Talent Is Never Enough

For those who weren't aware that my family is highly talented...

I have two brothers who are identical twins, Jared and Jordan. Besides sharing similar physiological features (and similar names), they also share extremely talented drawing abilities. Therefore, as my blog is an arena to showcase art, I decided to utilize it to showcase my brothers' genius. Below are a few pieces of their handiwork...

JORDAN'S ART

Also, aside from his more realistically based drawings, Jordan also dabbles in the more fantastic side of sketching...

Jordan has meticulously studied human and animal anatomy in order to more fully detail his drawings by understanding the placement of bone, tissue and muscle (not to mention that his drawings are well-proportioned).

JARED'S ART

Jared is by no means afraid to tackle the big things in his sketches. Posters or proportions, emotions or entanglements, he's ready to take on anything. 

So... pretty excellently awesome, huh? They're light years ahead of where I was at their age.

I am very pleased that my brothers are so artistically inclined. For one, I won't have to look too far for assistants on future design work. Secondly, I just get a kick out of anyone who develops their artistic skills.

Hope you enjoyed this. I'll most likely be posting more of Jared & Jordan's work, as they're always drawing something new and amazing and exciting and adventurous and heroic!!!

Until next time,

-Johnny

Dystopia: 2

Again, some more of the drawings that I've done for the recent feature film project on Christian Filmmakers.org, and a little behind the design of the concepts I developed.

When it comes to film design, the icing on the cake for me is to find out why the designers chose a specific color, texture or symbol for a certain role. For instance, in Kung Fu Panda 2, the personal colors of the Lord Shen (whose plan it is to take over China) are RED and WHITE. Reminiscent of any island nation's flag who tried to conquer China within the last century? Anyways, little things like that make me giddy...
So, in the same strain, I like to sing my own praises somewhat so that you can understand the brilliance behind my choices. Besides, what's an art blog for if not to showcase the art of the author?

So, to sing my praises... the first couple of thoughts concerning the Enforcer's design was to make several costuming winks at Nazi Germany, found  within the high boots and long trench coats of the first couple that I did. I also wanted to marry the idea of a legal terrorist with the shock troop/policeman concept.
After considering this route, I figured that most soldiers out in the cold and snow would prefer to stay warm, but still agile, and thus would wear snow-pants instead of a trench-coat.

I am very pleased with the hoodie on this one. Not because it's realistic or anything, but because it looks really cool. 

 One of the more heavily-armed designs, although it's rather similar to the one I did in the last post concerning this project.

Here we have another slight nod at Nazi Germany, with the sub-machine gun and the backpack straps. He looks kinda like a paratrooper, too. 

And another terrorist/Nazi/Enforcer, except he's dressing 'casual' with his hoodie down.

Of course, these are all within the same thread of design: small arms units with a few heavy arms for large firefights, but overall light, blitzkrieg troops.

Any similarities to the badguys from Inception, Assassin's Creed and Snow White are completely unintentional, and the parallels exist within the mind of the reader only.

Make sure to check out the movie: http://www.theremembermovie.com/Remember/Home.html
Yeah, they're making it. Awesome, I know.

-Johnny

Future/Sci-Fi/Dystopian Feature Film

So, on Christian Filmmakers.org, Dallas Lammiman  presented this project in the Art forum. I decided to throw my hat in the ring.

The idea is a futuristic, winter dystopia. No budget, no crew, and 6 months to make it. Exciting.

Here are a couple pieces I drew up. More will follow...

A civilian of this bleak future state.

An Enforcer. I thought that most of the Enforcers would be lightly armed due to their extra clothing. They would want something that allowed them to remain dexterous and agile.

An off duty Enforcer enjoying a cup of... what do they drink the future? (he also looks like a Russian sailor from the early 1900s, but don't tell anybody).

A heavily armed Enforcer. Rather the opposite of the light-armed Enforcer.

A lightly-armed Enforcer running... and jumping... over something. An invisible something. (Actually I was too lazy to draw what he was jumping over).

I did all these with pen on copy paper, then scanned and printed doubles. I did this because when I would draw over them with my gray-scale markers (Prismacolor), they would cause the ink to bleed. By making duplicates with our laser printer, I had a dry, clean surface to color over. Worked out okay. 

These of course are mine only, but I think I might post some of the other artists' work as we go along (that is, if they let me). 

I am rather excited about this project, and am anxious to see where it goes. There's bound to be some other crazy guys who are looking for something to show-case their skills. 

We'll see what happens. I'll be posting more on this topic. 

-Johnny

P.S. A big thank you to Dallas Lammiman for allowing me to post about this project. 

Pain of Death

This little project here is a first by filmmaker Jeffrey French . It is a very small project, but has the potential to be dynamic.

This is a film that explores Christian persecution set in a dystopian future. It's actually kind of reminiscent of Fahrenheit 451. Only it's Christians, not books. And they're not burned.

I will give you absolutely no set-up. All I will show you are the actual storyboards; then, I want to see how many of you can figure out what's going on. If you can, then I've done my job right. Storyboards should be readable without a dialogue line.

Okay, I'll give you a hint: the girl is looking for her mother.

Here it is...

Tell me what you think.

-Johnny

P.S. By the way, here's a link to Jeffrey French's blog: http://painofdeathmovie.blogspot.com/

Something New

Alright, I'm gonna try something a bit different. A little more experimental... and you, my friends, will be my test audience. In fact, you'll be my only audience, so enjoy the attention.

The experiment is shorter posts with topical information in them.

I know, not what you expected, right? You were thinking videos and dazzling artsy design, weren't you?

No, it's still just lil' ole me with my lil' ole blog. Except now it involves you.

I'll make sure to keep up (or at least attempt to) on the hottest films, and even make reference to a few of the old classics (especially John Wayne).

I'll try to stay in keeping with the theme of film art and the like. Comments are very welcome; the audience usually has the best tips for the filmmaker. I would like to get a much more interactive blog going on, with people asking questions and depositing information. I'm sure there's more than one person out there who studies film the way I do and wants to share it. So don't hesitate to comment and tell me about something you found on an obscure BTS video or a philosophical point concerning filmmaking that you found profound.

If you want to contact me directly, do it here@ johnnyreighard1@gmail.com

I'm gonna try to be consistent with my posting, like once/week at least. So, if you don't see anything for a couple of weeks, feel free to shoot me an email telling me to get it together!

We'll see what happens...

-Johnny

P.S. In fact, if you have any ideas for what my next post could be about, go ahead and comment below or email me.

Megamind & Despicable Me

I'm sure there were many besides me that saw the many similarities in 2010's Megamind and Despicable Me.

Let's run down the list....

Hilarious Villains

Loyal Sidekicks

Those Minions That We Always Laugh At

(Forgive the lack of Megamind minions, a.k.a., flying robots; they were not forthcoming)

Horrendous Counter-Villains

Cute Kids

I preferred Megamind, to be honest with you. I enjoyed its intelligent use of satire and parody over the cute kids and warm sentiments of Despicable Me. I think it quite arguable that Megamind was a much tighter edit, more filmesque in execution, rounded out with an intelligent use of humorous homage.

However, considering the box office returns, it's pretty evident where the majority's sentiments lie... political satire, homage, parody and sophisticated wit don't seem to have a prayer against outright victorious themes of fatherhood and family. There's just something warm and fuzzy about it.

Lend me your thoughts...

-Johnny

P.S. I think next I'll post a little something about a small project I recently storyboarded...