Retro Robot poster art; the Future That Never Was

As always with these, I rendered the original image in 3D Studio Max and then retouched and modified it in Adobe Photoshop. This was an unusually difficult image to render for reasons you don't really care about, involving lots of memory, unstable displacement maps, and four computers. Just pretend you're listening, at this point; I won't notice. But it all worked out in the end.

The print is an on-demand reproduction of my digital painting. Its resolution is 300 DPI at a full size of 18 by 24 inches. If you ask me, I think you probably ought to have one.

We guys tend to hunch over things and grunt at each other. It's wired in; once upon a time it might have been "Check out sophisticated flaking technique on stone axe of Gronk!"

Lately it's been guys bending over engine compartments and nodding to each other, pretending that an automobile engine is still something you can understand by looking at it.

It's a bonding thing.

Someday, in the Future That Never Was, it'll be exactly the same.
That's why we see Rusty the Robot failing to find the right instructions in his Ray-O-Zap Broadcast Tower Manual, while Henry looks sagely over his shoulder, and everyone is wondering why it doesn't work, and nobody really minds.

I blame the manual. It claims the proud owner will be "Broadcasting in Twenty Seven Minutes!" which sounds a bit dodgy to me, and I bet they said that just to make the Proud Owner figure it's somehow his fault. As always, there is no customer service number, and this is all happening late on a Friday.

This picture's title is taken from a great old tune performed by Henry Hall & the BBC Dance Orchestra in 1934, which was one of the best years we've had for dreaming about the future. In fact our nearest spaceman in this picture is named after Henry Hall. Which just goes to show, uh, something. I'll figure that out in a minute.

The art displayed on these pages, and available on these products, is the work of one pretty ordinary sort of person.
Please respect my right to eke out a fraction of a living from the sale and use of the work I've created here, by respecting my copyright.
I really like doing this, and I hope that you like the work, too. Use of this web site has been deemed safe under normal conditions. Please use only as directed. Not intended for internal use. Keep hands and feet inside of web site at all times. Don't look. There's someone behind you. Big Pete arrives on the scene, lures the spies outside with accordion music, then guns them down.