of the old concepts, I couldn't find any online. Why the fuck am I talking about an old dead game? Jesus, my mind wanders like Gandhi on a salt march...but without direction....or purpose.

So fuck, what do we know about your Elysium? Well your Wikipedia page says ""many sociopolitical ideas, wrapped up inside something that is like a Hollywood action film"". See, I like this. Maybe it could be about how like this guy buys his first house, and gets it appraised for refinancing and it comes back for nearly a hundred grand more than what he paid for it (it's a small starter home), he gets it refinanced; but then the market collapses and it's worth a thousand fucking dollars more than what he originally goddamned paid for it! That, and throw in a robot or something.

No? I think that would make a great film. Any way Slashfilm says this:

"Which also seems to be the same film he discussed at Comic Con last year when premiering District 9,

I’ve got one science fiction idea that I’m absolutely in love with, which I’m pretty sure is going to be my next film. 99% sure…It’s totally original, it’s my own story…It’s set on another planet, but it’s cool. It’s violent, very violent, and very unique hopefully. We’ll see.

He’s also said of the film,

it is science fiction and it has many sociopolitical ideas that interest me. Those ideas are wrapped up inside something that is like a Hollywood action film…The setting for the next film takes place 150 years from now. There are two cities that I’m choosing between. They would play as themselves. They are not in South Africa.

That last comment seems to contradict the ’set on another planet’ aspect, but no big deal. It’s his story — things can change.

More important is the Media Rights Capital part of the equation, which can’t really be over-emphasized.

When that deal was announced, we heard that not only would MRC finance the film, the company will give Blomkamp creative freedom and an ownership stake in the film. That’s a big deal."

A-fawking-men.

Violent? Very violent? I saw D9 man...how much more violent could you get? Like...the finger nail explode as their pulled out with teeth? Good grief, I'm gonna' need to bring a vomit bag.

Seriously, I can't wait dude, I can already tell this film is going to fucking rock.

Oh,the art...alien prequel, lunchtime shit, blah, blah, blah.

Doug

PS--The header comes from this (and AC/DC): Elysium is an obscure name that evolved from a designation of a place or person struck by lightning, enelysion, enelysios.

I love Dick.

Phillip K Dick, that is. Man Neill, have you read his stuff? It's awesome. I just finished Clans of the Alphane Moon. Humor, action, fake boobs, Ganymedean slime moulds; that book has it all! Well ahead of it's time. It's funny, it has all the trappings of why I used to not read much sci-fi. All the goofy terms and ideas. Now though...I can't get enough.

Anyway, so another Space Jockey pic. I might shake it up here soon. Do some other things, and come back to this. So here's a Space Jockey image. The legs fold up to allow it to sit in the seat from the original alien. All bio-tech, like the aliens themselves. The helmet is more of a plasma/force field thing. Image blowing a bubble; that's sort of how it's deployed.

My new idea for the alien/jockey relationship is this: So the Jockey's veiw themselves as sort of a benevolent peace keeping force. They aren't entirely. They breed/designed the aliens to be used as protectors/guard dogs. They added a fail safe though, a jockey has to be there to keep them in line. That oblong head allows the jockey to control them telepathically. Maybe even destroy them telepathically. Shit I don't know, I'm making this shit up as I go.

Anyway, peaceful pretty alien race asks the jockeys for help. They give a fake story about their planet being invaded, or the fear of it being invaded. The jockeys agree to help and send a group of three of them and several eggs to their homeworld. Of course, it's all a ploy. The happy pretty aliens want to use the xeno's the same way Weyland Yutani wants to; as bio weapons against their own people.

So the jockeys learn of this, fighting, airlocks and shit, and chaos ensues until the ship crashes. When I get it all figured in my head I'll put it out there. Anyway. Just thinking. Still.

Figuring this out in my free time. Which is like a minute a day lately.

Well, fuck-a-duck, time's up.

Dougland Yutani Williams

Quicky

Top O' the morning to you Neill. Uh...or afternoon. Any who...

How're things? Hopefully going well. So here's another pilot sketch. I decided to imagine my dream Alien prequel. My buddy Dan gave me the idea. I want to imagine a subtitled all alien flick. The rough idea is that the Space Jockey comes from a telepathic/mystecal/scientific race that relied heavily on biomechanics. They grow all their shit.

So these growers designed the aliens. I don't have a great reason why yet. Maybe to help clear out a planet of indigenous (low level) life before terraforming? Maybe they're basically junkyard dogs, a way to both mark and protect unclaimed planetoids. I don't know. Not there yet.

So they're planning on growing and shipping the xenomorphs for another alien race. Some of those race members are along for the ride. these guys are beautiful. Like Navi in essence. very courteous and shit. But...they're dicks. Like total greedy assholes. Total cunt buggers, the lot of them.

So the ugly alien breeders realize what the pretty fuckers want to do. Something horrible, like use the alien eggs as bio weapons, something that never occurred to the elephant men (I'm keeping the trunk, dammit!). A fight breaks out, shit happens, ship crashes. Warning sign goes out, the end. There's more there, I'll type it up some other time.

I like this idea, because it still paint the elephant man in a nicer light. For whatever reason, I really felt for that pilot when I say the film as a kid. So I'm partial to being sympathetic to him/her/it. Plus I like making the ugly fuckers the good guys, and the pretty aliens the assholes. I only worry about adding more aliens (three races) might turn this into Sta Wars. Which I don't think is right for the Alien universe. All this would be in the actual alien languages, and primarily in Avatar like 3-D (it would never make it's money back).

So that's why this suit is more Gigereaque; more like the actual alien. Since both were grown by these guys. The reasoning for the aliens is the really tough part...I'll figure it out. Of course...there's no reason too...I'm not...you know...writing it. It will be fun tough!

Cocks and balls!

Doug

Holy productivity Batman!

Dude, Neill, holy shit. Yesterday was mega crazy, but I got mega shit done. Like a surprising amount. Sweet! Plus, heading off to the peninsula this weekend. Heading home. Stephanie Meyer totally got PA wrong. Zero vampires over there. Just Lizardmen.

So as productive as yesterday was, not much was accomplished at lunch today. just this quick sketch. It's following some of Giger's original design more. I still love the trunk, but am wondering if it was supposed to be more of an air hose, like in the painting. It makes sense...a trunk of flesh would deteriorate. Maybe though the Pilot (Space Jockey) is truly fused with bio-mechs the trunk would not degrade. Tough call.

I also remember reading somewhere that Scott thought the Pilot was a bomber pilot, and the eggs were essentially bombs that would decimate a population with xeno's. I like that idea, and there's cool story elements in there. Especially the pilot dying by an alien chestburster. Irony.

I put the bubbleish helm back on the pilot from the sketch. It could be cool to have a fight between some smaller race on the ship and the pilot. The smaller guys would be climbing on the pilot, and one could turn the helm off for a second and the facehugger could jump in. then the pilot could frantically try and get the bubble down to stop the facehugger, but it's too late. Although, I like the alien sending out a warning, which would be uncharacteristic of 'the bad guy'. Man...I'm getting more and more curious with what Scott is planning. Every direction I try to imagine this film going has so many holes. Fuck, this shit is tough!

Oh well...more tomorrow...maybe.

Doug

Both ends...burnt

Neill, dude. I have two things I need to start with. One; by no means am I getting over you or anything. I'm still totally into you, and totally committed to this blog. Like, totally. I've just been super busy. Everything is sort of happening at once, some things that I thought were going to happen a while ago are happening now, things I thought would happen now, are also happening now. Plus I'm feeling super creative...I have more shit on my plate than I could possibly digest in a year, but I'm chomping away anyways.

So that's one thing, me being busy, and not ignoring the blog. The other is, I need to make sure when Ridley see's my blog that his feelings aren't hurt. I mean, fuck dood, I love Ridley Scott. Alien and Blade Runner are two of the most influential pieces of art to me personally, not to mention the rest of the world! So yeah, I still worry about the Space Jockey loosing some of it's mystery with a prequel, but I'm also excited to see what Scott does.

I love the exploration of the derelict ship in Alien. The mystery of it. It reminds me of a story of when I was at art school and was watching Star Wars with a buddy. I love Star Wars. There's that scene with 3PO walking in the desert, and in the background there's this huge skeleton. I said something like,"I love that we don't know what that thing is, it's just there." My buddy followed up with, "Oh, that's a Kryat Dragon, they're all over the Dune Sea." WTF. A dragon? That is dumb. Mystery gone. Some of that shit needs to be in there! Don't explain everything!

Anyway, so here I go. I decided to start designing what I think would be a cool Alien prequel. The above are some early lunch sketches of the Space Jockey not plugged into his cockpit. I read somewhere where Ridley refered to the chair as a space suit. It got me thinking. What if the whole ship is the suit? An organic massive transport suit.

We tend to think of a guy in a captains chair control a ship. What if the whole ship was the suit, you would basically be the ship at that point. it would be like a living extension of yourself. you would 'feel' it's hull, and always know exactly how close you were to something. So, I'm giving the tall drink of water lots of openings for plugging it.

I'm also thinking of story. Of other races, that we can relate with a little more. Because that big fucker is ugly, and will be no matter what. You can't drive the SS Giger and not be ugly. You just can't.

SO, expect some more of the sketches/thumbnails of a few more aliens, then maybe some 16x9 scene renders, followed up with some storyboards. It'll be a fun experiment. Plus, next time you see Ridley you can be all, "Dude, I know this guy, man is he handsome. He also drew some cool Alien prequel shit. Check it out."

Then you hand him the open laptop with this blog on the screen and Ridley will look and be all,"My God...it's full of stars...."

Stars....


Doug

Working it.

What do I do at work? I draws. That's right Neill, I get paid for this shit! The above piece was recently in an article here. Click the word 'here'.

I had more to the image, showing the inside of one of those bumper/go-karts. They were kinetic based. Some people thought they should be magic based. Whatever. They were based on shit that would never really work, so either way it didn't matter. These were fun though, and despite being three years old, they look pretty ok. I've learned a lot since then.

that's the thing about being an entertainment artist. By the time you get to show your work (if at all) it's like years outdated. I have a kickass plan to remedy this though.

Van art.

Dude, think of the possibilities! All we needs to do is get you a van. I'll paint the side with a kickass Blomkamp mural. I'll make you a wizard, riding on the back of an octopus with arms that are unraveling rolls of film. Of course there will be a total merbabe laying at your feet. Then you and I can drive to Penticton, chill by the lake, drink some Molson and look for Ogopogo. Ogopogo is a lake monster, dude. Don't be gross.

All right man, warming up the ol' airbrush!

Doug

Crunchy

Neill, dude, I'm still moving on this. I've been doing these other pages for some other project (and they're coming along swimmingly), but I snuck in a quick writing session. I was able to crank out a quick story layout. It came together really fast.

I always dig movie that tells a fun decent story on the surface, but underneath has more going on. Social commentary and shit. I eats it up. It's why I love the original Dawn of the Dead way more than the new one. It's way Alien and Aliens and the company line aspect make those movies more than just a scare fest. It's why District 9 was about the evils of cat food production. Our cats deserve better.

So the background emotion for my story sort of 'forced evolution'. Mankind changing. I remember seeing these dead zones at the great barrier reef. You'd go from amazing color, and amazingly crowded life, to nothing. Completely empty areas of bleached dead coral. Not one fish. Dead. It was one of the most unsettling things I have ever seen. It has had a profound effect on me. I guess that's really were the coral element comes in. It's still inked to that scary empty vibe. So forced evolution, what's that mean? I have ideas...maybe if and when I write more I'll explain more of what I mean. Maybe I'll just keep my mouth shut and let the reader figure it out. Maybe I'll strip down to my underwear and recite Christmas carols while running through a laundry-mat.

Any way...this is a way downer post for a movie about space zombies. I cranked out the image, the idea is to expand it, and you'd see the whole old crew calcified in a cargo hold somewhere. Sort of a 'reveal' moment.

Something funny...uh, oh shit, here's something funny/gross. And there's a lesson to be learned as well. After going to the bathroom numero dos, don't come out of the stall then go straight to the sink, cup water in your hands and drink it. It.....is.....fucking..... gross. GROSS.

Doug blarg Williams

Night of the Living Coral

Ch-ch-ch-ch-chaaaaa. That's some spooky shit Neill. Like in Friday the 13th. Ch-ch-ch-ch-chaaaaa. Any way, here's an old idea that I've never fully abandoned. It's basically pushing the zombie genre back to it's roots. Maybe shoving it a little bit into the sci-fi genre. Like in the old EC comics days. Alien microbes from space that cause mankind to go awry.

I feel like the zombie genre I have loved since first seeing Dawn of the Dead at Curtis Pitt's birthday party in middle school, is getting played out. It needs something fresh, and more than just speeding them up. I like the idea of having zombies being infected with some sort of colony creature from space. Like space coral. I think it would be best if not explained, but there could be hints. The space coral zombies would slowly calcify and be unable to move, but then they would have long tendril like feelers to grab prey with.

Originally I had these zombie colonies attacking a small cabin in the woods. they had these long tubes that made creepy noises. Here's an old image.

I planned on making a low budget movie with these things, but then our company shut down and I had a baby. Well, my wife did. Despite what some of my high school friends said, I do not have a vagina. At any rate, shit got nuts. In a good way (well the baby part), but still, effing nuts.

SO anyway, still like the idea, but now am thinking it should move to space. Like on a derelict ship. Involve a company and salvage rights and shit. I think I'll actually move forward on this a bit. I don't have much time right now, but I can squeeze in an image or two. Write up a few pages here and there.

Fuck yeah! I'm doing it. Don't worry, I wont take your crown. In fact, I'll probably forget all about this by next week.

What?

Doug