Behind the Scenes of All-Star Vinyl: All Business LeBron Part Three

Upper Deck's All-Star Vinyl designer toy line got off to a roaring start with the online only release of the All-Star edition of Athlete LeBron, limited to 750 pieces,  which sold out in just over an hour a few weeks ago.  The series is a partnership with Nike  based on their popular ad campaign “The LeBrons" and will feature a figure for each of his four personas: Athlete LeBron, All Business LeBron, Wise LeBron and Kid LeBron. All four figures will be released as part of The Chosen One Edition in April (limited to 1000 pieces each).   We've already looked at the process of creating the turn-around sketches for All Business LeBron as described by Illustrator Chris Brunner and the sculpting of the figure by Rocco Tartamella.  This week, we have a double-dose for you. First we have shots of the paint master which comes out of a rapid-prototype process and then is painted as a guide for the factory. 

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Posted by Jack @ 10:13 AM in All-Star Vinyl | Permalink  | Comments (1) |

Behind the Scenes of All-Star Vinyl: All Business LeBron Part Two

Upper Deck's All-Star Vinyl designer toy line got off to a roaring start with the online only release of the All-Star edition of Athlete LeBron, limited to 750 pieces,  which sold out in just over an hour a few weeks ago.  The series is a partnership with Nike  based on their popular ad campaign “The LeBrons" and will feature a figure for each of his four personas: Athlete LeBron, All Business LeBron, Wise LeBron and Kid LeBron. All four figures will be released as part of The Chosen One Edition in April (limited to 1000 pieces each).   We've already looked at the process of creating the turn-around sketches for All Business LeBron as described by Illustrator Chris Brunner.  This week Rocco Tartamella describes his approach to turning the sketches into a 3d sculpt for the All Business LeBron figure:

The Business Lebron was started much like the Athlete Lebron. I started with his likeness, and tried to establish the attitude right from the start, which wasn't to hard to do since the sun glasses and head tilt work pretty well. I then worked on the body  referring back to the sketch from time to time. The Biz leg, hip, and leaned back posture were key to sculpting this figure.

Working on the straight leg pants, I made them skinnier by the knees and flared  them out towards the bottom without over stylizing it. The final touch was to  bunch the pants a bit around the ankles.

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Posted by Jack @ 10:07 AM in All-Star Vinyl | Permalink  | Comments (2) |

Behind the Scenes of All-Star Vinyl: All Business LeBron Part One

Upper Deck's All-Star Vinyl designer toy line got off to a roaring start with the online only release of the All-Star edition of Athlete LeBron  which sold out in just over an hour last Wednesday.  The series is a partnership with Nike  based on their popular ad campaign “The LeBrons" and will feature a figure for each of his four personas: Athlete LeBron, All Business LeBron, Wise LeBron and Kid LeBron. All four figures will be released as part of The Chosen One Edition in April.   Previously we brought you behind-the-scenes for the development of Athlete LeBron.  Today we start our coverage of the process of bringing  All Business LeBron to 3D reality.

Today, a look at the initial sketchwork  done by Upper Deck’s lead designer on the product line, Chris Brunner.  As with Athlete LeBron, Chris worked from photographs provided by Nike from the commercial shoot to create the turnaround drawings which were then used to produce a sculpt. Chris talks about the progression from the work on Athlete LeBron to All Business LeBron:

 
 
 
 

Business Lebron was a much more straight foward process, so much of what I sweated before with the Athlete version was locked in this time around. It was as much about remaining consistent as anything else. Can't overstate the impact of seeing Rocco's sculpt beforehand, he'd nailed the style, and being able to see it for real was an education. Working from reference there's usually (hopefully) bits from several shots you combine to stay dynamic, but one of these had a perfect pose. His attitude and suit pulled in different directions though, because of the way the suit wrinkled and bunched up in places. It was  one of those many things that look fine in a photo and silly on paper. I started with just the figure lined up in the proportions of the previous design, and tried to amplify the pose as much as possible. Although the aim was a streamlined suit, I didn't think wrinkles and bagginess on the slacks could be eliminated and remain convincing, even though it turned out that way. Course getting there went through all kinds of variations, all somewhat embarassingly zoot suit-ish The exact relaxed lean and shape of the shoulders gave me a lot of sass, sometimes appeared to be shoulder pads and sometimes huge shoulders.

It's pretty obvious that suit placement is all thats going on, cause there is some real crude and ugly drawing here- all of it just searching for those shapes. No matter how many times I've learned the hard way that simple is better, it seems like cheating. In this case I was especially wary of a simple solution, as that could look nice 2D and not translate when it got handed to Rocco.  It ended up that Chris Ortega, another UD illustrator, dug out a "how to" book from the 50's that diagramed exactly where suits rest on and hang off a figure. Thank you Chris! Knowing how it worked made it easy to throw out the photo reference, find the 3 or 4 simple lines that would hold up in a sculpt, and cut all the other junk. Once the structure is solid, I just kind of go, so there's not much else to say.

Check back next week for a look at the progression of the sculpt for All Business LeBron.

Posted by Jack @ 05:53 AM in All-Star Vinyl | Permalink  | Comments (3) |

All-Star Edition of Lebron Athlete Vinyl Figure drops on 2.15.06

We've featured Upperdeck's new All-Star Vinyl line in a couple of behind-the-scenes looks at the development of the Athlete LeBron figure.   Athlete LeBron stands 12 inches tall, features articulation at the shoulders, torso, and lower legs, and also comes with interchangeable shoes.The first edition of this figure is the Red All-Star edition featuring LeBron decked out in his replica Nike Zoom LeBron III All-Star edition kicks and matching red L23 gear.   The detail on the figure's kicks are amazing and seem to mirror the actual shoe quite closey right down to the intricate graphics. 

There are only 750 pieces of this first colorway which will be sold online for $45 each at UpperDeckStore.com on Wednesday, February 15th at 9:23am PT / 12:23pm ET.  If you want this one, be sure to grab it quickly before it's gone.  In addition to Athelete LeBron, Upperdeck will be releasing the other 3 characters featured in the LeBrons commercials: All Business LeBron, Wise LeBron, and Kid LeBron. 

 
Sneak Peeks: All-Business LeBron and Athlete LeBron (black colorway)

Posted by Jack @ 04:45 AM in All-Star Vinyl , Incoming | Permalink  | Comments (2) |

Behind the Scenes Part 2: All-Star Vinyl Presents “The LeBrons”

Last week we showed you the sketchwork done by Upper Deck's in-house designer, Chris Brunner, from initial roughs to finalized turnarounds. Using the turnarounds as a starting point, Rocco Tartamella proceeded to create the master sculpt that would be used to tool the 12-inch All-Star Vinyl Athlete LeBron figure.   Rocco's an expert sculptor having done numerous projects for some major firms including McFarlane Toys, Sideshow Collectibles, and Jazware toys.  Odds are you either own or have seen one of the action figures he's sculpted ;-) 

Chris Brunner's Turnarounds

Rocco was impressed with Chris' turnarounds because they had "it" -- great attitude and a sense of fun.  His primary goal was to stay true to the drawings. He initially focused on the likeness (facial features of Chris’ drawing) since that's one of the most important parts of figure sculpting, and the rest of the sculpt plays off of the attitude established with the facial expression.

Once the face was squared away, Rocco roughed out the basic form of the figure including proportions and posture according to the concept art.  The final steps included adding the numerous details to LeBron's Nike Zoom III kicks.  The sculpting on the shoes is really impressive.  Rather than rely on paint application alone, Rocco's sculpt includes the Swoosh logo, leather paneling, and other details.  Dave Sanders, brand manager for the line at Upper Deck, mentioned that the shoes will be detachable in the final piece, allowing the ability to swap shoes from future figures.  (Maybe we’ll see a Jordan figure later in the year?)  This should also give customizers an easy way to create their own Nike colorways.

 
 
 

Rocco did an amazing job translating Chris' 2D stylized concept art into an excellent 3D sculpt.  We can't wait to see the final figure.  We should have full pics of the final production piece later this week or early next week. Since the all-star edition version of Athlete Lebron is being released on February 15^th via UpperDeckStore.com to coincide with the All-Star Game festivities in Houston, we're going to shift our coverage to the next figure in the Series – All-Business LeBron starting next week.

Posted by Jack @ 06:15 AM in All-Star Vinyl | Permalink  | Comments (5) |