DarenDoc’s Slightly Nifty Musings Inc.

Still on the halloween kick…  here’s a little gem from 1999…  when I went as Toht… and my buddy Steve Melching went as Indy…

On Halloween, everyone is friends...

At the time I was working on “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” at Universal… and we had a little halloween get together at work.  I had really gone all out and tried to get accurate pieces for this costume… having a prop maker friend of mine create a lit poker, I sculpted a latex application for my palm with the impression of the Staff of Ra Headpiece… I found some nifty real glasses… and went to a military history store and got an authentic replica of a national socialist party pin… which I didn’t realize I was wearing… until I realized what was across the hall from our art department at Universal studios… it was the offices for the “Shoah Foundation”… the group that Steven Spielberg funded to collect aural histories from holocaust survivors…   So here I was wandering around the halls in a black leather trenchcoat and Nazi Party button…  Luckily no unfortunate misunderstandings happened.

I don’t believe any further commentary is necessary at this point.

I do enjoy dressing up for Halloween…  over the years, some times I haven’t been able to participate in it due to being busy, or just not coming up with an appropriate get-up… but I always enjoy the process of putting together a costume.  Halloween of 2007 was one of the years where I got to do something fun, and my sweetie Heather was right along with me… supporting, and doing a bang up job of seamstressing… (is that a word?)

I’m not one of those people who choose inappropriate costumes.  I’m well aware of my body type, and that spandex is a privilege… not a right…. so you won’t see me in a superman outfit, or stormtrooper suit.  I have, however, over the years, chosen some outfits that not many people attempt… such as readers of this blog have seen in past posts… I went one year as Sir Bedevere from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, (with Heather as an awesome “not a witch” girl), I have a pretty darn good Darth Vader outfit that is wearable… an Obi-wan type Jedi outfit, and one year, I put together a rather outstanding (if I say so myself) rendition of Toht from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” complete with glowing poker and headpiece scarred hand.

When Halloween 2007 was approaching, I had the idea that Heather and I would make a good Jor-El and Lara from the Donner “Superman” movie… With my greying hair and round face, I’m constantly looking brando-esque in the mirror, so I thought I would work it out pretty nicely.  Heather’s red hair and generally cheery disposition would be perfect for Kal-el’s mom… (we toyed with the idea of Jared being a little superman, but he was dead set on optimus prime… so we gave in…)

I knew that the original outfits in the film were covered in strips of that Scotchlite material used on streetsigns and front projection screens… but knew that without a half silvered mirror and a stage light following us around, it wouldn’t do much good…  as you can see in this image of the original costume…

Not as Glowy as we would have thought...

Pretty grey and dismal… but when a light is split and bounced off of it back into the camera:

The Real thing... Front-lit as it should be.

Now, the trick would be to find material that would mimic this kind of look, but in real life… Heather suggested crushed velvet velour… we found a place online that sold exactly the kind we needed… and got enough for both our costumes…

Heather did an awesome job of reverse engineering from photos… and sewed up a tunic, pants, and sleeveless jacket for me, and a tunic and pants for her… turned out great… even had shoulder pads… which left the “S” for the “El” family crest… I devised a way to glue tiny plastic jewels around a screen-grab trace of the S in a dark satin material, with carefully cut velour swatches to fill in the areas that needed to be filled… then all this was fabric glued onto the tunic…

The real "S"... now that's a lot of bedazzle.

And here is what Heather and I looked like… complete with my newly custom styled Andy Warhol wig.

Awfully giddy...

And full figure… in the face of certain doom for Krypton…

they look awfully composed when facing the ultimate destruction of Krypton...

Was a lot of fun…  and the costume now stands in a place of honor…

Kryptonian Fashion

You might notice the Hot Toys “Jor-El” figure at the base of the costume… it is awesome as well…

My son...

Click Here to visit the portfolio site...

As most of you know, my professional web pages, BetaFive.com, (Named of course after Gary Seven’s amazing know it all computer…) are the place where I send prospective jobs to look at my work… and see if I fit into their plans… After a much needed update this week, I added some new things from GI JOE and that Day the Earth Stood Still remake up there… just for those interested in that kinda stuff.  Drop by and take a look, see if anything is interesting to you…

Also, just on a side note… I’m not really that much of an attention junkie… but I am always interested in hearing from people who come by the site and take a look around… so if you have any comments at all, feel free to post them… I’ve noticed over the last few weeks, the responses have dropped down to almost nothing… and I was wondering what the deal was… so it made me less eager to update the blog with new posts, honestly…  so, if you wanna see more, let me know… otherwise, I’ll just keep putting things up that interest me… when I feel like it. !!! lol

Thanks for stopping by.

After the Planned Re-make of “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” project that I was working on was shut down because of the impending Writer’s strike, I got in touch with friend and mentor Production Designer Ed Verreaux to see what he was up to… and if he had any work for me.  As it turned out, he had just started pre-production on Stephen Sommers’ new movie: DARK SKY.  What?  What’s DARK SKY?…  As it turned out, it was the super secret code name for G.I. JOE.

Concept art time:

The First is an idea for the reveal of the Pit… following down through the secret desert entrance into the underground hangar.

Then,  a view of the main training level… this was later augmented with a lot more “stuff”… The live action plate is down below, with the matte design above.

Finally, an alternate version of the underwater MARS base control room…

Click on the images for giant size.

howllandingtall_combo

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Tilt down to reveal the underground Howler Hangar in the Pit

Go see the movie… it’s fun. And loud.

More next week.