Comic-con Saturday Recap

This was my tenth consecutive year attending the San Diego Comic-con. The convention seemed to noticeable escalate in size between 2005 and 2010, but the last five years have all felt basically the same, with the convention taking over the center as well as increasing portions of downtown. I only go on Saturdays at this point, and it's a pleasure to reunite with my old San Diego buddies, as well as anyone who is able to make it down from Los Angeles or other cities. I try to sample a little bit of the floor and upstairs panels each year and this year I attended three panels: 3D Printing with Adobe Photoshop, William Shatner's motion comic "Man O War," and Google Spotlight Stories, which are akin to a CG theatrical performance you watch on your phone.

The Google Spotlight Stories panel had animators Patrick Obsorne (director of "Feast") and Glen Keane ("Duet"), who were very nice to speak with and kindly posed for photographs. I'll have to draw some caricatures of these gentlemen soon.

With "Feast" director Patrick Osborne, before the Google Spotlight Stories panel.

With master animator and "Duet" director Glen Keane after the end of the panel.

Walking around the floor was fun as usual, with the chance to view the finely-textured costumes from Batman vs. Superman up close, and exploring the illustrators tables, where I was positively blown away by Heather Theurer's incredible fantasy work, especially her realistic renditions of Disney characters:

Heather Theurer's take on the Frozen sisters.

Lilo and Stitch, with Mulan underneath.

Another artist, Scott Smith, made a series of typographic prints that fit every line of dialogue from popular movies on them:

I also saw Star Wars concept artist Iain McCaig doing some live portrait drawing, which was enlightening (the drawing advice he gave to his subject was to "get completely lost in your reference.") Terry Dodson's "Vespa Girl" was irresistible, so I snagged a postcard of it as I walked by his table. Little surprises like these are the reason why it is still worth it for me to continue going to Comic-con each year.

The Speed Chart

In previs, there are often times when you have to animate objects flying through space: birds, helicopters, spaceships, angry flying monkeys, etc. With live action previs, however, the speeds at which your objects move have real-world implications when it comes time for the film crew to shoot, so you'll need to keep accurate speeds in mind. That way your previs team can inform the director and  his crew how fast their helicopter will have to travel to catch up with all those angry flying monkeys.

Speed can be something a bit difficult to visualize for comparison, so here is the Speed Chart I ended up making:

If I had something like this before I started researching, it would have saved a lot of time. I hope this comes in handy for you at some point.

Sources:

Helios: http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/spacecraft/q0109c.shtml

Apollo 10: http://www.history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_10a_Summary.htm

Space Shuttle: http://www.space.com/12127-8-surprising-space-shuttle-facts.html

TOPOL-M: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/RT-2PM2_Topol-M

X-15: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/North_American_X-15

Blackbird: http://www.historynet.com/sr-71-blackbird-sets-london-to-l-a-speed-record.htm

F-14: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Grumman_F-14_Tomcat

Concorde: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Concorde

Bell X-1: http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?object=nasm_A19510007000

B-2 Bomber: http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=6

747: http://www.therichest.com/business/technology/the-10-fastest-passenger-planes-in-history/

Cruise missile: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Cruise_missile

P-51D Mustang: http://www.cafsocal.com/our-aircrafts/our-aircraft-and-history/north-american-p-51-mustang-%EF%BB%BFman-o-war/

Apache: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Boeing_AH-64_Apache

News Helicopter: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Airbus_Helicopters_H125_%C3%89cureuil