Holiday Cheers and Overhead Analyzer Fun

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Hey everyone!

Well it's been a bit since I put up a new blog post and I didn't want 2011 to roll on out without something new to report so here we go!

First off, several of my friends in Star Car Central as well as myself were edited out of the televised Hallmark Channel broadcast of the 2011 Hollywood Christmas Parade featuring the rest of the SCC cars like the JP Jeep, Blues Brothers car, classic Camaro Bumblebee, and of course the KI3T which I rode in shotgun with Richard Morey!

But that's entertainment right? So let's talk about some exciting news here. As I explained in previous posts, I am planning some BIG THINGS for 2012 the likes which have never been attempted before and I'm not doing it alone - New Team, new dream.

That's all I can tell you at this time but keep your scanner's peeled because if you follow my work, you know that I think outside the digital box and whatever I have planned will be worth your while to follow.

Let's just say whispers of things to come will be appearing soon...look for a sign. 

As a matter of record here, I would like to restate that I have no involvement with Knight Rider Festival IV whatsoever and whatever new designs or concepts I release have nothing to do with it or any other previous Knight Rider event. I will not be attending nor creating new artwork for that venture.

Instead, I will be returning to Mark Puette's Southern Knights 2012 event in Atlanta next summer. 

So let's talk for a moment about the holidays for ol' Nick. Well, Dad and I stayed a night at the very cool (and expensive!) Disney Grand Californian Hotel and much to our surprise our room was upgraded from a standard to a "Theme Park" view and this gave me the perfect opportunity to test out the stitch assist on my camera!

Here's an assembled panoramic shot of DCA from our hotel balcony! You can even make out the rising construction of Cars Land and the Cadillac Mountain Range on the left.

(Click on any image to see it bigger or right click and "view image" to see them full size in another window.)








As our journey continued, I finally managed to see the new Star Tours at Disneyland and Dad was instantly hooked. Before the day was over, we rode Star Tours: 3D SEVEN times just to see as many of the 54 configurations of the ride as we could!

Here are just some photos I took! You can see many more on my Facebook Page - use the links to the right to find that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So now...

Let's talk about another favorite attraction of mine that I was able to revisit and the hidden treasures I discovered within...

CAPTAIN EO : TRIBUTE!

As I was watching the scenes unfold aboard Captain EO (played by the unforgettable Michael Jackson), I noticed something very interesting hanging from ceiling on the bridge of his sail ship...

Can you guess what that is? Here's a hint...

That's right! That is the very same Overhead Analyzer unit that was used in Knight Rider! In fact Captain EO's ship has TWO of them! Although they've been slightly modified, they're clearly the same units we saw prominently used in Season Two by April Curtis inside the Knight Semi! Given that Captain EO was shot in late 1986, this could very well be the first post Knight Rider appearance of these units since the series wrapped!

If that's not exciting enough (for geeks like us) I also spotted the Overhead Analyzer in the background of the command center for ICS used in "The Running Man"!

So there you have it, two awesome (and as far as I know previously unreported) finds from the world of Knight Rider. Joe Huth IV also adds that the analyzer was also used in the series "Streethawk"

In other Knight Rider news, Diamond Select Toys has just released photos of their forthcoming Knight Rider Minimates products for 2012! You can check them out on their official blogs here:

Knight Rider Minimates Update

Art Asylum Blog Update


Here's just a sample of what you'll find on their fantastic blog!

Check out the links to see more!

Well that's going to wrap it up for this edition of my Knightworks commentary and I hope you all have a happy New Year as we enter 2012 which I feel with so many great Knight Rider projects such as Joe Huth IV and David Bronstein's new book as well as new merchandise from Hot Wheels and Diamond Select Toys (and some other surprises) will unquestionably be the year of The Knight!

Take care and best wishes for all!

-Nick
Author/Designer of The Knight Rider Companion
The Digital Quick (TDQ)


 

Christmas Comes Early

Hey everyone out there!

Just wanted to post up this quick update. I had a blast riding in the Hollywood Christmas Parade inside Richard Morey's amazing screen used Mustang KITT along with all my pals from Star Car Central! Big shout out to Richard Morey, Nate Truman, and the SCC crew for making this possible for me!

We zig-zagged our way down Hollywood Boulevard and cruised on down the red carpet waving to all the happy fans lining the streets and braving the cold to view the parade!

It was a great time by all and here's some photos I managed to take from the event. Being a rider, I didn't have a lot of time to get around the rest of the show but I have many cool Star Car buddies on Facebook like Alex Wong who took some fantastic shots of their own covering this grand holiday extravaganza!

You can see his album here:

Alex Wong - Hollywood Christmas Parade Album

Special thanks to Alex Wong and Richard Morey for providing some of the shots below. Alex took those fantastic shots of me with the stars from "Cars" stars Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater and Richard snapped the line up on the red carpet!

Remember you can see the Hollywood Christmas Parade when it airs on the Hallmark Channel and KTLA (if you're in CA) on December 12th at 6pm and throughout the month! I rode shotgun in the Knight Industries Three Thousand Shelby GT500KR K.I.T.T. from the "new" Knight Rider. The announcers referred to it as "Knight Rider 2.0" in the broadcast.

Richard's car was between the rustic screen used Bumblebee camaro from Transformers (the motion picture) and the Jurassic Park 4x4 Explorer. So you can find us towards the back of the line-up.

You can also spot me by my Knights of the West Coast hat!

Happy viewing!

-Nick

Hollywood Christmas Parade

Hey guys,

Looks like I will be riding in my pal Richard's Shelby "Gimble" KITT in this weekend's Hollywood Christmas Parade along with the rest of the Star Car Central crew and their amazing vehicles!

You can find out more about the parade which will be broadcast on the Hallmark Movie Channel here:  http://www.thehollywoodchristmasparade.com/participants/novelty-acts.html

Here's some great shots of Richard's KITT I took via my Facebook album.

Ok, that will do it for now!

-Nick

Knight Banners

Alex Wong and Jason Piper KITT banners 

Wow, what to say about this project? I guess the best way to describe it was monumental in scale, especially for my computer. It all started with my good friend and KOTWC brother Alex Wong asking me to create a banner for him to display his amazing KITT at various events.

Not just any banner, but he wanted to showcase his KITT replica and also use images that showed scenes and characters/actors from Knight Rider so that people could understand (for those who didn't know) why KITT is so special.

I usually don't like to repeat myself with my designs and push my understanding of style in different directions with each project I take on so the first step was - research!

How do I manage to get all these elements to work without being too busy or boring? Well after a lot of scouring around, I liked the look of these glass-like angled slivers used in the dvd box art for Mission Impossible III.

That became my starting point on how to bring all these elements together in a visually interesting way. Then I did some other research on banners out there and eventually decided to make Alex's KITT the biggest element and then have the other pictures behind it in these shard like slivers while keeping "KITT from Knight Rider" in large print and a focal point that could be read across long distances.

Remember how I mentioned that when I design artwork, it's like creating a big jigsaw puzzle? Well this is a perfect example - only in this case I also had to create the pieces and figure out how they all went together!

I had to extensive work on Alex's main KITT just to make sure that it was on an interesting angle and wouldn't look pixelated at a larger format. I took a photo I had and made some adjustments to create this liquid metal look and smooth out any rough lines as well as boosted the contrast and added a blue glow to really make his KITT pop as the main focus of the banner.

I also wanted to have some depth, so I added some subtle glows and drop shadows to the pieces to make some of them appear to protrude and receed in space which added another layer of excitement to the piece.

This also posed a most interesting challenge as I had never attempted to design artwork for a vertical banner before. This particular design is 35.5 in x 80 in and to give you a idea of how tall that actually is, here's a photo of my 6'1 self standing next to Alex's completed banner.

 

As you can see it's quite tall!

I really want to give a BIG THANK YOU to Alex Wong for graciously promoting my finished work on Facebook and really showcasing what I can do. In fact, because of his efforts I was contacted by my other fellow KOTWC brother, Jason Piper to do almost the same thing for his KITT and on a much tighter deadline!

Not only did I need to do another design (in less amount of time) but Jason wanted it to feel like the same style as Alex's unique style but differ with some of the photos chosen and of course, feature Jason's KITT which features a unique tow-bar in the front and Season 1/2 dash interior.

Keep in mind my friends that this banner is HUGE, so all the photos that I'm trying to use need to be a decent resolution in order to hold up to the larger scale. I like to bring quality to my work and so that leads to my next important note here...

I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to my friends Jessica Hoskins, Jason Spencer of Stormfront Productions/A Shadowy Flight Podcast, and Daniel Trujillo Jr. for allowing me to use their amazing photographs as part of Jason's banner. Without their help, I would have had a hell of a time making all of this work and their hi-res photos really helped this banner shine!

With Jason's banner, I wanted to take into account what he wanted but also add in some differences so it wasn't a copy of Alex's design. So like with Alex's car, I also had to rework a picture (from Jessica) of Jason's unique KITT so it would have that liquid metal look and hold up to the larger scale while also shifting around the photos in the background to better spotlight Jason and his car as well and include everyone from the cast/crew of the show that signed Jason's car including original KITT designer Michael Scheffe.

It turns out I had to really go back and rework some of the pieces and reposition and scale them to get everything just right.

When you work on larger files like this, it tends to slow your computer and believe me even with 4 gigs of RAM my computer slowed down to a crawl while I worked on this stuff but it was worth the extra time to get everything where I wanted it.

Needless to say a lot of additional thought and effort went into making Jason's banner and I also selected photos that were specific only to him. From his lighted interior behind the KITT headline (courtesy of Jason Spencer) to a very special shot of Jason and David Hasselhoff taken by myself at Knight Rider Festival II. There are some other hidden bits (I love having hidden items in my poster work!) but all in all, I really think these two banners turned out great and I was pleased to help out my fellow Knights while also being able to make some money on the side.

Thanks to Jason Piper for the opportunity to work on something that will be a part of his collection for years to come.

Hopefully these two banners will help make a difference wherever they're displayed and keep the spirit of Knight Rider burning bright for years to come.

-Nick

KITT vs. KARR 2011

This is a glimpse into the process that went into creating my new KITT and KARR artwork. Traditionally you would want to start by rendering KITT first and then convert that art into KARR but in this case, with the pose I was going for I had to do this the harder way.

Basically I started off with a screenshot of KARR which I used to create the original KARR vechicle lineart seen in The Knight Rider Companion. Having wanted to use a 3/4 shot of the car for future projects, I decided to use this very familar angle of KARR rather than the same blue background promotional shot we've seen of KITT used time and time again on everything from the Mio GPS to the Japanese Charawheels Hot Wheels packaging.

There's nothing wrong with this art mind you, I just wanted to make something new. So I had to decide first off how I was going to color the original lineart and if I wanted to go with something more realistic looking or cartoonish.

I decided to go more realistic which meant I had to work extra hard to make sure the shadows and highlights were softer and painstakingly color over the original lineart. When you're trying to depict something in reality, I have learned that very few things have solid black lines around them unlike say a cartoon or illustration. It's harder I find to render something to look real because once you deal with reality, you have to follow all the little details otherwise someone will notice something looks off and the believability of your work can be lost.

You just try your best and hope everything turns out right. If people like your work, then you did something right and to get there - sometimes you have to take more time than you like to adjust your mistakes to create a more solid piece. They say working on art is never finished, you just decide when to stop working on it. I find this a valid truth but I try to cover as many things as I can before releasing something I do as a finished work.

My approach to creating artwork is basically a process of stages and putting elements together like a jigsaw puzzle, but I only have an idea of the finished picture on the box which usually begins with a crude but informative sketch (thumbnail) or rough mock-up of what I'm trying to accomplish.

I cannot recommend enough for any aspiring artist out there to remember the three most important ingredients to making a work of art, report, or other creative medium - Research, Research, Research!

Then comes applying what you've researched to what you're trying to do. In this case, I needed to fully flesh out the foglights on KARR, highlights, glints/glows/bevels, scanner details, and other things before I could call the piece completed.

I think the hardest detail for me on this was the tire tread!

Equally as difficult is once I had KARR finished, I found that I could not just simply make some selections and darken the bottom half of KARR to make KITT because it didn't match or look convincing enough. I actually had to go back to square one and rebuild/airbrush the lower half of KARR all over again to convert the car into KITT and then of course also change the scanner color to red.

So having done all that, the result was having both KITT and KARR ready to use in another project which will be revealed later which requires have KITT and KARR side by side. This lent another challenge to make sure the scoop in the hood was on the correct side. What you might not immediately realize is when you flip any picture of the Knight 2000, you also switch the driver's side and airscoop the wrong direction. I can't tell you how many times I have had to remind myself not to flip shots!

Anyway, that's a glimpse into how this all came together and here are the final pieces. I don't like having just blank backgrounds in my final presentations, so I always try to put some sort of interesting backdrop in my stand alone pieces. The final step is my NRN design logo and then I post up my creation for the world to see and enjoy!

 

Well, hope you enjoyed this write up and keep an eye out because later down the line you're going to see where else these two cars are going to pop up in 2012.

-Nick

One Man's Dream

Originally I was just experimenting with tri-tone/halftone dot effects in photoshop on a pic of David as Michael Knight and I decided I liked it enough to turn into a full blown poster. Since I tend to do everything against a black background, I wanted to play with something different against white.

I tried to incorporate KITT in a grander fashion but it just looked tacked on - so I decided to make KITT's connection a subtle silhouette and a touch of red glow from Michael's shirt to represent both KITT's scanner glow and the red shirt he wears in the pilot which was meant to signify his connection to KITT from the first time they met.

Enjoy.

-Nick

Looking to the Future

   Welcome everyone to the first official post of my new blog. You might wonder why I came up with the name "Knightworks", well seeing as I am an artist who "works" on creating art and is part of a fantastic group called Knights of the West Coast not to mention a tremendous fan of Knight Rider, it seemed to fit best with what I wanted to create this blog for - a place to express my ideas, thoughts, and share my art with people who want to see what I'm up to and perhaps peek more into my creative process along the way.

As we move through the remainder of 2011, it dawns on me to think about what the future holds. Through various trials and tribulations, my faith and purpose in continuing to contribute to the world of Knight Rider has often been shaken or tested. With these thoughts in mind, I spend many days and hours re-evaluating my goals and objectives. It is because of amazing friends out there who continue to support and respect my efforts that I'm still here taking the time to create new things, just like this blog here.

"Looking to the Future"

Four words with such powerful meaning. A bright future? A dark future? A lonely future? A happy future? The choices we make today impact what our future will become even if certain challenges and events arise that are beyond our control. So when I reflect on "looking to the future" with respects to Knight Rider, I see my brother Daniel Trujillo Jr. and I gazing to the next impossible dream to capture and how much work it's going to take to get there.

As the 30th anniversary of Knight Rider looms off in the far horizon of September 26th, 2012 - Dan and I have thought to ourselves, "what's next?" We've seen and attended various Knight Rider themed events and contributed our own efforts along with our KOTWC members to expanding a world we both love. From graphics to television show contributions, to building contacts and special relationships with the cast/crew we admired from afar, as fans who have done so much already, we're left with answering that crucial question.

Well, while I cannot reveal our answer at this time I can tell you that what we're are trying to do is take this passion for Knight Rider to another level and in doing so hopefully provide the fans out there worldwide with a new opportunity to get even closer to the world they admired from afar on television screens nearly 30 years ago.

The future looks bright and colorful but like this image suggests, the present is sketchy and undefined. I made this image in Photoshop using various filter effects to get just the right mix of sketch and fully rendered brilliance to signify that you must first begin with a rough sketch before you can reach the finalized picture.

The challenge that I've set before me seems unreachable but I am bound and determined to reach for the stars and capture my dreams not by myself, but with a loving and supporting team to pick me up when I feel down and take the risks and gambles together in order to share in the rewards that come later. Unity, not fragmentation.

With all that being said, I think you can really grasp what this image means and why it was created. This is the future I see when I close my eyes and dare to dream.

"One man's dream, becomes two."

-Nick