British Invasion + 50 Years

     The British Invasion began over 50 years ago with the Beatles taking over the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 and sweeping the United States. Shortly after came British icons The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and dozens more. The Beatles are arguably the most iconic of these groups and the pioneers of the British Invasion.

     In paying homage to the British kings of the 60's, I underwent a project to design their instruments and recreate their designated Museum in Liverpool, England. This is not going to be a short project, but rather take what could be an annoyingly long time. I am up to the challenge, though, as I began the project with what I knew best: Ringo Starr's classic Ed Sullivan drum set.

     I started with the 4 piece set because I designed a drum set last year and knew my way around it in thanks with the critiques I received from judges at the eMagine media festival last year (right). As you can see, it's not too bad upon initial inspection. However, it needed a lot of work regarding details: a lot of it was out of proportion, the drum cylinders aren't very cylindrical, etc. I used these main critiques from the judges to improve my set this year (below). I began with the bass drum, moved on to the hi-tom, low-tom, snare, and all 3 cymbals. All in all, it took about a month from start to finish, roughly as long as it took me to build the first one. I shortened my time because I knew the project already and I knew my way around it and could do it more quickly. I lost that time back by going for detail and perfection.

I gave myself a few minutes to relax before moving on to the second most iconic Beatles instrument: Paul McCartney's "Violin Bass": the Hofner. Designing the stringed instruments will definitely be harder and take more time than the drums because there's more complexity to them and more details I have to pay attention to as well as the fact that I have yet to animate a single one prior to beginning this project. My goal for the Hofner is to have it done by December 1st. After that, I'll jump right into the design of John Lennon's Rickenbacker style guitar and I want to have it completed by February 1st and then I can finish it all out with George Harrison's signature Gretsch Duo Jet Guitar by March and hopefully have built the room and other little pieces of memorabilia into it by then and have only the camera work left to submit to the eMagine media festival a month later. However, this time line should be skewed because once I design one of the guitars, the other two should come quicker with practice. Once completed, this will quite likely be my proudest work as an animator and I cannot wait to showcase it to the world.