One of the best things about Alien Day is seeing all of the incredible artwork shared online in celebration of it, and one particular post really caught our eye.
Concept artist TyRuben Ellingson, who has quite an impressive background in the film industry, shared to Twitter a new Aliens-style “Cheyenne” dropship he made during the pre-production phase of Neill Blomkamp’s ‘Alien 5’ before it was ultimately cancelled.
2nd brush with ALIEN franchise; Blomkamp’s ALIEN 5. Work still locked down, however, design development was discontinued on this. Sky Crane variant Cheyenne Drop-ship. Additional renders. SketchUp renders. #AlienDay2020 #AlienDay #LV426 pic.twitter.com/CGpLKLpILn
— TyRuben Ellingson (@TyRuben) April 26, 2020
2nd brush with ALIEN franchise; Blomkamp’s ALIEN 5. Worked 3 months with Neill before studio pulled plug. Work still locked down, however, design development was discontinued on this. Sky Crane variant Cheyenne Drop-ship. SketchUp renders. #AlienDay2020 #AlienDay #LV426 pic.twitter.com/oHJFOYVUvy
— TyRuben Ellingson (@TyRuben) April 26, 2020
The dropship design was a Sky Crane variant, meant for airlifting large cargo. These different angles of the 3D render give us a good look at the dropship, but we’ve actually seen it before! When Neill Blomkamp himself shared a few pieces of concept art back in late 2017.
Dropship
As artist Paul Chadeisson said on his ArtStation listing for the piece, “I have been painting over the 3D work from TyRuben Ellingson, could not have done this without him!”
This isn’t the first work that TyRuben Ellingson has contributed to the Alien franchise, in fact, it’s not his first work for a cancelled (iteration) Alien film, as he also did some of the lovely conceptual pieces from the earlier and unused Vincent Ward version of Alien³.
My first brush with the ALIEN franchise; environment concepts for ALIEN 3. Very small studies (approx. 7” X 3”). Ballpoint pen, colored pencil, color design markers, pro white, on copy paper. 1990. #AlienDay2020 #AlienDay #LV426 #Alien pic.twitter.com/pr7DUMi6CP
— TyRuben Ellingson (@TyRuben) April 26, 2020
Seeing more of this concept art from Alien 5 again makes me hope for an eventual art book for the cancelled film, as I’d guess there are many impressive additional works that have yet to be seen.
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Maybe both
As a "variant" you can't be swapping the landing strut arrangement around. The original had two in front and one in rear, this one has one in front and two in rear. That would require a major redesign of the load bearing airframe inside, something beyond a "variant."
Also the vectored thrust jets poke out from strange places now. Although the ones in the back look OK. (Presumably to lift the weight of the cargo).
As for wheels? Look authentic to me.
TC
Apaches do which is the helicopter Cameron based his dropship design on.
https://the-drive-2.imgix.net/https%3A%2F%2Fapi.thedrive.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2018%2F10%2Fah-64-1.jpg%3Fquality%3D85?w=1440&auto=compress%2Cformat&ixlib=js-1.4.1&s=b2c24bb649556920f858c49fa27da3e0
Helicopter Skycranes all have wheels as well which Ellingson's design is based on:
https://www.scalemates.com/products/img/6/9/5/193695-12192-86-pristine.jpg
And no problem with that, I'm just saying it's a sound design that could actually work in a real-world scenario. We all have different aesthetic preferences, some will like it, some won't.
Hueys don't.
Either way, the design is derivative and the wheels just look clunky and tacked on. If this was a starting point to something new - great. But I don't care for it as a final design.
https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/020/281/022/large/lorin-wood-heavylift-final.jpg?1584288351
I made the connection as well, yeah that game did have some larger cargo dropships in it.
Its too bad Terminator: Dark Fate did so so badly.
The red carpet tease by Cameron hinting at trying to get this jump-started would have way more weight if Terminator had done well with his involvement. I could see Disney being like, "Well, if he could re-ignite Terminator, he can help re-ignite Aliens."
I don't see this ever being made, but a man can hope.
In order to reverse over the container when doing a pickup aboard a ship.
It can also just trundle away after dropping off a crate, instead of having to take off again.
Virtually all military helicopters have wheels.
The very end of earth .....
Helicopters have wheels too.
I mean I could've done it myself and- oh wait. I did.
It seems that you find fault with this only because you are not happy to see something new about Alien 5.
Looks a bit hokey to be honest. An original design would've been better.
Why wouldn't it? Most aircraft, including vertical take-offs, have wheels.
Same
Agreed. To be honest, I would have been very curious to see what Blomkamp's idea was before he had his talk with Sigourney that resulted in this morphing into an alternate Alien 3.
I posted some Alien 3 concept art from Ellingson in the "Best non-alien pictures" thread as well.