Holy smokes! I couldn't wait for this beast of an episode to air, beautifully directed by Brian Kaufman. I never had the chance to work on a western themed episode yet so I researched plenty of westerns from John Ford movies, spaghetti westerns, and modern takes on westerns to get into the spirit. This was a massive undertaking for our crew that we somehow pulled off thanks to everyones hard work. The first image is a concept I did for Mutant Morty. The background concepts were designed by Liza Epps, and Lease Eisele. I did a rough color pass over them to experiment with the palette themes as a jumping off point in order to help launch the color team in the right direction. Lastly, I helped Brent Noll redesign the Rick Trafficker ship to give it that salvaged scrap wreckage kind of vibe along with a rough color comp. This was by far the toughest episode of the year for my team that felt like an uphill battle the whole way but our guys met the challenge head on and crushed it. This quote summed it up pretty well "Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." - John Wayne.
