For punk sci-fi indie Lupe Q and the Galactic Earworms, director Javier Badillo brought me on early in the project to pull together early brainstorms for the film, including creature and character designs, key art, and a concept poster.
When teen band leader Lupe Quezada gets stuck in space, she uses her Latin heritage to kick alien butt. Together with her friends and bandmates Toro and Pachi, Lupe discovers that their terrible … ahem *signature* sound is the only thing that can save the world from an alien invasion.
A highlight of the project was developing creature designs for the slug-like, villainous Great Worm, who lives in a vat in the alien spaceship and hates punk music.
The Great Worm, while sightless, is very sensitive to certain sounds. I look that brief (perhaps a little too) literally.
At one point, the Great Worm breaks free from its tank and starts gobbling up our hero, Lupe Quezada. This would be a complex and expensive set piece for a low-budget indie film to execute, and so a great deal of work went into figuring out how to break the scene down into achievable physical gags.
I also did some design work on the massive alien spacecraft that hangs over Earth…
… and some early storyboards:
A concept short was released in early 2023 to promote the project, featuring the scene where Lupe struggles against the gaping maw of the Great Worm. The creature effects were executed by DHFX.
