John R. Mullaney is one of the amazingly talented artists involved in the recently published Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report. He is responsible for the gorgeous artwork of the weaponry and vehicles inside the book and publisher Insight Editions has just released a time lapse video of how he created the cutaway for the APC on their YouTube:
“How *did* you do that?” is a question people often ask me about my cutaway art. Now I can point them towards this…
I’m very proud to unveil the 4 minute edit of APC Cutaway. Creating the artwork, the film and its music were labours of love so it’s very exciting to finally be able to share it with you. I hope you enjoy the film.”
Completing the ink Stage using a variety of Rotring nib sizes.
Completing exterior colour using layers of watercolour paint.
Rear section complete, then onto layering the rest of the interior colour.
Detailing console array. Note Gorman’s chair – I always start with the lightest colour ( in this case the blue highlights projected from the screens ) before then adding increasingly darker tones. A completed element can have upto 10 layers applied to achieve this spectrum of colour & tone.
Layering forward section colour & gunner’s chair. Finding the reference detail for the gunner’s chair took some detective work with Graham Langridge as it’s barely glimpsed in the film. We eventually discovered that the ‘Aliens’ art department had used a particular model of RAF ejector seat used in over 35 types of aircraft including the De Havilland Vampire which entered service in 1945.
Applying initial darker tones to the forward section’s red hue.
Completing the forward section before then moving onto the digital stage.
It’s really fascinating to see 120 hours of work reduced to a 4 minute time lapse. The time and effort involved in producing something like this is astonishing. You can head over to John’s Facebook page to check out more of his work and if you’re interested in purchasing the Alien: The Weyland-Yutani Report you can purchase it over on the Sideshow website.
We will have our own preview of the book and an interview with the Alien artist, fan favourite Locusta/Markus Pansegrau over the coming weeks.
Lol, I helped my brother pull a similar scam regarding an Xbox 360, only problem was my brother was lazy and sloppy and it took WAY less than a year for our parents to discover the truth.
I actually had a similar story for my first eminem CD though; my older brother moved out by then. :-(
PS. I still play alien trilogy from time to time! It's still a very atmospheric game! Alien isolation has it beat, but I find more enjoyment/terror in alien trilogy than I do in colonial marines! lol
Some of my fondest memories of the alien franchise involve me huddled up 2 feet from a 10" boxy TV playing this game! I was still pretty young but already an obsessed alien fan since my parents made the mistake of letting me watch aliens when I was only about 6 years old! One day, my older brother came home with a PS1 and 3 games; one of those games was alien trilogy which he specifically picked up for me. I had no idea the game even existed until he popped it in and I saw the opening cinematic and title screen! Big surprise for me! :-). I believe that was about the same time I first heard the space jockeys referred to as "engineers" too, which is part of how/why I chose my user name (not prometheus! Lol). He surprised me with "alien 3" for the Super Nintendo in the same way. :-)
You're welcome
I love the '1 G0T P1NK 8C1D B00TS 0N' reference under your avatar by the way, it's been many years since I played that Alien Trilogy game and I remember punching in that cheat code many times!
The areas to look at on the APC I think off the top of my head are the area above the rear wheel arches (full size APC has a dented 'canister', filming model has something that looks like a wrench in it's place). Also the full-size APC has a curved cowling over the top-mounted searchlight / camera, I think the cowling is missing on the smaller miniature but would need to rewatch the movie and refresh my memory to check.
Actually you bringing that up was really helpful because after that we looked at the sentry gun cases more closely and realised just how frigging big those things are! Especially afer looking at the scene where Vasquez and Hudson bring the cases into Operations, and there are four of them, and John and I were thing 'where the heck do we put them!?' We were trying to figure out the size and what exactly these cases looked like, and one member of the braintrust had a photo of one plus they can actually be seen right at the beginning of the AVP (2010) videogame in the hanger where the player starts.
Finding a spot for them was more tricky. The only area where it seemed to work and for them to not be in the way was behind the seats Ripley and Burke sit during the drop. But to be sure I looked at the scene where Hudson is giving his speech during the drop, looking at the camera angles and comparing how elements within the APC are located compared to other elements, and at the same time cross-referencing that with a section through the APC I had drawn to line things up. I also looked at the behind the scenes clip of Simon Atherton when he's talking about the weaponry because you can see part of the APC set in the backgound. However, here the seats seemed further back and more flush with the door meaning there was no room for the guns, plus them being pushed further back in this particular clip didn't mesh with the camera angles scene in the movie. In the end I went with what made sense with what I saw on watching the movie by bringing the seats forward to match, and then there was enough room for the Sentry Gun cases.
It's kind of what it's like sometimes, at first it doesn't work, but you work on another area and by solving that it then opens the door to a solution to the problem you originally had.
I never got my hands on anything like the colonial marines technical manual, and I never noticed any inconsistencies in the APC during the movie; can someone post a pic of the two different models? I'm curious about the differences now...
From memory it was Graham's idea to store them behind Burke and Ripley's seats.
The cam images on the MTOB screens were a brilliant touch.
That's right. The old Halcyon APC model for instance has some detailing that is consistent with the smaller APC models built for the movie; the HCG APC statue has detailing consistent with the full-size movie APC. Sometimes one can go crazy trying to get it 100% accurate, but in those instances, you just have to make a choice, draw the line on it doing the best you can and think to yourself that both are actually correct and in the movie, so all is hopefully good.
Sounds like fun, I know even in the film itself the APC (at least it's exterior) is not consistent with itself. There are numerous little differences between the full scale prop vehicle and the two scale miniatures used in the film.
Hi Mr.Space Jockey;
Yes, that is correct and thank you.
Hi Quarax,
Yes, that too is correct. I wasn't intending to draw up the Power Loader, but was asked to by HCG specifically for their model / statue.
When I completed the APC blueprint, HCG was made aware of it by a friend who then introduced them to me. A small version of the APC blueprint was included with their APC statue and that led onto the request for a Power Loader diagram.
Yes, the whole engine and axle location thing is something that people have been wondering for a while. The inspiration for the in-wheel drive technology came from stumbling upon a website by Protean Electric, a UK fim that is developing / has developed an in-wheel electric drive system.
So I thought it was really interesting and an ideal solution for the APC especially with the large wheels it has. That left it needing a powersource, and inspiration from that came from reading an article on the Jaguar C-X75 and its micro gas turbine engine. Small enough to locate at the front passenger-side of the vehicle.
The axle component, rather than running it from the wheel into and through the APC, I chose to connect at the back of each wheel, then run it vertically toward the top of the hull where there would be another, smaller drive system acting as a 'pivot' allowing the wheels to turn independently. The way it connects at the back then vertically, I guess a similar thing to visualize it may be a front bicycle wheel (minus one of the two forks) or the Daihotai 'Jordan' Tractor, which seems to use a similar concept.
In addition what we came up with had to complement the Aliens Tech Manual and the information provided in that, because we're aware that it can be frustrating to see one book say one thing, another book say something else entirely, so we were mindful of that too.
That's right; the thing about these movies is that one is reliant on three sources, 1.) being able to get a hold of studio blueprints; 2.) Set photographs; and 3.) the movie itself.
With 1.) we had access thanks to the brain trust of an interior APC blueprint, the trouble was it was based on an early design of the APC which was nothing like the final set (the gunner seat for instance was at the back). So that left 2.) and 3.), both of which were a case of really analysing the movie and photos on bluray and dvd releases, plus any reference photos the brain trust we able to provide. By working on the blueprints simultaneously we we able to work on one area in different views and scales to ensure it all worked and matched what was seen on screen.
This is rumour control, here are the facts:
- The film and making-of photos I posted were all initiated by myself and the film in particular is something I've wanted to do for a long time. Insight were cool enough to help push it through as a Fox-approved film and even though it's being used to promote the Collector's edition of the book, the film exists because I wanted to show the creative process that goes into making a cutaway artwork and will be there online to enjoy long after the Collector's edition has been marketed & sold. It was simultaneously an opportunity to write instrumental music for film & showcase my band Last Picture Show.
- The model supplied by Gearbox was the same as used in Colonial Marines but I only used the outer shell ( which was thoroughly checked by myself and the Brain Trust & cross referenced with production photos for accuracy ). All of the interior was calculated by myself and Graham J. Langridge ( USG Ishimura on this forum) to whom I am heavily indebted for helping ensure everything was as seen in the film and in its right place. I also used some Gearbox models for the other artworks in the book such as for the Powerloader ( which did need fixing ).
- As Corporal Hicks rightly suspects, research time is very consuming - just over 100 hours were spent drawing, inking, colouring and then photoshopping. It's harder to quantify time spent researching the interior content - I allocated 20 hours to the time spent exchanging countless long emails with Graham and the rest of the Brain Trust. But I suspect this figure is actually quite conservative and was probably a load more.
- The Tardis like quality of the APC wasn't actually too much of a problem. The scale difference is slight enough to work around. The biggest problem I faced was where to put the engine as pretty much every bit of available interior space is taken up by the APC interior set we see in the film. It was Graham's idea to present the solution as in-wheel drive technology, aka the Transaxle.
Hope that helps
Sorry - didn't refresh the page to see the more recent comments from Graham who is being very modest about his invaluable help with this piece ( and also the Nostromo artwork which I produced with his and Derrin Procter's help ) . It was a really fun collaborative process to ensure everything was accurate.
John
Did you make those blueprints that are going to come with HCG's Power Loader too?
Amazing work.
I did not work on the book directly. Just as a behind-the-scenes 'guide' helping on vehicle / ship accuracy. The APC artwork depicted here is entirely John's work.
If you don't mind me asking.
On both his artwork and mine, we really want to do what's right when it comes to showing accurately as best we can how it's depicted in the movie, and by doing that, do right for the fans of the movie. Basically I was working on the APC blueprint, at the same time he was working on his print for the book, and we both worked at the same time researching, looking at screen-grabs and behind the scenes pics helping each other. Lot of fun trying to figure it all out.
As Corporal correctly said, I was talking about the "no standard edition" plans, not the video! The video was awesome, and I'm hugely impressed by the work that went into just that one illustration
Like I said before, I get the impression this is simply a marketing ploy to shift more copies of the pricey version. They're probably desperate to offload as many of the Collectors' Editions as possible before announcing a cheaper version, because they likely won't sell any of the $300+ editions after that, so they're claiming it's the only version we're going to get.
Would be great if you could, be nice to hear more from the guys behind this.
- Graham
Must have been a tricky job because in the film the interior is actually much larger than the exterior. The full size vehicle was based on an old British Airways passenger plane towing tractor but the interior was a completely separate set.
"Supplied by Gearbox" must mean it's precisely the same model used in the 'Colonial Marines' game (potential errors and all). Wonder how many other assets that extends to.
Thanks.
It was sometime in June.