Welcome to the Dune Special Edition Project

This is a project I have been slowly working on over the last few years with the goal of ultimately replacing many of the "outdated" special effects shots in David Lynch's 1984 version of Dune.
The project initially began as an endeavor to build a "proper" ornithopter - one with flapping wings, that neither the movie or the mini-series managed to achieve. However, with the advent of the "fan-edit" the scope of the project has expanded with the goal of updating the effects in all those places in the movie where I feel things could be significantly "improved."
Although I am currently working on this by Myself, it's a large undertaking and if there is anyone interested in helping this project along, feel free to contact Me - We might actually be able to get this project completed with a few more skilled and enthusiastic people!

Regards
Sasha Burrow

If you are curious about My professional work, I have been working as a VFX artist (Among other things) at The Asylum for the past 6 years, including visual effects on all 4 Sharknado films (Mainly stuff blowing up!).
CLICK THE LINK TO SEE MY CURRENT SHOW-REEL

DUNE Special Edition: Showreel March 2010

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Spice Harvester


(Click image to see larger view)
Here is the incomplete model of the Spice Harvester I have been working on. It's based upon as many frame captures from the DVD and still images as I could locate and a couple of photos from the ever helpful Ron Miller, who had just sold his small filming model of the spice harvester on ebay. It's interesting to note that the cockpit area on the filming models is quite different between the small and hero scale models. I chose to go with the hero scale shape. Have never been able to find an adequate image that explains how the wheels attach to the body. There are three "arms" on the small models but they are not detailed.
I also noticed that the "arm" the cockpit sits along is mounted on a trackthat leads to a "well" in the main body that is not visible in most of the movie shots. It would appear that the cockpit retracts into this "well" - possibly during transport and also for the crew to enter the main body of the Harvester, so I have rigged that to animate if need be. Also have the wheels rigged so that when the body moves the wheels all rotate at the correct speed.

1 comment:

  1. Love the work you're doing, I've always been a big fan of David Lynch's Dune, especially the design. There are a few interesting photos on the website of Danielle Verse, one of the Dune modelmakers, of a Spice Harvester miniature under construction:
    http://www.danielleverse.com/gallerymd.html

    There are also some interesting screengrabs from some kind of behind-the-scenes video taken by Adam K Johnson here:
    http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=22518

    It looks like there are three arms connecting each wheel to the chassis of the Harvester; the connecting points on the chassis seem to be ball-joints arranged in an upside-down flattened triangle configuration, that is with the point at the bottom rather than the top.

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