One evening in 1996 while I was illustrating tea labels for a cafe in Pacific Beach, California, I was approached by a man who asked me what I was drawing. When I told him, he asked if he could look at my sketchbook. The guy was pretty pushy and I was surprised by his aggressive approach to a stranger. Still, you never know who you’ll meet so I handed it to him. He turned a few pages in my book and then motioned to someone behind him to come take a look. I turned around and saw a whole group of guys of all shapes and sizes with excited looks on their faces. Okay, this is getting strange. They looked at the book in a group, whispering to each other, then pointing at me. They all approached now, the first guy started speaking again. “Can you draw characters? People?” “Yes.” I replied. “What about combining a human with an insect?” “Yes.” “What if the human is African American?” “Yes.” So I was asked by the group to combine an African American man with a dragonfly, then we’d meet up again in a few days.
Gary’s original concept for The Status Crow urban environment.
Upon seeing my insect-man the group asked if I’d be willing to join them as the concept artist for an animated film they’d been working on. When I accepted the role and signed a non-disclosure they started sharing their ideas/sketches with me. Their project was called The Status Crow. An animated gangster film with a good heart, and the characters where half man/half bird. The artwork they had accumulated from a few different artists to this point was fairly crude and I could see why they needed a fresh approach. What really interested me was that they intended this project to be a 3D animated film. 3D animation was in its infancy in the
nineties, and the look was often pretty rough and amateurish, even from the big studios. But one guy in our group named Gary Koide was different. His work in 3D, was mind-blowing, especially for the time. Highly detailed and extremely large-scale for someone using a home PC.
So I began creating characters to help Gary with his 3D models. I created cities made from tree branches, unique and powerful weapons that a bird/man character would use like a vortex cannon. I was tasked with texture mapping 3D models, bringing them to life. This is all I did in my free time.
The Status Crow Vortex Cannon Schematic
One day in a team meeting, one of the guys said, wouldn’t it be cool if we could get Coolio to play our lead character?! At the time, Coolio was as big as they get in the music scene and, although that sounds great to have him onboard, and all. We knew there’s no way that’s happening, We were just hoping to get this idea in front of people in Hollywood who can help us bring our concept to the big screen.
Silicon Graphics ONYX Workstation
We shared some of our urban architectural 3D images on our website and started trying to get our project out to someone who could help. Gary’s 3D caught the eye of both Rhythm and Hues Studios, who earned an Academy Award for Babe in 1995, as well as Silicon Graphics, who’s ONYX workstation (a small refrigerator-sized computer) was needed to render 3D to the level we’d dreamed of taking this project. After a short introduction, Gary and another member of our group were invited to the Bay Area to meet with Silicon Graphics to discuss getting some of these computers to work on our project with.
This is where things got crazy.
The Status Crow Character Head Concept
The day before they were to leave to meet with Silicon Graphics, an anonymous person sent us a message through our website saying they knew someone who may be interested in our project and we should contact him. Anonymous said the person’s name is Artis Ivey and gave us his email address. We contacted him and told him the situation and a little bit about what we were doing and got a reply saying that we must be trying to contact his son, not him. Drumroll, please….. Coolio. Shit you not. We have an in, but we have to go through Artis Ivey Senior and guess where he lives? Right down the street from Silicon Graphics. This is starting to get really weird.
Artis was somewhat combative and cold. As you would be if someone wanted something from your famous son, but he said he’d send a brief overview of our project to Coolio and see what happens, but no promises. Weeks went by and we received notice that Coolio wants to meet with us. All of us. Now this is going from weird to exciting and weird! So we drove up to Los Angeles to meet him in some talent office on Hollywood BLVD. We waited, as you do, for a very long time in a Hollywood waiting room with a bunch of other nervous actor-types.
Then we’re called in! Exciting times!
To meet Coolio’s manager. Sad trombone.
Josefa Salinas, was her name. Mighty is an understatement. We got through Artis Senior, now we have to get through a woman with a bigger presence. One who worked in juvenile probation. One who has a hugely successful radio career. One who is an influential voice for women and latinos. One who isn’t putting up with any shit from us or anyone. She questioned the hell out of us, but she did it with that voice. Calming AND commanding. Oh, she’s good.
The Status Crow Character and Environmental Concept Art
From concept art to first texture mapped 3D model.
We spoke with her for a bit, showed her our concepts and explained what we wanted Coolio for and she had us wait back in the lobby again. So wait more, we did. Then the girl at the desk said “Coolio will see you guys now. You have to drive to Burbank,” Ha ha. This is how it goes. So we drive to Burbank and arrive at a compound of sorts. There’s a few fancy cars in the parking lot, a fence surrounding it with razor wire across the top. This is a music studio where Coolio is working. We go right in. All eight of us. And Coolio. Standing in vocal booth the size of a large closet. This isn’t intimidating or anything.
Coolio was more combative than anyone. Why are they birds? Why do they have to be crows? Who’s paying for this film? How can you guys put this together? What do you want from me? We felt his attitude toward us was that we were wasting his time. We left there completely defeated. All that excitement and divine intervention in life pointing us all right to this moment. And for what?! So I guess we can learn how to be shot down. Back to the drawing board, literally.
A highly detailed 3D work of Gary Koide as it evolved from my concept art.
A month or so later Coolio reached out to Gary and said he needed some 3D for some projects he wanted, mainly a laser disk and website project and he wanted Gary to move to Los Angeles to be nearby. Soon after, I joined him to provide the concept art from which he could model. And now working for Coolio was paying our rent. We used this time for Coolio’s project, and to further our Status Crow project. We’d show Coolio our progress on our film concept and he started to get really excited. Proud to see his likeness as the main character. He’d offer advice here and there, but pretty much let us do our thing.
Once we had Coolio on board we were able to leverage this to get meetings with the likes of Film Roman, the producers of the Simpsons, among others. Still, our project seemed too dark for anyone to take on. We continued working on our project in LA as we finished our work with Coolio. Then we worked for his producer on some 3D projects and after a few months time, things sort of fizzled out. I moved back to San Diego to continue working freelance in art and design. This is about the time my pastel work started to take off so my focus shifted and the group grew apart.
Every once in a while I wonder what this whole project was all about. I’m one of those “everything happens for a reason” people, and the way those things came together as quickly as they did, seemed like some sort of witchcraft happening. It could’ve been that Gary and his work was inspiration for me for something later to come in my life. Who knows. Until then, I have some pretty unique memories of a wild set of circumstances that led to one crazy winter in LA in 1997. Now I know when a group of random people want to see my sketchbook, I’ll hand it over without even thinking its weird this time. It may just be the one crazy LA adventure that doesn’t fizzle out.
