Fictional Currency - Make it Rain!

Well, not to brag or anything but I made some serious money. No no, you misunderstand, I didn't make money... I made money. Ambiguous, slightly futuristic money to be exact. I felt like I owed the lovely Bianca Davies a solid after all the work she did for Agros, so when she asked if I wanted to make the fictional currency for the short film she was working on, I instantly agreed.

I started off by doing a massive web search for pictures of exotic currency from around the world, and found that many countries have some pretty awesome money. I wanted mine to be detailed, unique, and have that little something extra. In other words, I was gonna go nuts with this.

After some sketching I settled on a design that was graphically and functionally interesting. I decided on having four bills. The design was based on the concept of the currency being worn around the neck, the bills folded then threaded through two sets of holes to hang on the chest just below the neck of a persons shirt. Furthermore, when stacked on top of each other, the angled corners of the bills would allow numerical value of all the bills beneath to still be visible.

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Now that I had a concept I needed the design. I was told my influences could be pulled and blended from: India, Nepal, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Pakistan, Indonesia, Philippines and Hong Kong, and that this was to take place slightly in the future. Using a little creativity I pulled together and made up a variety of symbols and images to represent this fictional culture, including cows with antlers, brooding bearded statues, and flying Da Vinci machines. Personally I was pleased with the result:

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Click these links to see it in High Resolution if you are interested in seeing the details: FRONT | BACK

There is a lot of little doodads and hidden silliness (as is my style) including little sayings in a cryptic script. spoiler: look at the text in a mirror and it will be legible. I know, terribly clever. Each saying is a famous quote about money.

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Phew! Okay, the concept was cool, the designs were approved... next I had to pull these things into reality. At an office supply store I picked up a ream of executive linen paper and a few packs of ink... and began printing like crazy. Printing double sided pages on a home printer is a nightmare I will not go into here, but let me tell you it is about as exact as trying to hit a mosquito with a potato cannon.

After some hair pulling I had forty copies of each bill, with punched holes and some little hole rienforcers spray painted gold to give it a little extra touch.

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Of course I had to deliver them in a silver briefcase (with dark glasses obviously). I also aged and distressed twenty of each bill, but that was really just a tedious process of wrinkling paper.

To test the duribility of the bills Spenser and I each kept a full set in our wallets. We had fun trying to get people to guess what country they were from. We got some really educated guesses.

In conclusion: I wish that making money was always this fun.

I, Robot, Wayne

Sometimes, art get weird. This is another one of those times. For the past few weeks I've been busy making what is probably my weirdest project yet: a five foot three mechanical man. His name is Wayne, and he doesn't do much. He does arm wrestle however, (always lets me win) he can hold things, and looks great in a hat. The "Wayne" sculpture was made as an integral prop in Quandary's latest short film (more info in that coming soon) and he has now become part of the family.

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Wayne's construction began as a skeleton of pvc pipe and some stiff ribbed metal tubing (probably used for under the sink) for the joints and spine.

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From there I began laying out the first "muscles", using lengths of thick rubber tubing to reinforce the spine and places where on a human there would be larger muscle groups. This also helped his posture, as without reinforcement he wobbled around like a boneless fish.

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The bulk of the materials mostly included varying sizes of flexible tubing, sheet metal, and a spaceship load of hot glue. Instead of replicating a human's anatomy, my goal was to create forms that hinted at recognizable anatomical structures: the main muscle groups and bones in the arms and legs and shoulders, the ribs and sternum, the spine, and the pelvis, for instance. Once this foundation was created the work became simply filling in and fleshing out the mechanical structure, and making sure that the "filler elements" supported these shapes.

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Very quickly he became quite a character. I scavenged the heads to a couple of old flashlights for eyes. They were different sizes and produced a rather charming, perplexed expression.

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(I love this shot, the knobs of the spine are leftover bolts from Argos)

The hands and feet were a whole other ordeal as I was set on making everything articulate. It was quite a project, but all in all I've grown very fond of mister Wayne. I've signed us up for jazzercise, I think it'll help him limber up.

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Celebrate the Election in Style!

I think we can all agree, it's time for a change! What better way to show your support and hope for the future than by puttin' it on a T-Shirt?! (designed by yours truly.)

Check it out at the Zazzle Store!

Help support us and this great place in which we live, spread the word! Help us sell some shirts!

Act now and save three dollars on all shirts by entering the zazzle promotion code: 3OFFZAZZLETS

Change for 08'!

"Self" Rotational Ambigram

So most of what I've been working on recently is Quandary business, creating stuff which we're not ready to release (it's killing me! So much cool stuff to keep secret!). From the Argos models, to publicity materials, posters, lobby cards, and other things I can't even mention yet I haven't had much time to dabble in my own pursuits.

One new thing I can post: after making the ambigram for the borderlines playing cards (technically I guess that one was a symbiotogram) I've been inspired to continue. This one I did with a dip pen and some paper I aged with tea, ink, and cinnamon.

Self - Rotational Ambigram

Just for fun I've included the page where I worked it out. I always start by writing the word right side up, and then again upside down right beneath it to see which letters need to turn into another when rotated. From there it's just a lot of doodling, erasing, and cursing whoever invented spelling until poof! There you have it.

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Guns, Lots of Guns

My family has always had a "let's play with wool and small bits of string" kind of mentality. So when Spenser and I decided we needed an awesome gun prop for some promo posters for Heart of the Argos, I had to put my clean childhood upbringing on the shelf (next to my common sense and fear of irregular shapes) and break out some good old fashioned gunslinging enthusiasm.

Originally we were talking about a bolt action sniper riffle, which would fling out shells after "firing." And then of course, since neither of us puts limit on imagination because of practicality, the idea became: an articulate bolt action shell flinging sniper riffle that turns into a pump action shell spitting shotgun. After drawing up some plans I began to see how this could be a challenge.

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So I went off into my lair and began messing around with the initial designs, and concluded I needed to start simple(er). I'd just make the pump action shotgun to begin with, then build up to the sniper riffle combo.

On a very long trip to the hardware store I matched up parts that I could find to my sketches, and purchased the basic materials for my post-utopian sci-fi shotgun. (I think the employees are beginning to recognize me as "that guy with the doodly clipboard that always seems to be puzzling over something very complicated, and buys the strangest combination of plumbing and electrical parts.")

I began with the basics, PVC pipe, wood, hot glue.

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I knew the pump action and shell flinging mechanism had to be extremely simple in order to actually work, so using a small spring thingy I found lying around the tool shed and a few bits of sheet metal I created the gizmo. Essentially it's a small springboard that snaps up after the pump action passes down the barrel towards the end of the gun. (hard to explain, see confusing diagram for details)

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After some extensive trial and error and lots of bullet casings flying around the workshop I got the basic mechanism to work about ninety percent of the time. I also discovered it works with multiple casings, and no matter how much I want it to, it cannot make me look badass.

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Next came lots of "arting it up": adding more details and bits to make it look more science-fiction-ee, followed by the first coat of paint!

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You may have noticed my helper in that shot. That's Eddie, the pug. He's a big ol' lump of "aww".

The next phase will be a tedious process of painting the details, aging, adding rust, and trying not to gum up the spring mechanism. Spenser's vote is for a stained wood handle, which will probably look awesome. I may add more progress if it somehow comes out looking amazing, otherwise keep a lookout for it in the promo posters for Heart of the Argos.

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Guess What I Did on My Day Off

If you've seen the pictures from the Borderlines shoot, you'll have seen that we created a lot of material to make the saloon, meaning there was a lot of stuff left over. I found myself looking at all this wood and wallpaper (which was the most expensive thing on the budget next to the camera and film) and thinking of what a waste it would be to throw it all away!

So I decided to a little cosmetic home improvement. This is what the workshop section of the garage looked like before:

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I know, gorgeous right? The paint splatters are from the Red Hot Chili Peppers "Charlie" music video Quandary made for a contest awhile back. And these are my tools:

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(heheh, tools.)

In my garage there is already a spaceship so I figured, why not some saloon aesthetic to balance it out? Enter unnecessary home improvement man.

(that's my "I'm pretending I'm not posing" expression)

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With the wallpaper up, it now needs to be aged properly and patched where it was damaged during removal and transportation. I'm actually surprised it's all in as good condition as it is thanks to some very determined friends who helped me take it off the cardboard.

There were also some obnoxious wires connecting the switch to the lights overhead. To cover these, I got some PVC pipe and cut a groove along the back with the dremel in order to slip it over the wires (I'm no electrician) then spray painted it with metallic paint. Viloa`! Brass pipes.

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There's still more work to do. Still thinking about what to do with the ceiling, going to find some cheap shiny faceplates for the outlets, and I need to figure out where to put my tools... Didn't think about that one. Oh well.

Playing Cards

I didn't mention these in the last post about the film Borderlines, because I spent so much time making them I thought they deserved a little special attention.

From the second I read the script and saw the story of the film revolved around a game of poker, I knew I finally had an excuse to make an awesome deck of cards. From a little experience of doing block printing in highschool I had an idea of what I was getting into.

There are 52 cards in the standard american deck consisting of four suits, ordered according to power: spade, heart, club, and diamond. This meant I would need to make a stamp for each suit (one large, one small of each), numbers 2-10, and sixteen royalty cards, as well as the ornate ace of spades, and a large stamp for the back of each card. The time period that these cards were supposed to be made was around 1886. In this era cards were actually becoming quite popular due to advances in printing technology. I decided to give my cards an extra, hand crafted feel anyway.

Starting with a stack of 4"x3" cards cut from bristol board, I clamped them into a stack and rounded the edges using my trusty dremel saving a lot of trouble. Next I let batches of the cards soak for about 2 minutes in a bath of 6 tea bags, aging them a nice golden brown.

With a slab of rubber and a carving tool loaned to me by Spenser left over from our highschool block printing class of 2002 (thanks spens!) I cut out the stamps I would need keeping in mind that each symbol I carved needed to be done backwards to it would print the right way round.

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After a lot of stamping and inky fingers, I had the 36 cards all laid out, as well as the ace of spaced emblazoned with a skull emblem I designed and drew with a dip pen and ink (which was extremely satisfying).

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Next, I took some time to plot out the face cards. I decided to include one of my page of doodles where I plotted out the symbological significance of the Kings. Without boring you with the details of my over-active imagination, the kings represent a re-imagined version of the Four Apocalyptic Riders (where I've been lead to imagine there would actually be five) and what they represent. Therefore in each card I included subtle symbolic references to their significance.

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I didn't have the rubber (or the patience) to carve a stamp for each card, and since I would only need one stamp per card it seemed better to hand draw them with my shiny new dip pen.

As you may or may not know, commonly used playing cards are ambigrams, meaning they look them same upside down as they do rightside up. Going farther with my symbology with the cards, I decided to include subtle differences between the two sides, which would give clues about the dual nature of each personage and what they represent.

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Going farther with this idea, I made a letter ambigram for the back of the cards as well, which would be a word that would specify which way the view was looking at the card, positive or negative. The words I chose were Alpha, and Omega. Here is the ambigram done with the dip pen:

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And here is a photo of the final print done with the carved stamp and an ink pad:

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After the designing came the long process of inking the sixteen royalty cards. There are subtle differences in each of the royal families, and clues as to what they represent if you care to drive yourself mad staring at them. I'm especially pleased with the gold ink I found to do the crowns and symbols with.

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It took awhile but it was a lot of fun, and now I've got a full set of kickass playing cards so call me up if you want to play some texas hold'em. I've got some handmade poker chips to go along.

Borderlines Production

05/05/08: concluded production design on Richard Haredia-Arriaga's film, Borderlines. The short subject film is about a mysterious stranger who encounters some locals over an ill-fated game of cards, and takes place in 1896 at an old west saloon. The chance to do a western was what initially drew me to the project. This is also the first time since Argos that I've gotten to work with the wonderful Bianca Davies.

The direction from Richard for the look of the film was very straightforward, something I always appreciate: "Simple yet authentic."

This is the design I came up with for the set:

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Aside from a belt-tightening budget (which we're used to), there were some interesting restrictions we had to work around. First, we would have access to the sound stage one day before shooting began. This meant that the set had to be created elsewhere, and then be re-constructed quickly, and still look convincing. Second, due to budget and transportation restraints, we could not build our own flats, and would have to figure out how to utilize the ones provided at the space without having access to them until the setup day, also without altering them.Taking all this in stride, Spenser and I set to constructing.

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Using a borrowed router (thanks Greg!) we cut grooves in 3.5x4ft panels of salvaged plywood to create wainscoting, and capped the top and bottom with old lengths of redwood fence boards for molding. These were then masterfully painted and aged Bianca and her helper Danielle. The rest of the 10ft flat was covered with wallpaper backed by large pieces of cardboard so they could be transported and quickly stapled up.

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The bar was constructed with ply wood and 2x4's, and the foot rail (which became just the bar rail because it looked better higher up) was made for $12 out of PVC pipe and some brass metallic spray paint, and then aged. The booze shelves took some scrounging, but after many trips to the recycling center, I had gathered enough bottles to make a convincing supply of liquor. It's strange how many odd, and even well dressed scavengers you meet when frequenting dumpsters.

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Dirt for the floor was a quick and cheap solution, as well as a nicely fraying rug from the props department. But something Spenser and I were most proud of were the olde tyme saloon doors we created out of 1x3 and lathe strips. Due to a shortage of wallpaper I decided to improvise and make it look as though the bar had recently encountered a bar fire. I was going to put a charred looking "no smoking" sign as a joke, but didn't put it up in time. Spenser also painted an awesome backdrop on some sewn-together sheets (thanks mom!) with spray paint:

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I was never really that into the western thing, but now I have to admit it's grown on me. Dusty, rusty, ramshackle and unvarnished; rugged charm with a hint of class. Definitely a fun and worthwhile production, great crew, great actors, and I learned one can make moonshine from turpentine, ammonia, and gunpowder. Not that I ever will.

Click here to see more pictures from the shoot.