the LEGO Movie_part 01 (WIldstyle)

A couple of years ago the directors of “the LEGO Movie” (Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Chris McKay) asked if I might join them in the design and development process. After they gave me a brilliant pitch of the film’s story, I knew I had to be part of it. My assignment: Help to “find” the main characters…design wise, personality wise…etc. They already had quite a bit of amazing development work done by that point, but they wanted me to look at it all, and see where I might take it? What did I like, what did I think t could be funnier or clearer...etc. Shake it up.
Everyone was pretty happy with where the design of Emmet Brickowski (the star of the film) was, and I could not have agreed more, So my priorities were: Lucy Lego (Wildstyle), Vitruvius (the blind wizard), and President Business . I started with Lucy.
Lucy (Wildstyle) was conceived as a rebel with a tendency to try a little to hard (in life and in looks). There was a lot of discussion on what that could mean visually, and above are just a few of my early explorations. From Military to Punk to Rockabilly, we played with lots of symbols and details that might give more insight into her and her world. In some images I tried incorporating elements like crayon marks to act as tattoos, war paint, or graffiti. For others I tried incorporating real world objects like stickers and toothpicks…etc. We knew that the real world was going to come into play in the film ( IE: the Kragle), and that a human little sister might even have an affect on the LEGO world (though the audience would not discover this until late in the film), so these real world elements were experimented with on all of the character’s. But Lucy was a lot of fun to explore. I’ll share a bit about Vitruvius and President Business in upcoming posts.

Mr. PEABODY and SHERMAN (part 03)

The Peabody and Sherman panel at Gallery Nucleus was really fun. A lot of people turned out. Thanks for coming everyone, and thank you Gallery Nucleus for the invitation.
Now, to continue the Peabody discussion (read parts 01 and 02 to catch up)…. Back in 2006, as we started exploring the possibilities of Time Travel, and how to approach the function and look of the WABAC machine, we actually met with an expert on the theory of time travel. It was incredibly fun nerding out about the possibilities. There was MUCH discussed, but one of the most interesting concepts was the “Moving Sidewalk” theory. The idea being that time is like a “moving sidewalk” which we are all attached to and moving along with. Now, if we could lift off of this “moving sidewalk” we would no longer be bound to time as it continued to move below us. And in fact, since we are no longer bound to it, we could theoretically move around above it in either direction. Now in order to be able to lift off of this “moving sidewalk” we would need to lose all friction, or resistance. How to do this? One theory would be to “flatten” yourself, minimizing your physical mass like a piece of paper, or blade, cutting through the atmosphere (or whatever you would cut through concerning time). How might this be done? Well, by entering another dimension of course.
Again, this was just one of the amazing theories presented to us, but this “Moving Sidewalk” idea inspired me to think of a rough visual concept that might suggest how the WABAC could function (Just one of several).

Note: Rob Minkoff asked us to explore the WABAC as a vehicle, or craft that could physically take our heroes through time (Think the Delorean in Back to the Future, or HG Wells Time machine…etc). This was just one of my very early designs. This one was an attempt to retain the iconic door and technological symbols from the original show. Basically, it’s a door with a cockpit. Now moving on…
Phase 01: The WABAC lifts off of the Earth’s surface in preparation…

Phase 02: The bottom half of the craft pivots up and behind the cockpit and begins to spin faster and faster, like a generator building up energy…

Phase 03: What would it look like if a craft was attempting to create enough energy to enter another dimension? I created these thumbnail images to explore some visual possibilities…

Phase 04: How do you enter another dimension? I don’t know…lets just explode into it! And hey, maybe it would hurt when you did so. Lets make time travel feel unpredictable and dangerous...

Phase 05: After the WABAC explodes into multiple, thin plates, the pieces re-assemble into an aerodynamic grouping. From the front you would see that all of the pieces of the WABAC are thin sheets ready to cut through the dimensional atmosphere like a blade…

Phase 06: Maybe those thin WABAC pieces could move around and manipulate the cockpit; protecting it, or pushing it out of harms way. Reacting to unexpected elements…Like say a T-REX in prehistoric times...

Phase 07: What would it look like when the WABAC re-assembled, and re-entered? These were a few thumbnail images I created to explore some visual thoughts for re-entry…

So after I presented this rough series of WABAC images, we actually realized it as a fully animated sequence to eventually present to the studio (More on that in a moment).
Over the next several years of development, naturally the design of the WABAC changed, But the idea of the WABAC being made up of modular “plates” stuck, and though it is never explained in the final film, the rough concepts I presented so many years ago were the sparking point.
Now around the time we were creating that WABAC test (Early 2007 now), several more artists joined our “Look Lab” team in preparation for the big presentation to the studio. Emil Mitev created some amazing environmental designs. Scott Santoro boarded a great sequence and also created some beautiful presentation pieces. JJ Villard came up with some great concepts for the WABAC, and some very entertaining time travel vignettes as well. A couple very talented modelers and model builders helped us realize our 2D exploration in three dimensions (and animation). Then, in early 2007 it was time to present our thinking to Jeffrey Katsenberg and the Dreamworks development team.
In a nutshell, our presentation was a success. With Jeffery Katsenberg exclaiming:
“This stuff is Great! Now why isn’t any of this in the script?”

The script went back into re-writes, But because Jeffery saw the potential in our visual exploration, he decided to move forward with the further development of a Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie. So while the script was being re-worked Shannon Tindle and myself were asked to apply our efforts to other films in early development at the time. The first being a prehistoric comedy titled “Crood Awakening” (which became“the Croods”), as well as a concept that William Joyce brought to Dreamworks about the mythical figures of Childhood ("Rise of the Guardians")….and several more. Over the next 5 years I ended up touching nearly every film that Dreamworks had in production, as a development artist, Story Board artist, Character designer, and more. It was a lot of fun to explore so many varied projects while performing multiple roles. During the next 5 years, Peabody and Sherman was still being explored in script form, and eventually received the green-light for production. By that time both myself and Shannon were very busy on other projects. The film went through many more talented hands over the years, but much of the “Look Lab” team’s early work influenced the continued development and eventual production of the film.
Below is the very first image I ever created for the Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie. On the first day of work, we were asked to create a symbolic logo to represent the first ever “Look Lab”, and its first subject, Mr. Peabody and Sherman. It was the start of a long adventure.