The Patrick Star Show

Art Director

Screen Novelties

2021

Project Synopsis

I supervised the build of the main set and props for this spooky segment of The Patrick Star Show. My team and I had a lot of fun envisioning how to combine the nautical-themed, Spongebob-esque world with the classical Hollywood horror of the early “Frankenstein” films. The best part was that everything was painted monochrome to achieve the classic black & white look.

The Living Room Lab

The Finished Dungeon / Lab, as seen on “The Patrick Star Show”

The early foamcore mock-up of the set

BUILDING THE LAB

How does one make a giant Frankenstein-inspired lab? With lots and lots of giant blocks of foam. Pictured below, our sculptor Hiroe starts the process of cutting and sculpting these large blocks to become the walls of the Lab.

Carving the Foam

Once the foam has its basic shape, we put it back on the stage to see what else needed to get added. In some cases we had overhanging bits using expanding foam glue to stick a piece on that we couldn’t sculpt during the first phase. From here we move on to creating the stone tiles for the floor.

Finished Set

As an homage to the early Frankenstein films, we wanted to have these segments be in black and white. One of the cool things we did was incorporating the black and white aesthetic into the set itself, actually painting everything with a grayscale color pallette. I’m very proud of the way it turned out, as it really pops on screen.

Set Pieces

COUCH

It’s a central figure in so many TV shows: The Simpsons, Married with Children, All in the Family, going all the way back to I Love Lucy. The Couch must be great. I designed and built this one myself, going through a few rounds of notes and iterations with the Creative Directors to get the look just right.

An early design of the couch

Notes and revisions

Final Design

Chopping the Couch

The couch had to get chopped in half, so a duplicate had to be made. It was fun pretending to take a chainsaw to it!

OVERSIZED ARMREST

Sometimes puppets have to come in scales, which means sets need to accomodate them. In this case, Dr. Plankenstein had a different puppet that we used in Close-Ups, so the art department had to fabricate an equally larger portion of the couch for him to rest on.

Sometimes you make a foamcore mock up and it’s not very good, so you just wing it.

MACHINES

We had a lot of fun designing and creating background machines that had that old school science-fiction feel. We incorporated real knobs and mechanical pieces from old appliances and electronics to add to the haphazard nature of these machines.

That B-Movie Feel

Taking inspiration from the classic Universal Monster movies, these had to feel as if they were from a very specific era. They had to look science-fiction-y, but not like they were from the future. I worked with my builders, giving notes on various designs to help bring it into the world of Patgor.

OPERATING TABLE

Every monster needs a table to receive bolts of lightning from!

LOGS

ROOF PIECE

Props & Models

SKULL DOOR

The lab’s door and skull-shaped handle were such a fun assignment, I had to take them on myself. The door was made from planks of MDF, and the skull door handle was sculpted out of epoxy resin.