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Moebius

Moebius, also known as Jean Giraud is a French artist who worked as a cartoonist, and a writer.

https://hero-magazine.com/article/173003/jean-moebius-giraud

https://www.artfutura.org/v3/en/moebius/

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Alejandro Jodorowsky

https://www.dazeddigital.com/film-tv/article/54692/1/alejandro-jodorowsky-s-1970-dune-storyboard-is-up-for-auction

https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/27/5554126/jodorowskys-dune-interview-greatest-sci-fi-film-never-made

This is one of the three images that I chose to look at, that was made by Alejandro. I picked out the ship as one of the examples, due to the design of the ship is very different from what we see in the movies, for example the shaping of the ship and the camouflage/painting design of the ship is completely different from the ships we see in the Dune films. In the 2021 dune film the ship is shaped like a dragonfly and has no paint on the ship. Also what makes this design interesting is the the colour of the paint and the decals on the ship. It is similar to a poisonous dart frog’s colour, which probably has no meaning to the ship, but Alejandro probably wanted his ship design to stand out and look cool.

Here is a character drawing of two Atreides men, Leto (The leader of House Atreides) and Idaho (A very skilled fighter from the house of Atreides). Back in the 1950′s space was something new to everyone and lots op people didn’t know much about it, therefore the design of clothing we see looks quirky and very 80′s space like. In the 2021 dune film, we see a very big difference in the armour and clothes. The uniforms remind me of the Empire uniforms that the commanders wear, and the armour that we see from the desert people is sort of inspired by the modern military uniform.

this sketch here shows you the two different families, house Atreides and house of Harkonnen. These two families are the ones that set the story on its journey through the power struggle and betrayal of the Emperor, the sketches of these people are very different to the actual look of what we see now in the dune movie, again this is probably because of the same reasonings as the Leto drawings (the year at which they were designed, and first astronaughts go to space, aliens, etc).

I chose this as an example as it allows you to see the two sides of the families, showing what designs of humanoid or aliens that Jodorowsky thought would look good for each role. some of the designs look more fantasy than sci-fi as well, for example Reverend mother. She has a staff that looks like it came straight out of Lord of the rings.

https://www.openculture.com/2014/08/moebius-storyboards-concept-art-for-jodorowskys-dune.html

Here is a snippet of Jodorowsky‘s storyboard for the dune film, here you can see that it is set up like an old comic and the art style is also very similar to one you would see in an old comic. The colours used are what makes the storyboard very clear and easy to understand, for example the first five boxes are painted with yellows and oranges, suggesting that they are on the planet Dune, and the other 6-12 are set in space, thanks to the black sky and small dots of white to represent stars. If I was to look at the storyboard and it didn't have colour I wouldn’t be able to tell what was going on exactly, therefore the colours help aid the storyboards understanding, especially since there's no description. Overall I think the storyboard is suttle, but detailed, therefore it is easy to understand, but I do think that there needs to be some sort of description, for example slide 13, I have no idea what’s going on in that part of the story.

(This storyboard was created by Moebius, for Jodorowsky dune adaptation).

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Dune

Dune (1984) is an epic science fiction film written and directed by David Lynch, this film is based on the 1965 Dune novel, written by Frank Herbert.

The 1984 dune is set in the distant future where the film shows the conflict between noble families as they battle for control over the extremely harsh desert planet ‘Arrakis’, also known as "Dune". The planet is the only source of the drug ‘Spice’, spice allows foreknowledge and is vital to space travel, making it the most essential and valuable resource in the universe. Paul Atreides is the scion and heir of a powerful noble family, whose inheritance gives them control over Arrakis, which brings them into conflict with its former overlords. ‘The House of Harkonnen’. In the film we also see that ‘Paul’ the son of the Atreides house is possibly the ‘Kwisatz Haderach’, a messianic figure expected by the Bene Gesserit sisterhood.

The story of the 2021 Dune film relates only to Frank Herbert's original novel and not the 1984 dune film by David Lynch. It takes place in the distant future, in an intergalactic society ruled by various noble families and one all-powerful emperor. Duke Leto Atreides, the ruler of the ocean planet Caladan, accepts a relocation to the desert planet of Arrakis, to take control of the mining of spice Melange. This spice is only found on Arrakis, due to its source is the sandworms that live there. Melange is the most powerful substance in the universe, and is what makes space travel possible. Mining it is a dangerous business thanks to Arrakis’s massive indigenous sandworms. But the Arrakis mission isn’t what it initially seemed to be, the paranoid Emperor Shaddam IV is involved in dealings with the corrupt House of Harkonnen. The indigenous Fremen people of Arrakis have had enough with the Empire’s meddling, and decide to take action against the Harkonnen.

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/dune-everything-you-need-to-know-about-denis-villeneuve-epic-sci-fi/

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Closeups

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Base Painting

After a day of thought, I decided to paint and decorate the base of my model. I went for a black coat, as it would make the model and the snow stand out, then I used PVA glue to act as the snow melting. Then I used the spare powder to sprinkle at the sides, leaving marks. Initially I had hoped it would stick to the PVA, but it slid right off like oil in water.

Then I used bits of broken breeze block to look like rocks in the snow, it breaks up the scenery a little bit.

After lunch when the PVA dried, It wasn’t until then that it hit me. PVA goes invisible once dried. But it isn’t too bad as you can see where the PVA is and where it separates the powder. Overall I am quite happy, but I would of liked to have stuck with a leaking white paint or something similar and just a plain black base.

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Almost finished model

In this post I have attached my model to its base, to do this I drilled a hole in the tinfoil legs and the block of wood in the center, then I ran some copper wire into the legs and placed my model inside the block, deep enough that his legs will show, and so that it looks natural. After that I piled in the plaster powder and sprinkled it on my model, this allows my model to look as though he is in a snowy area.

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Gang logo

Here are some screenshots that I took from my idea generation sheet on Photoshop, I used these images to then have a look at the sizes and I then printed them out on paper, to stick them onto some double sided tape sheet, that will allow me to stick onto my model for his gang logo design. To cut this out I used a mix of scissors and a scalpel. 

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Base

After I came back to college I was greeted with news that my base hadn’t dried yet, with was annoying, but good as the trail was on the wrong side of my model, therefore Kyrstie asked Simon (Technician) to help me make the base. Below is a drawing that Simon made of the base

I preferred this base as it was definitely less fragile and I was able to get some hard graft done in the workshop.

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Final touches

Unfortunately most of these pictures were blurry as my phone was being slow and the lighting adjustment just wouldn’t co operate with me. But here’s the finished model with the paint

Here I used some old transfers from warhammer models to add numbers and stickers to my models mask. This was very painful as the numbers were quite small and fragile, and I needed to add water to pick the stickers up. It was avery stressful and aggravating time.

After I had painted everything, I went over the model with oils, this allowed me to make some areas look rusty, old and dirty. I fins this part of the painting process quite exciting as it can really change a models look.

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Painting

By this stage I took my model home to paint and decorate, to start off I painted the helmet, I used black acrylic as a base, then I added the other paints afterwards. I chose black as the helmet has more black paint on it than the red on the mask for example, and I also did the same with the coat aslo.

With the Sweater I decided to change the colours up a bit and went with a deep sea blue with a tint of black. This allowed the colours to bled a little, but also split each other up in the process.

I went with a mustard base yellow for the trousers and added darker colours afterwards, by dry brushing.

Originally with the helmet I was going to paint with acrylic paint, but though that I could get a better shine with nail vanish, and so I used red nail vanish.

This turned out to be quite effective, but it did need about 3 or 4 coats of the nail vanish, for the mask to look fully coated.

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Making of the base

Here I drew out two designs on how to make the base, with the help of Kyrsties feedback.

In the end I decided to make a reverse plaster base, reverse plaster is when you use clay as the mold and reverse on the way you want the base to look like, for example I want a snow trail, therefore I made two long lumps stick out, meaning there will be a trail when the plaster is dried, and where I put the trail was in the wrong area, this is because the plaster cast will make it look as though my model was walking away from the ledge, however I didn’t realise it at the time, and found out later on when looking back at my photos.

You set up a barrier around the mold, allowing the plaster cast to sit tight and not leak out from the edges, to prevent leakage you use the clay on the corners of the outer walls, as seen below.

Then you add the plaster to water and mix, then adding to the mould as seen here.

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Finishing touches

I modelled the shoulder armour, but again didn’t take any photos of the process. To make the hook at the top I used a bit of armature wire and ran it through a bit of rolled up sculpy, then I attached it to the arm after the armour was placed, allowing the wire to did deep into the arm of the model and strength it a little bit in the process. 

I realized the back was a little small so I added sculpy to bulk it out, but clearly I needed to bulk it out more, but time wasn’t really on my side unfortunately.

Later on Kyrstie suggested that I add something the the right arm to make it stick out more as she thought it looked quite plain. So I made a piece of armour for the elbow, following the process I used to make the armour in my NAF project.

After adding the elbow pad I placed the helmet on my models head, this allowed me to look at the model as a whole. I was quite impressed with my model at the end, and I thought it looked quite good. But the top half of my models right arm still looked plain, so I made a first aid badge like arm band.

I was fine with the look of the first aid band, but I thought that It would look better with the Japanese flag, by then it was the end of the day and I had told myself I would change it, but I forgot and by the time I remembered the model had already been cooked.

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Here I have designed the helmet of my model, to model the helmet I made use of DTG’s model and a biker helmet from the Ruroc TikTok.

I did however add my own ideas to the helmet as well, such as the buttons on the side of the helmet, the laser and the rebreather canister at the back of the mask.

What I found hardest with the model was the shaping of it, everything else wasn’t as bad, but the problem with the shaping of the helmet was that if I had put a little extra pressure on the helmet the shape of the helmet would move and when I stop to look at the helmet, it isn’t very symmetrical. Meaning I have to spend more time recorrecting my mistake.

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Sidearm and hands

Here I just ran through my model, checking to make sure everything looked alright, I used a straight arrow tool to square up the pouches on the vest and I added some more creases to the trousers.

I also rolled the sleeves of the coat to cover up where the hands start, and to add a sort of attitude to mu model.

Before making the hands I looked at my previous model and looked at his hands.

To make the hands I followed the same process, but somehow I only made the fingers look worse.

I looked at knives as well for my model, and I chose a samurai handle and guard to stick with the Japanese theme, I added a gap in the knives sheath to make it look different as well.

When it came to the making of the gun I sort of froze, this is because I had no idea on how to model a miniature gun with sculpey. So to help I brought in a pistol from one of my action figures and used it to help me.

In the end I used the gun I had drawn out on my initial ideas sheet, and made the grip and a part of the barrel, then attached it to a block of sculpy.

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The Coat

Before I moved onto the coat I redesigned the belt, this was yet again inspired by the military where the ‘tactical belt’ is made with a clip, rather than the traditional loop hole.

I firstly began with the main part of the coat (inner), to do this I used two bits of sculpey and I placed one on top of another, the reason behind this is that I wanted the inner detail/stitching to look like a puffer jacket. In doing so I will get air trapped in each diamond shape. As seen below.

After adding the detail I had a look at the sizing and how it will look on my model. Unfortunately it was a little short so I changed the size and followed the process again.

I got a little confused and frustrated with the coat so I decided to move onto the vest, unfortunately I was silly enough to only take a photo of the beginning piece, which wasn’t very helpful.

Again with the pouches I used the same technique, of using one sheet of sculpy and folding it on itself, adding a line to look like a pull cord to open the pouch.

Added a collar to the coat, it did look weird at the time but that was because my model was headless.

Moving onto the sleeves, I used tinfoil to make the arms larger, then used sculpy to place over the top, rolling it around the arm.

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Trousers

Moving onto the trousers, I made two pouches to sit on the left leg of my model, this allows for extra storage of anything needed, such as ammo, first aid, etc.

By this point I had a look at the belt, experimenting with the look. I went with a design that is used a lot but didn’t like it, so I changed the look .

Knee pads, this idea was inspired by the military, as they are built in knee pads that sit in the trousers and don’t have the strain of anything tied around your knee area.

After adding the knee pads I looked at adding the bungie rope/cord around my models trousers, I added the cord as it seemed to make sense due to the fact that his leg would of needed a leg holster anyways, due to the sidearm sitting at his thigh. I also made the cord longer on the right side as it would allow the leg to look less plain, it just keeps it a little busy.

Adding detail to the trousers, creases, rips, etc.

I wasn’t bothered with the back of my model as he will wear a coat, therefore the back will be hidden and anything at the back would be a waste of resources.

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Making of the body

Here I started to build up the chest and legs, to build up the chest I looked back to the armature model to look at the scaling of the body, and I looked at Dr. Garuda’s modes, specifically looking at how he models body muscle. After getting a rough shape of the models body I moved onto the sizing of the legs.

Then with grey sculpey I rolled out a layer and overlapped it onto the model, adding a trim to seem as though it were a sweater.

After the sweater I modeled the trousers, to do this I used two bits of sculpy for each leg, I first used a smaller piece of sculpy for the bottom of the knee area, then I used a bigger sheet to overlap the top, creating a double layer effect. Afterwards I looked at the sides of the trousers and thought of using a cross to act as a cross stitch in the trousers, but I didn’t really like it so I stuck with the ordinary line to show that there is some kind of inner stitch at the sides, just as we see in trousers now.

Finally I moved onto the belt and the fly of the trousers.