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Above: Gary at the drawing table, as he teaches you the skills to draw a complete city accurately for commercial illustrations or even architectural designs.

Aviation Art.

Meyers love for aviation led him to join the Marines after high school. He served in Korea during the Korean War as an aviation electronics technician assigned to the First Marine Air Wing and made many drawings of military aircraft.

His ability to create highly realistic imagery of aircraft and actual combat scenes during the Vietnam war, gave him the opportunity to work with all major aircraft companies. Starting out working for North American Aviation as an illustrator for the Apollo program, he was involved with the first Moon landing and created a series of 40 illustrations that were photographically edited into a film, depicting one of the planned lunar missions.

Below: On May 10, 1972, the US Navy and Airforce bombed the Paul Doumer bridge across the Red River in Hanoi, North Vietnam. Meyers painting depicts two F-4D Phantoms using new laser-guided bombs (LGBs) in the operation called Linebacker.




Meyer became famous for painting aerial views of buildings and cityscapes, beginning with his award-winning album cover illustration for Chicago 13 in 1979 (the thirteenth album of the band Chicago). Meyer says his aerial views are, in a sense, simply aviation art, except that the viewer is in the aircraft.




As Gary has done so much work for so many clients, chances are youve across some of his artwork without even knowing it. From left to right: iconic artwork for Jaws 3 (1983), sci-fi vehicles in Battle Beyond the stars (1980), the Roger Corman remake of Akira Kurosawas famous Seven Samurai, which featured special effects direction by James Cameron. Meyers ability to render highly realistic aircombat lend itself perfectly for George Roy Hills The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) poster artwork (with Robert Redford).

The Gnomon Workshop.

• Gnomon puts Star Wars designer in the hot seat!
• Gnomon: The Art of Sex appeal with Joe Benitez.

Hey all, been a while, but you know what its like...busy, busy, busy!
Just wanted to let you know that Crystal Dynamics has published the first shots from their new Tomb Raider game for PS3 and Xbox360, and its a whole new Lara yet again!

One of the first generation Xbox360 games, Crystal DynamicsTomb Raider Legend turned the whole franchise upside down with a fresh new attitude and a completely new vision in april 2006.
After a revisit to Laras first adventure with Tomb Raider Anniversary in June 2007, Eidos and Crystal Dynamics envisioned another look for their lead character for their 2008 release of Tomb Raider Underworld. This look was even further enhanced for their download-only release of last years Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

Crystal Dynamics is now busy creating their latest adventure with Lara, which will be released in 2011. Check here for the great cover they put together for the January issue of US magazine Game Informer, featuring some awesome 3D work done by their pals in Japan based on the work by lead designer Branoch Adams.

Theres a great video with Karl Stewart showing the creation of the cover and the artwork, check that out here (hit the link and scroll down). Alternatively, if you want the new Lara on your desktop, check out here for some awesome wallpapers the guys at GI put in their hub!







Laras new look also means a new lead cast for the upcoming third Tomb Raider movie. In 2001 Angelina Jolie played the main character and respied her role in the 2003 sequel The Cradle of life(Directed by Dutch director Jan de Bont).

The Game franchise was initially started by the British game studio Core Design, who created six games before with Eidos before Crystal Dynamics took over, starting in 1996 with the first Sega Saturn/Playstation title created by Toby Gard and Paul Douglas. Gard is now working as a computer game consultant at Focal Point Games. In 1997 Michael Silvestris Top Cow took the franchise into comics and has since succesfully published the Tomb Raider comics line with artists like Andy Park and writer Dan Jurgens.

This week, the Dutch Donald Duck magazine finally featured Somewhere beyond Nowhere, the last twelve page comic plotted by none other then Carl Barks himself in 1996!
The story was originally called Somewhere in Nowhere, with a script by John Lustig and art/inks done by Pat Block. Intended as a ten-pager it was turned into a longer story (two times 14 pages, so 28 in total) which was first published in Italian in November 2000. Artwork for this reworked version (with a slightly different title) was of course done by Dutch Disney artist Daan Jippes (left), based on a new script by Lustig, which keeps closer to Barks original outline.

This is the first time ever this story features in the Dutch DD Weekly magazine, the original version was only published in the so-called Winterbook in 2002, a special compilation of stories and little puzzles, published yearly during the holiday season in The Netherlands and Belgium since 1980.
Jippes has already recreated many of the later Duck stories Barks wrote, as hes really the only one whos perfected his way of drawing to emulate Barks own comic style.

The Jippes Version (2008).

Jippes version, created in 2008 for Danish publisher Egmont was first published in Finland (Aku Ankka 11) in March last year, followed by Denmark (Anders And & Co. 15) and Sweden (Kalle Anka & Co. 15) in April. (Swedish translation was done by Reine Mårtensson, Danish version by Thomas Harder and the Dutch version by Jos Beekman.) The story was published in the USA last february by Boom Kids in Donald Duck issue 363!

Check out this weeks great cover:


Barks final Duck Story.

The original story for Somewhere in Nowhere was plotted by Barks in 1996 on his way to Orlando, Florida. (Barks was at the age of 95 then!)  John Lustig was hired as a freelancer by the Carl Barks Studio to write up the script, while Pat Block created the artwork, which he finished in April 1997.



Carl Barks (left) and John Lustig (middle) with Pat Block (right) in 1997 at Barks birthday celebration at Disney World. Block shows his finished artwork for Somewhere in Nowhere.
According to Block, Daan Jippes was already involved back then. Bill Grandey, Barks manager had first asked Jippes to do the artwork and layout as well as flesh out the story, which grew from an initial tenpager into a more voluminous story, but he never got to make the final artwork. Having other commitments (apparently working on Disneys Tarzan feature animation) Block was called in to do the job, which he gladly took upon him.

Although the story was finished in 1997, It wasnt published until Disney Italia aquired it and published it in a numbered, limited hardcover book in November 2000 (after Barks had passed away on August 25 at the age of nearly 100 years).

Beneath: cover of the orginal 28 page version, as published in the US in 2005 (Gemstones Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge no.1). It features original concept art by Barks with final artwork done by Pat Block with colors by Gemstones assistant editor Sue Kolberg:


Carl Barks original plot for the story, as set up by himself back then:

Heres the original concept art sketch for the US cover from the master himself, and some preliminary artwork for page 13B (by Block) with notes. Underneath that the resulting colored page: