Boba Fett (makes a mess)

I don't want to stop the Star Wars fun just yet!  35 YEARS of this stuff - unbelievable.

OK, here's a step by step of this piece, featuring Boba Fett in the Mos Eisley Cantina.  I wasn't really sure want I wanted to do with this one, other than to have the classic entrance scene of a notorious gunslinger stepping into a bar, and technically frame it as a key frame image

I gave it an up angle, so we wouldn't have the exact same shot we've seen for years, of Luke and 3PO stumbling around the entryway.

Once happy with the general set up, I add in all the flat colors, with an overlay of dark and light to begin finding the lighting and focal points.

 After I get the colors set, I began working out the details of the background, adding in textures, and additional objects - along with messing around with the focal points, seeing what works best.  But not going so far as to set any permanent tone before doing some work on Fett.

Happy with what I have going on in the background, I go back and work out the details on Fett, adjusting the colors and shading, but still using broad strokes for the details.

This is where I begin merging the two together, both with color tweaks, and adding more of the fine details.

I was nearly finished, but felt it was lacking a little something, so I decided to change it from and entrance scene, to an 'after' scene.  Perhaps the bounty tried for an escape, but Fett gunned him down?  I added in a coin for him to toss to the bartender, echoing the 'Sorry about the mess." sequence with Han and Greedo in Star Wars.

A little gunsmoke, and some more atmosphere, and I called it done.

Star Wars Fighter Pods 02 - Guys!

So I wrapped up the big batch of vehicles for Eric, and begged him to let me take a crack at some characters.  But, he already had someone else working on it.  I begged again, and sent him this sketch.  (Bottom Left, along with a shot of the production figure)

Well, it worked!  I got to take over a bunch of as yet uncompleted characters.  And, since he liked the Vader so much, he told me to throw it on the pile.  I think the final design has some of Erik's hand in it, overlayed tweaks for final.  It was still early enough in the process that overall character theme was still being figured out for production, along with what poses we could get away with, like the Stormie below:

Would kneeling work?  Kinda?  I think the fig would pull it off better, with a couple more spots of black to sell it.  It was really important to keep the legs together, as it took some time to figure out how to accommodate the peg space under all the figures.

Captain Rex - a standout character from the Clone Wars.  I barely acknowledge anything collectible from non-Original Trilogy, (although I own the prequels, and watch every episode of the show!) but I do have the Clone War 3,3/4" figs of Rex and Cody.  They're pretty cool.

Kit Fisto - he's a charmer, until he went out like a punk in Revenge of the Sith.  This must be a RotS version, because of the cloak, but I posed him Arena Battle style from Attack of the Clones.  (I realize that might seem like a lot of prequel era knowledge - I may know more about it than I let on.)

Jek Porkins - the fat X-Wing pilot?  Seriously?  Wow.  I laughed out loud when I saw him on the list, how awesome.  Strange that he makes the first wave, but I think it sets the tone of what to expect from this line.

Snowtroopers - !  To ride in the AT-AT, and take out Snowspeeders!  Here's a rough-to-cleanup-to-figure comparison.

Han Solo in Carbonite - so sad.  My all time favorite figure of the line so far, I love it so much.

All right, that's it until the next waves hit this summer!

Star Wars Fighter Pods 01 - Ships!

So, my man crush Eric Siebenaler, after ten years of working on the Transformers Brand, needed a change of pace.  He went over to the Star Wars team at Hasbro, and picked up the reins on a project, which turned out to be the Fighter Pods.  After getting a style set for the characters, and some ideas for the vehicles, he asked me to take over designs for the ships.

I often say that if you told the ten year old version of me that I'd be designing Transformers, my head would have exploded.  Now, if you told the 5 year old version of myself, that I'd be making Star Wars toys...well I just don't know what.  I probably would have just laughed and went back to playing.  And a year later I would mad with power, playing Star Wars Guys with my friends, dominating play patterns.

Anyways, on to the toys, here's some concept art for some of the currently released vehicles.  (And by the way, finally more coming in August!)

THE Millenium Falcon - Obviously, something changed.  This was very early in the process, so I'm not sure everything was figured out, in how to best orientate the pods to fit in the vehicles - the production version (image on the left, included for product examples) looks better, I think.  I took cues from the original Kenner mold of the Falcon, as far as ratios in sizing the vehicle features, cockpit, etc.  Eric had set the tone for vehicles with the smaller size clamshell version of the Falcon, so I could deviate a little more, so we didn't have just a bigger version of the same product.

Jedi Starfighter - So this came out pretty close, didn't it?  Not too much to talk about, the style for this size was pretty much set, so I just had to figure out how to fit that pod in there.  Well, I guess it goes where the cockpit goes.

AT-AT - Hmm...I like my version a little better, (modeled after an attempt to make an even cuter version than the Galactic Heroes version of an AT-AT) but I suspect there were packaging and price point issues that kept the legs a little short, and the feet a little small.  It's still pretty fun to stomp on the little pod guys with, and you can't really go wrong with an AT-AT - it's a classic.  And it holds two pods!

Rebel Snowspeeder - and of course, the great nemesis of the AT-AT, the mighty speeder of Hoth.  One of my all time favorite vehicles from the Empire Strikes Back, and one of my favorite toys from Kenner, and even currently, the newest 3 3/4 version that came out last year.  And now, this one.  I fly it around all the time.  C'mon Snowspeeder - let's go get some more coffee.  And then we fly down the hallway to the kitchen.  (Though to be honest, it now sits half the time, while TFP Soundwave and I get coffee.)  I'm 37 years old, so what?

On to the small size, (my favorite assignments for the vehicles) I'll call it the Clamshell Class:

Sith Infiltrator (Really it's just Darth Maul's ship) - I always thought this was a cool prequel ship, and it was a lot of fun to try to come up with a 'cute' version.

And now I must stop abruptly, and wait until the next wave of vehicles come out in August.  I did see some new ones on display at Toy Fair, so I know I'll have more to show.

But it's not over - on Friday, I'll post some character designs...

Original Art Sales Gallery on Facebook.

During the week I've uploaded original art pieces with sale prices, to a gallery on the Facebook Bad Flip Page.  Go to the page, click on the photo tab, then click on the Original Artwork Gallery album.  I'll be posting more as I dig through the flat files and see what else I can put up...

Prima, of the 13 Primes.

Not that this is too much of a big reveal, as this image of Prima was published in last years' Transformers : Vault,* and has been scanned and posted across the internets.  But now I'm finally able to put it in my portfolio and talk about it a little bit.

This was a fun job!  I got to do final concept images for 11 of the 13 Primes, for Hasbro, Inc., creating updated source images.

I know Aaron and Rik (the Hasbro boys) have shown others I had worked on, like Leige Maximo, Vector Prime, etc. at conventions, but as far as I know, this is the only one out there.  Anyways, on to the image:

Again, working with Eric Siebenaler, I began a bunch of pencil sketches, but one clearly stood out, and it's basically a rough pencil version of what's above.  I themed him in a loose Samurai style, and reversed engineered details from Optimus Prime, to make that visual connection, as a descendant in the Prime Line.  He was nicknamed the Warrior of Light, so we went with a really ornate style, with the piped lighting over a quasi-mother of pearl armor.  The similar cues from Optimus only number a few, but are pretty overt - the facemask, helmet spikes, split chest 'windows', and I managed to put a G1 cue in there, the two bands over a triangle on the forearm.  The sword was a joint design effort, Eric had sketched out the two-bladed idea, with the Matrix in the hilt, so I basically redesigned it to fit the look of the character/armor.

So that's Prima.  And this round of Hasbro, Inc. images for Transformers.  But that doesn't mean the Hasbro fun is over - next week, concept art for Star Wars Fighter Pods!

*Sorry about the watermarks folks, it's the rules of the game for me to get this stuff on my site.

DOTM Cybertron - Hasbro Marketing Art

This is how it appeared in stores, (I only ever saw it in Walmarts) cropped with about only 1/3 of the full image showing.  Below is the full version.

Not totally accurate with how it appeared in the film - but it was for Hasbro's toy marketing, and I think it works as a pretty cool toy version of movie Cybertron.

Transformers Prime : Ironhide...TOY!

If there was ever some concept art I did for Hasbro, Inc. that I've been wanting to post, this is it.  And I never thought I'd be able to, anytime soon.

BUT NOW HE'S A TOY!!!  That's the best part.

Mentioned before on the blog, I got to do some PRE-pre-production designs for Hasbro, Inc., doing some internal development  for, at the time, was called...TV Show.  At least, that's the title of the folder I had saved all that stuff into.  And like I said before, myself and other Hasbro freelance artists did different passes and versions of key characters, and all that was bundled up, probably along with 25 years of other Transformers art, and sent off to Hasbro Studios, and Jose Lopez, to create the final vision of the characters for the show.

So I wasn't part of any of the Hasbro Studios production, just the internal development with Hasbro, Inc.; I had moved on to other things, and like every one else, I didn't get to see final designs and clips until Comic Con, over a year later.  And while I was excited to see the show...I was pretty bummed there was no Ironhide.

Because I wanted a toy of him.  And really, that's a pretty significant motivating factor for me.  And I'm so happy that the strength of the design was well thought of enough to actually create a product from it!  I had seen the box art, and noticed that the artwork was very familiar, and on closer inspection, looked like cleaned up overlay versions of the concept art I had done.

I got to check out the packaging at BotCon, and this image sealed it!  I begged and pleaded with the Powers at Hasbro to let me post the full frame art, and they let me!  So here we go:

As always, the way my brain works, I want the vehicle completed first.  I want to see the vehicle cues, and get a sense of weight, that can be translated into robot form and characterization.  And colors of course.  I turned it in originally all red, (G1 all the way, baby!) but feedback suggested all black to match the current movie version.  I may have done all black with the yellow and red stripe, but then Archer suggested a two-tone look, and that sealed it!  What a great idea, and I have seen it used since on other versions of Ironhide.

I'm super proud of this design - I think it captures G1, with Movie, and a sense of something new.  Of course, I had help, with Aaron Archer's input, and my man crush Eric Siebenaler at Hasbro was directing me on this project, he took the legs of one of my designs, and combined it with the torso of another drawing I'd done, and outlined the movie style gauntlet guns, and did a quick redesign of the gut, and gave it that cool shape where the Autobot emblem sits.  Then I took that image, and painted it out, and that's what you see above.

Badass Ironhide.



The product photos were taken from the Seibertron.com toy galleries.

BotCon Aftermath...!

Whoa, what a fun time this year!  Thanks to everyone who stopped by the table to say hi, and pick up some arts from me.

Yes, there are leftover sketchbooks, along with some 2011 books as well:

$15 for just a sketchbook, $25 for a sketchbook with a quick head sketch on the inside cover.

$6 USPS Priority Shipping and Handling for the United States.
$13 USPS Priority Shipping and Handling for Canada and Mexico.
$17 USPS Priority Shipping and Handling for International Locations.

I also have leftover prints, those are $20 each.  $11 USPS Priority Shipping and Handing, shipped flat, insurance recommended.  I can give you ship quotes on Mex/CA, and International if needed.

Email me at ken@badflip.com, with 'Sketchbook Order', 'Prints Order', or 'I just want some Arts' in the Subject Line, let me know what you want, and I'll create an invoice for you with payment options.  Paypal preferred.

Also, I take commissions every now and again, that's $70 for a 9x12 grayscale drawing, a character waist up.  We can always talk if something more involved...

One last thing - finalizing details to be at Robotoyfest this Sunday, the 13th, at the Sheraton in Pasadena.  So if you're local, and don't want to pay for shipping, come see me this weekend!