Sunday 29 March 2015

John Blanche Harrowhound the Hagwyrd



John

" Ole club foot hymself - byronyst anchoryte, hunter of flesh and ichor - he who leads the crazed sump hags across the pandore sump marshes in their golden hover chapel ..."










Saturday 28 March 2015

John Blanche Sump Hags

 Opus Maius has the privilege of showcasing two new models from the Alpha & Omega of  warhammer ,  Master Illuminator John Blanche ...



John

 " Pretty much the gothic and the eldritch with a very deliberate Renaissance vibe  - leader has a cloven foot so they are Byron cultists and inexplicably armed with a forge world weaponry  - they sail the sump in a golden chapel  - who knows what dark secret their past holds ....... Some say they are wampyres others that they eat their victims flesh and drink their blood  .... "







Saturday 21 March 2015

Setting the scene

So this week I received two emails and saw one blog post  on Odie's enlightening ( Heavy Static Blog ) about the same thing.. The release of a bunch of behind the scenes photos of the production of blade runner..  Odie has already done a sterling job of  highlighting that - so I wont repeat it..




what i wanted to say instead is this subject is close to my heart - i often research film production artists as a way to try and see the 40k hobby from a  fresh perspective - wargaming shares many age old techniques like kit bashing -with production scale modelling - something that the most excellent hobbyists weirding way has demonstrated recently  with his classic sci fi - Syd mead , Chris Foss, Ron Cobb styled baroque 40k   dropship


a tenuous link but Henry South the talented  (VFX artist)  over at the altruistic four go to war blog is currently raising money in aid of alzheimers in memoriam of Terry Pratchett @

https://www.justgiving.com/modelsForTerry/

http://4gotowar.blogspot.co.uk/

such a good idea..

Currently some wonderful prizes are in the raffle including a PDH model from our last summer game  and a John Blanche painting !

I thought it was time to dive back into the world of film props...

I wanted to share some links i have gathered up over the past few months that tie in  with this subject .

Derek Meddings

If Derek Meddings was the grandfather of scale production modelling in the UK .. then the heir apparent would be  Bill Pearson . Based in Shepperton studios his model shop has contributed so much to the film, industry & modelling  sci fi community - I highly recommend watching his DVD lecture at Glasgow University on the subject.. and  looking at the brilliant production stills of the film Moon

Bill Pearson


available here  : on the most excellent TheRPF forums

http://www.therpf.com/f10/modelmaker-bill-pearsons-portfolio-35mm-digital-photos-updated-17-12-14-a-228889/?highlight=bill+pearson

The The revered Mr Phill Rae dropped these stunning pics of the production of alien at shepperton studios a few years back.on another excellent modelling forum  .

http://www.eagletransporter.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6146







more great alien stuff is available here from Martin Bowers

http://www.martinbowersmodelworld.co.uk/alien_models3.html




and some insightful films regarding the whole production of Alien here - i especially like the Giger interviews

http://www.zen171398.zen.co.uk/Alien.html

 

speaking of Moon - The unbelievably talented modeller Steve Howarth ( of gerty fame ) has a website here ( interesting to note that Mr Howarth also sells miniature replicas of some of his models  via the Etsy shop



http://www.modelminiatures.co.uk/


and it would be remiss of me to mention all this alternative sci fi modelling without mentioning something of about 3d modelling

keeping with the moon theme - VFX Supervisor Gavin Rothery  is the man who designed Gerty the rovers  and the harvesters before handing them over to Bill Pearson @ shepperton studios to realise in miniature.. he has a great blog showcasing some of his 3d film work here.



http://www.gavinrothery.com/garty-robotic-assist/





now on to something related but different..

My very first blog post on opus maius mentioned a series of books called the terran trade authority books - well whilst still on the subject of classic sci fi styling.. I happened across a brilliant book called  the usborne book of the future  available to read here

https://archive.org/details/Usborne_Book_of_the_Future_1979_pointlessmuseum

I actually think i read this as a kid in the 80s - well worth a flick through and quite prescient in many ways - there are other books in the series that look worth the read if you can get hold of them..



        






 uncannily similar to Astrotelepaths!


I found this idea nearly identical to the theme of the film Moon
by Duncan Jones








I found the  The Time lines an interesting way to visualise an early expansionist golden age of terra