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