Beast Legends

Beast Legends Syfy US Premiere – September 9th 10PM

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:46:02 +0000

Make sure you don’t miss the US Premiere of Beast Legends. (Syfy’s Beast Legend site is here)

The Kraken episode starts the show off, it follow the team around the world in search of the massive, multi-tentacled sea monster. See our episode guide for more information: Kraken Episode Guide

End of my Adventure

admin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 14:03:39 +0000

So the adventures are over. For now? The traveling was brutal, I’ve never spent so much time on planes as I did over the past 8 months. At times I’d forget where I was going or where I was coming from. Exhaustion was a constant feeling I had every single day. But enthusiasm and love for adventure kept us going even with minimal to no sleep. The chemistry and fun we had as a crew also made things a lot easier specially when you start missing home. It was like a really long road trip with your buds!

The things I’ve seen and experienced during the course of this show was more than some experience in a lifetime. I feel extremely lucky to have had the chance to do the things I got to do. Every trip, I literally was checking off things that would be on a bucket list. Even did things that no sane person or insane person would have on their list! As an artist I’ve traveled around the world, but not like this! I mean, who draws in a damp dark cave in Germany? Who draws on a platform in Bimini, while sharks swam underneath? Drawn in the thick Vietnamese jungle? Insane! If one word were to describe this experience… I’d cheat and use two. FREAKING AWESOME!

Original Drawings Of The Beasts

A Dragon Is Born

admin — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:56:36 +0000

Sketch Of Dragon

The dragon experienced the most changes of all the Beast’s we’ve created. It truly is our creation. We had to come up with some clever ways for our Dragon, to hunt effectively in the forest. Which changed its look quite drastically. Flight was of the utmost importance otherwise it would just be a giant lizard on the ground.

Figuring out the mechanics of a biological creature breathing fire was another hurdle we had to over come. However it was awesome to find that naturally there were things set in place that we could use make this happen! The Dragon truly is a composite animal of our creation, we had such latitude to pick and choose what we needed from different animals. It’s like a cook having access to every ingredient around the world. It was an absolute blast having this much leeway!

Francis

Feeding Time

admin — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 13:53:05 +0000

Dragon After Feeding

The primeval forest was… uncomfortable. With all the rainfall, it was wet as hell. Unprepared and ill equipped, my feet were wet and freezing cold! Anyways whining aside, it was awesome seeing some bison, even brief encounters with some wild boars! There were definitely a lot of things to eat in here for our Dragon.

The only problem is with all the trees and branches all over the place. How can this thing fly? There’s no room to flap its wings. At least not without alerting every animal in the surrounding area. But it’s not a Dragon unless it can fly, however flight may be costly in the forest, and this Dragon would starve to death. Unless it can adapt and fly in another way….

Francis

The Polish Dragon

admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:43:37 +0000

Dragon First Impressions

Poland was fantastic, I loved Krakow! I had no idea that the dragon was so infused in their culture. You could see it in a lot of the architecture especially at the Cathedral including bones hung on some big chains by the entrance. Legends say that if the bones were to fall, so would Poland. Looking at the bones though, I could see how the skull could be mistaken as a dragon skull. The shape of it was freaking perfect for a dragon. We’re on track to build this beast! However the weather had other plans.

We were in Poland as it was experiencing some extremely heavy rainfall. The water level in Krakow was freaky high, looking at the river was insane. The southern part of Poland was experiencing flooding, not too far from where we were. So as we continued on our investigation, a certain uneasiness filled our team. During a 10 hr drive from Bielystock to Krakow we drove right in the middle of a thunderstorm, and we even saw a farm on fire after being stuck by lightning! Oh did I mention that hail started to fall the size of golf balls? I was getting the feeling all signs were telling us to stop our trek.

Checking out the snakes in Krakow, was….freaky. The venom from the snakes was insanely lethal. If that didn’t kill you, the anti-venom had other plans for your body. Climbing up a lions cage…ok. Swim with the sharks with blood drenched feet. Sure. Handle a venomous snake. Hell no!!

Francis

Capturing a Condor

admin — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:08:00 +0000

Monster Bird vs. Warrior

Californiaaaaaa!!! What a trip. Driving up the mountain was long as hell, we just kept going! I believe once we were at the base, we were over 2000 ft above sea level. Along the way the dude from the Condor Sanctuary informed us of the rarity of these Condors along with the fight they had to go through to survive. I mean they were close to extinction, and sanctuaries like this are absolutely essential to keeping these amazing birds alive.

The Condors here flew freely and were not in cages. So we had to set up bait to trap some Condors if we wanted a good look at them. Dragging a stillborn calf at the dead of night while carrying a bag of dead rats isn’t exactly what I had in mind for my evening. But the cover of night was essential so that the birds don’t associate humans to food. They need to keep their wits about them to hunt and not grow reliant on us.

We were very fortunate to get in there with them and see the Condors up close. Studying their physical attributes gave us tons of ideas for what we wanted our Monster Bird to look like. Looking into the eyes of a Condor sent chills down my spine. It was blood red! The bird looked very intimidating, and freaky. The talons were crazy cool! They looked like dinosaur feet! The head was just unreal, it was wrinkly and reddish. Not at all what I think of when I think birds. Just what we needed for our Monster Bird!

Francis

Eagles Attack

admin — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 12:58:44 +0000

While in California I was extremely lucky to have gotten a chance to meet the amazing Nicky Moss! She was a super cool gal, and taught me the fine art of ‘parawaiting’. It was quite frustrating, because I wanted to get up in the air! Not sit on sand all day. We were losing hope on day two of more ‘parawaiting’ but the gods must have wanted me in the air because the wind started kicking the right direction and off we went!! I was flying tandem with a super cool dude and after a couple false starts and dirt eating we were in the air!

It was AWESOME! Although it was more chill than scary. It only got scary when I was up there long enough to start thinking about the logistics of things. There was literally just two hooks that kept me on the glider. So if those hooks unhinged.. bye, bye. While airborne Nicky started telling me about the attack she experienced in the air from a couple of eagles! It was absolutely INSANE! I don’t know how she kept her wits about her, to be able to get out of that situation. She’s like a real life action hero! Hats off to her!

Francis

Take a look at a quick comic strip I did of it to help us work out how the Monster Bird targeted it’s prey:

New Mexico Monster Bird

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:54:19 +0000

Monster Bird

New Mexico surprised me. I was prepared for the heat, the sun, and just the general dryness of the desert. I actually wasn’t looking forward to it. But I was surprised at how awesome it was! I absolutely LOVED it! Learning to ride a horse that day was a task and a half but once I got a handle on it, I just wanted to keep riding! The feeling I got riding full speed in the desert towards Ship Rock was unbelievable. I felt like freaking John Wayne!

Aside from the awesomeness of Ship Rock, talking to the native archaeologist made me realize how spiritual a place it was. To the Navaho people this wasn’t simply a rock, this place was sacred and a place to be at one with nature, and the spirits. Luckily no Monster Bird in site, because if there was we’d be dead meat. Sitting ducks. No place to hide in the barrenness of a desert. You’d have to have the skills that the Warrior Twins had along with their weapons to survive. I had neither. Good thing the skies were clear.

On the trail of the griffin

admin — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:51:14 +0000

In Germany to find out the size of our Griffin. We looked at Cave Lions, as our start. We were quite privileged to get a chance to handle the bones of a Lion. I’ve looked at books before to learn the skeletal structure, and life drawing as well to aid in my studies to becoming a better artist. But I’ve NEVER laid out a set of bones on top of paper and drawn the “muscles” around them. Surreal. Not

Sketch of the Griffin

many artists can say they’ve done that. At least no sane one can.

Going into the cave, was awesome. It was actually quite fun going through the small crevasses and rapelling, and every obstacle made it feel like I was in a real life videogame. What was even more unreal was imagining the battle that went on in there! The Lion vs. The Bear. That must have been a freaking bloodbath. Just think about it. If I stood in that very spot hundreds of years ago. I’d be dead within a few seconds. Scary stuff.

Francis

Swimming with the fishes…

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 12:01:14 +0000

Megajaws Sketches

The shark expert was an absolute riot! He really got into the thick of things and got us exactly what we needed. The contraption he made to test the senses, while it had a few missteps, worked like a charm in the end. It’s pretty amazing to see all those senses in action. I mean those senses, basically lead to something being killed and eaten!! With all those abilities I don’t know how anything can get way from that.

Jumping in the water with the sharks was completely UNPLANNED! Not only were we not prepared, Scott kept letting go of a tube that sprayed my leg with fish blood….which attracts the sharks!! What the heck was he thinking? I think he was trying to get me killed! I basically jumped in the water after seasoning my leg with extra flavor for the sharks!

Megajaws Attacks!

Luckily though they were pretty full, but they were still pretty dang curious! They got all up on our face! I couldn’t believe how close they were getting. As scary as that was, the clarity of the water was AMAZING! It was literally a whole new world down there. I felt like an astronaut, and all of the life down there, alien. I was just frozen by the beauty, and at the end didn’t want to leave! Note to self: learn to swim so I can learn to scuba.

Francis