The p8tch project has been taking off, with mentions from BoingBoing, Notcot, and Gizmodo. I’ve been working quickly to fulfill the orders (here’s what 75 yards of Velcro looks like, in case you were wondering.)

The site is up, but it’s really basic, and very stark black-and-white. Which is great (one commenter said that it has a good Dharma Initiative look), but I really want a shot of vibrant color and hand-drawn lines to contrast. So I commissioned the awesome Michele Melcher to do a “hero” illustration of the
Commando Nerd. I gave her the three most powerful COMMANDO NERD ingredients that I could think of:

1. The Ghostbusters,
2. Badical Nintendo Power-Glove Guy, and
3. John Young, Australian adventurer and badass wildlife consultant

As you can see in the following first-round sketch at right, John Young, Australian Wildlife Cinematographer, is deploying enormous amounts of influence. I mean, how could he not? Have you SEEN the mutton chops in his photo?

Personally, I absolutely LOVE this guy, because he looks like a combination of 60s cigarette ad, Harry Flashman, and my own junior-high fantasies of what grown-up life was going to be like. Just check out the POCKET he has on his zip-up paratrooper boots:

His soft bucket hat probably tips him from “Commando badass” over into “Fishing trip”, and he definitely is more commando than nerd right now. So I stopped by Dudas Diving Duds and asked Mike Dudas if he had any Commando Nerd gear sitting around that I could use for inspiration. Boy, did he ever come through. CHeck out the thumbnails: waterproof, hand-mounted ALIENS-style LED lights! Powder-coated camera enclosures! Bomb-shaped underwater scooters!

     

So anyhow, what do YOU think the primary ingredients of a Commando Nerd are? I was thinking about giving him a pair of binoculars with, you know, an ANTENNA mounted on them, all Hoth-style. Will Ronco says he needs a whip, a lasso, or a coil of rope.

What do you say, O Internet? More mutton chops (towards Badass Seventies Adventurer), or less chop (towards Badass Cigarette Ad Adventurer?) Cleaner hair? Birth-control glasses?