In Retropolis (which is to say, in the Future we really should have had) people are pretty much like you and me. Well, like me, anyhow; I don’t know you, so anything goes there, I guess. But I’ll assume you were born with the usual number of arms, legs, eyes, noses, and tentacles. Okay?
So like you, and like me, Retropolitans keep their ideas in a safe place: a place where anyone, at any time, can go search out those ideas, that knowledge, or those ripping yarns that have entertained us, and experience those things for themselves. It’s an archive - a literal archive - where our accumulated knowledge and stories are kept securely in a form that can be read without electricity or networks or DRM servers. A place where knowledge is free, and where it’s for everyone.
This makes so much sense that I just have to pat us all on the back. That’ll take me awhile, so before I go I want to point out that a Public Library is a kind of investment we make in the future, where knowledge is stored so that we’ll still have it when we need it; where people stand ready to help you find the most reliable version of that knowledge, rather than the version with the most keywords; and where that knowledge will still be free, and still be readable, regardless of what else happens.
|| $48.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/31962109When we think about the Future That Never Was, the first thing that comes to mind is usually transportation: jet packs, flying cars, towering monorails, and rocket ships.
But that Future, like ours, is filled with people; and it’s the ideas and the hopes and the dreams of those people that actually make their world go. Just like ours. So where do they top up the tanks of their minds? At the Public Library. The same way we do.
Because at the Public Library you’ll find a vast hoard of knowledge that’s been carefully stored away in a form that doesn’t require electricity or network connections; you can read all about quantum physics, hydroponic gardening, or even the adventures of Buck Rogers... even if you have to read by candlelight. Because of, you know, the nuclear devastation outdoors, or the hordes of shambling zombies. Whatever.
The point is this: the Public Library is an investment that we make in civilization. You could call it an insurance policy, if you like that better. But in any case,and in any Future - including the one we’re living in - the Public Library is a filling station for the mind.
|| $48.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/31962028New, Improved SCIENCE: Now, with Death Rays!
Because you just can’t slow down the tide of progress, can you? ... especially when you’re dodging those little yellow bolts of light. Sign up now for your continuation course in sub-atomic destruction!
With advanced logical reasoning and controlled, repeatable experimentation (patent pending) you’ll be amazed by what can be achieved with New, Improved SCIENCE! Those dreary household chores won’t be a problem around your house - oh, no! - because with New, Improved SCIENCE you can just take aim with your trusty Death Ray and blast those stubborn stains right out of the three dimensional universe, and into....
Well, okay. We’re still a little fuzzy on that score. But you can be sure you won’t be seeing them in any laundry basket in this cosmos, anyhow! Try New, Improved SCIENCE... today!
|| $29.94 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/27080798/Science: Giant Robots are Just the Beginning!
Every mad scientist must begin somewhere: so what do we suggest? Giant Robots! Yes! With the latest, newly improved SCIENCE you can assemble your own towering automaton in mere hours, and then watch it take its first lumbering, fire-belching steps out and about... into history!
That’s what makes scientific inquiry so very exciting - because as amazing as it seems, that’s just the first project you’ll undertake in Immense Automatons 101!
Join us at the Retropolis Academy for the Unusually Inventive for your advanced or continuing education course in SCIENCE. Before you know it, you’ll be guiding the adorable, city-smashing first steps of your very own Giant Robot... and looking forward to even more earth-shattering experiments in the finest traditions of the Experimental Research District!
|| $29.94 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/27080913/Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do we. Even if it turns out to be in between our ears. It’s not so very complicated, is it? You’ve been given a remarkable organic calculating machine, adept at pattern recognition and inference, conveniently located on top of your neck. Right there, with the gooey bits. If you don’t actually use it... someone else is likely to.
It is a sad fact of history, and of some other, less reputable disciplines, that when we don’t give our brains a bit of excercise they’re likely to start listening to ideas that aren’t rooted in rationality. Don’t let this happen to you! Just a thought or two a day may make ALL the difference!
Of course, if you’re REALLY not going to use that brain of yours, several of my colleagues have expressed an interest. Step right up to the vivisectorium!
|| $29.94 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/27081071/This is the first illustration from my serialized story The Lair of the Clockwork Book, at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
It’s an establishing shot - just so we know where we are, which is in the Retropolis of the Future That Never Was. I think the reader ought to see right off the bat that we’re in that world where airships are everywhere, where cars (or rockets) fly, and where robots crowd the aerial walkways alongside the people of Retropolis. Because in a moment the reader’s going to go under those gleaming streets to discover something a little older, a little less reputable, and a little more threatening: the Lair of the Clockwork Book.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/17505408/Far below the streets of Retropolis, down a shaft and through a hatch, it’s possible to find the Clockwork Book. Surprisingly few people do. Chances are, there’s a reason for that.
But those who do visit the Book in its lair have a splendid opportunity. The Book collects stories: all kinds of stories. If something’s been done, or imagined, or planned, or cancelled... well, the Book probably knows all about it. The Book will offer that knowledge to you. All you need to do, the Book will explain, is to trade a story of your own for the one you’re after. Harmless, right?
Well, sometimes. And sometimes not. Because what you have to remember is that the Book will repeat your story to anyone who asks for it. No exceptions. No returns. And this is where things can get complicated, in an oddly topical way.
It’s always a good idea to read the Terms of Service.
"The Lair of the Clockwork Book" is an illustrated, serialized story that will update at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual each Monday and Thursday until it’s over. That should be sometime in April of 2012.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/17372057/In this illustration from "The Lair of the Clockwork Book" we see the Book itself, together with its assistant, in one of those quiet moments between clients when the Book and Tallie are free to make endless pots of tea and review the stories that are the Book’s reason for being. The Book exists to collect these stories: Tallie, on the other hand, thinks that it’s all about times like this. And tea. And, apparently, hats.
"The Lair of the Clockwork Book" is an illustrated, serialized story that will update at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual each Monday and Thursday until it’s over. That should be sometime in April of 2012.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/17448630/The Clockwork Book of Retropolis sits in its lair below the city and contains answers. It accumulates stories. This is its only function. (Apart from Making More Book, you suggest: but these two are actually the same thing.)
Its huge graven face looms over the stainless steel sheets that are its pages and when it’s not otherwise occupied, which is most of the time, it reads. From time to time it adds a footnote or a cross-reference. But mostly, it reads. And it waits.
From The Lair of the Clockwork Book at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/17505722/This is one of the illustrations for my online serial "The Lair of the Clockwork Book", at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Here we see the inventor Osgood Finnegan quite late in his career. He’s standing in the middle of what he calls his Great Work, and it’s safe to say that the Great Work involves a lot of computation - because the room’s full to brimming with difference engines, along with plenty of other mechanical devices whose purpose is even less obvious.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/21704362/This is one of the illustrations for my online serial "The Lair of the Clockwork Book", at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Osgood Finnegan wouldn’t be much of a steampunk era inventor if he didn’t have his own airship; happily, as we see, he’s got one.
Finnegan’s stories-within-a-story take place in an earlier age than I most often find myself in; normally my Retropolis is chock-full of rockets and robots from an entirely different future that never was. Old Osgood, though, was one of the people who built that future, and so here we’re getting a glimpse of the world as he and others were reinventing it.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/21704693/Whatever you’ve been up to in the Future that Never Was, you’re likely to end your day, as so many do, at the Astro Diner - it’s open all night!
The coffee’s always strong and hot; the motor oil, viscous and clean; and the service is always....
Well, we don’t really talk about the service much. If Mabel seats you at an actual table, bub, believe me - you’re ahead of the game.
From The Lair of the Clockwork Book at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/20279081/Here’s the final version of one of my illustrations for "Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves": the first of my illustrated, interactive stories at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Zeno, who we meet in this illustration, is a specialist. Well. in fact, he’s a henchman. But a highly specialized henchman.
Zeno is a gentle soul. He’s only interested in the machines he tends - and he knows them very well, and enjoys their company. There’s no real harm in Zeno - but unfortunately his single-mindedness may prevent him from really understanding what despicable evil may lurk around him in the Tower of Doctor Rognvald.
On the plus side, of course, there’s a profit sharing plan.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/11857748/This is a much higher resolution version of the 107th illustration for my ongoing serial The Lair of the Clockwork Book, which should complete its run at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual sometime in April, 2012.
Things have turned pretty frenetic at this point in the story, which by now includes space pirates, the Space Patrol, a parade, and - as we see here - at least two unfriendly tentacles that have burst out of a laboratory in the Experimental Research District. The accent there is on "Mental".
From the story:
The Experimental Research District represents one successful approach to innovation.
If you take every wild-eyed scientist with a lab full of explosively inventive progress and then shove them into the same small neighborhood, it was argued, they would tend only to hurt themselves, each other, and their assistants. There would always be civilian casualties, of course: but it was so much easier to keep those to a minimum if the threats were all crowded together. The apparent danger of one immense, coordinated incident was considered small because the occupants of the District tended toward self regulation of the kind that starts with ’Fenwick’s project may be more remarkable than mine!’ and ends with ’Good old Fenwick. When shall we see his like again?’
The Air Safety Association has a special squad trained to deal with the District. That training, although Bonnie did not know it, was concentrated in a very large, top secret manual entitled "Things We Have Run From, and How To Run From Them". So the Myrmidon’s advice had been good: the authorities try just as hard as anybody else to keep their business out of the District. But Bonnie had no intention of going where the Clockwork Book so clearly wanted her to go.
This had, of course, been planned for.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/24396647/Here’s the final version of one of my illustrations for "Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves": the first of my illustrated, interactive stories at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Nat and Gwen are approaching the Tower of Doctor Rognvald in Nat’s Auburn racer. The Tower is a Precariously Situated Research and Development Installation, Second Class, Type C - which I think is obvious from its picture. Type C installations are always found in dangerous locations but they’re not licensed for defensive (or offensive) machinery. Doctor Rognvald is a cheater.
But that’s not clear yet, of course, so our heroes feel pretty comfortable about landing their rocket at what they think is a safe distance.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/11857889/Here’s the final version of one of my illustrations for "Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves": the first of my illustrated, interactive stories at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Deep below the Brain Thieves’ tower our heroes skulk in the shadows, trying to avoid Doctor Rognvald’s henchman, Zeno. You know he’s Zeno, because he’s wearing a name tag. All around are the pounding pistons and whirling dials of Zeno’s well-tended machines. It’s hard to tell what they all do, exactly, except that they definitely keep him busy.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/11858111/Here’s the final version of one of my illustrations for "Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves": the first of my illustrated, interactive stories at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Nat Gonella is nobody’s fool. He knows that nine times out of ten, when you finally break down and pull out your disintegrator pistol, things actually get worse.
It’s just that you sometimes find yourself in one of those situations that don’t leave you one heck of a lot of other options.
Like this situation, for example: you break into the mad scientist’s tower, worm your way through his twisty passages, find out that he really is the Brain Thief you’ve been chasing, and you manage to get the drop on him.
At which point, something goes horribly wrong.
So I don’t care if you’re Mahatma Gandhi, fella - there’s a reason you’ve been packing that ray gun around all this time. Right?
Yeah. I thought so.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/11858189/Here’s the final version of one of my illustrations for "Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves": the first of my illustrated, interactive stories at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Doctor Rognvald has just the sort of workspace I’d like. It’s a little dim, maybe, but it’s filled with alembics, retorts, strange mechanisms, eerily glowing dials and gauges, and an espresso machine. The doctor, mad or not, has some of his priorities in order.
And this is one of the best views we get of that space in Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves. It’s a wide format view of quite a lot of those interesting things. Not all of them, of course: you’re standing in front of the Interociter.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/11858007/Here’s the final version of one of my illustrations for "Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves": the first of my illustrated, interactive stories at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Gwen Hopkins is taking off over Retropolis on what she thinks is an innocent errand: her uncle, Cornelius Zappencackler, has asked her to deliver a highly customized toaster to Doctor Rognvald in Iceland.
Gwen’s actually happy that Uncle Cornelius isn’t working on anything that’s likely to crack the world wide open or extinguish the Sun. Gwen would be a lot less happy if she knew what Doctor Rognvald was planning to do with this device.
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/11857453/Here’s the final version of one of my illustrations for "Trapped in the Tower of the Brain Thieves": the first of my illustrated, interactive stories at Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual.
Nat Gonella and Gwen Hopkins have had quite a day - and just when they decide to call in the Space Patrol to help them out, they find out that Patrolman Noble has other things on his mind. Where are those guys when you need them, anyway?
This version of the illustration is based on the one at the web site, and in the book, but has been re-rendered and overpainted in a much higher resolution even than the book’s version: 300 pixels to the inch, at 18 by 24 inches.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/11857364/"Retropolis" is the name I’ve given to my Future That Never Was, and now it’s also the name of this wild, movie poster-style montage of the places and people that fill that world. It pulls together a lot of elements I had been working with over the past year - in fact, I think I started the city itself about three and a half years before I created this image - into one big joyful conglomeration of retro-futuristic enthusiasm. I’m pretty crazy about it, as maybe you can tell.
This is a city so big it has weather. Like in weather patterns. Don’t mistake the fog and clouds for pollution, since that’s not a problem here; the City Of The Future used to always be about transportation of a sleek, modern and desirable kind. This is no exception, with its thundering monorail and its high-flying, lighter-than-air airships - but it’s not all public transportation either, since we were promised flying cars. Here we finally have them in the form of open cockpit roadster rockets that burst right out of the heart of the picture.
Arranged around the central image of the city are several of the folks you might meet there. For no reason I can explain, I’ve named the male characters after British band leaders of the 20’s and 30’s. We’ve got Nat Gonella, Henry Hall, and Lew Stone, and in her own vein there’s their friend Aelectro Monica, along with Rusty, the original Faithful Robot Companion.
For those of us on my side of the water there’s a nod to the Gershwins, too, and there’s at least one subtle reference to someone who - to the best of my knowledge - never was a musician. You’ll have to find him for yourselves.
As always in these images I’ve combined elements of 3D rendering with 2D painted work, done afterwards in Photoshop. I sort of pulled out all the stops on this one - due to the demands of my Day Job I don’t get nearly enough time during the year to do these, and I think I had a lot of something or other bottled up that just plain had to get out. It looks to me like most of it managed to.
The print is an on-demand reproduction of my digital painting. Its resolution is 318 DPI at a full size of 20 by 30 inches. If you ask me, I think you probably ought to have one.
|| $48.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/94482/"Jeepers Creepers " is, like my other Retropolitan images, set in the world of the future the way it used to be. Figure it’s the sort of wide-open, adventurous day-after-tomorrow that you would have been expecting if you were reading a little more Buck Rogers than geometry back in about 1939.
This is one of those images that really feels like it’s an illustration of a story, but I have to admit that I’m not entirely sure what this story is. You’re welcome to provide your own.
The way I see it, our heroes - or at least Rusty the Robot - have been here before. "Here", I think, is another planet, or maybe one of our planets’ moons. Whenever and wherever that was, Rusty made a big impression on the locals, without ever knowing that they were there, and his visit has been incorporated into their mythology.
Who knows exactly what they think he is or what he was doing there? But they seem to have decided that he’s a pretty important character, and here we see a shrine they’ve built to him. Now that he’s come back and found it, I’m afraid that he’s a little embarrassed about the whole thing, and he’s going to have some trouble explaining it to his friends.
And as for the locals, they seem to have taken to the Cargo Cult (or "Field of Dreams") approach: "if we build it, they will come". And it does seem to have worked out that way.
Like my other prints, this is mainly a 3D rendered scene with a liberal amount of retouching done in Photoshop. It’s entirely digital, start to finish, at a resolution of 300 DPI.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/119394/This is a 16 by 20" print of one of my 3D-rendered computer graphic images. The gas station in the picture is based on an actual gas station design from the 1930’s, and you could say that the future shown here dates from that decade, too.
This is probably the last gas station between Tycho and Phobos, on the Route 66 of the Future That Never Was - the sort of future that Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon lived in, full of personal rocket ships, lighter-than-air metals, rocket packs, ray guns and friendly, helpful robotic gas station attendants.
The original image measures 6000 by 4800 pixels and is reproduced at 300 DPI. The print includes a solid color "matte" so that it can be framed as is or could be matted to the full 16 x 20" or any other size you’d like.
|| $38.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/94459/Retropolis offers a wide variety of accommodations to the tourist or traveler: from five star suites in the floating Galacticon hotel, through the more utilitarian, blastproof rooms made available to the conventioneers of The Society of Demented Research Technicians - and finally, to these modern and streamlined sleeping tubes at hotels like downtown’s "Tubular Belle’s".
Sleek and affordable, these tubes bathe the sleeper in a sonic shower that cleans both sleeper and clothing. Visitors awake refreshed and ready for a new tomorrow - helped along by the hot, strong coffee that tops off the hotel’s complimentary breakfast.
Though I’d never spent a lot of time thinking about Women In Tubes - and really, I haven’t, at least not since the seventies - once I did think about them, I realized that they’re all over the covers of pulp science fiction magazines from the Golden Age of, well, pulp science fiction magazines.
And I started to feel like less of a man because I’d never put women in tubes into my own pictures. I mean, obviously, it’s fundamental, right?
But it’s not enough to just stick a women in a tube. Not even if it were still the seventies. What the heck are they doing in there? How did they get into a tube, in the first place? How do they get out? And, as always, who stands to benefit from keeping all these women in tubes?
So I’ve tried to answer these questions, and in the act I made the tubes coeducational. Because that’s how I roll.
The title’s from a song of 1933, by Olive Levine & Beany Miller. Because that’s also how I roll.
|| $48.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/7321720/This began its life as a magazine illustration; but after the magazine was published I went back, made some changes, and re-rendered it at a much higher resolution for use as a print. As always with these images I did considerable overpainting in Photoshop once the rendering was done, and it combines several (um, maybe three) rendered layers that are composited together.
It looks as though we won’t be immune to the common cold even in the world of yesterday’s tomorrows; but our friend Aelectro Monica will probably be just fine in a couple of days, thanks to the sage advice of Rusty and the note-taking doctor.
|| $38.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/94480/Sailing the Seven Skies is a panoramic 3D rendering of a seascape in the Future That Never Was - where five adventurous rocket pilots have set out for who-knows-where, and are well on their way there as they come upon a rocky island and its mysterious, art deco complex - served by the ever-reliable monorail of the Retropolis Transit Authority. We must not quite have left civilization yet, if that’s still possible.
The rockets, as always, are my favorite open cockpit retro rocket roadsters - a mixture of some of my older ones and a couple that I’ve just modelled recently.
The buildings are also a mixture of old and new; I nearly regret not using a maritime version of Potsdam’s Einstein Tower - and I’m sure I’ll do that one, one day - but the dome seemed to be much more what the island needed. You’ve got to pay attention to what these things are telling you as you work on them. The island grew out of some landscape modelling experiments I was doing last year, which continue to bear fruit. Neat stuff.
The title is a phrase from Wings Over the Navy (1938), by Harry Warren and Johnny Mercer. The version I listen to is Lew Stone’s British recording from the early days of WWII - and I think the British version’s lyrics were retooled by Charles Dunn. But what may be the best line is common to both versions: We’re high-sky riding aeronautical guys. I mean, beat that.
The print is an on-demand, open edition reproduction of my digital painting. Its resolution is 300 DPI at a full size of 30 by 20 inches. There’s a border on the sides all around the image area. You can frame the print as is or matte it, if you like, to a different shape.
|| $48.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/285979/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 way. 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.
As always with these, I rendered the original image in 3D Studio Max and then retouched and modified it in Adobe Photoshop.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/248192/One thing’s certain on any frontier - whether it’s in Wyoming, or on an unnamed moon somewhere near Cygnus - and that certainty is that it’s best to be polite when dropping by.
Just imagine the mortification of these spacemen who - and really, this was probably innocent - have set down their retro rocket on the surface of what seemed to be an uninhabited moon. Oops!
"Prairie Moon" is an 18 by 24" archival print (a poster’s also available) and that’s also the name of a song from the 1930’s that was pivotal in Dennis Potter’s wonderful "Pennies From Heaven". The picture itself is a purely digital image which I created with 3DS Max and Photoshop.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/6396984/This scene - a sort of car show of the Future That Never Was - showcases one of the rockets I modeled for my Empire State Patrol project. Here I changed its color and dropped it into a scene straight out of my retro-future world of Retropolis.
The original, print-resolution image (18 by 24 inches at 300 DPI) mixes some older and newer characters together, and its title - “If I Only Had Wings, I’d Fly” - marks the second time I’ve named a picture with a quote from Nat Gonella’s “It’s a Pair of Wings for Me”, which still swings after about 66 years. Love that song - and in fact, though I’ve never known how many people noticed, almost all my Retropolis pictures use titles or quotes from popular music of the twenties through the forties. If you figure out why, you can explain that to me.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/1566828/Here’s a new large image from my world of Retropolis: it’s called "The Clouds Will Soon Roll By", after a song from 1932 (Woods, Dixon/Lawrence). Because that’s just the sort of future it is.
I spent about six weeks on the picture. It started as a rough little animatic that used my pre-existing monorail and city models. I did this as part of a pitch I was hired to work on, for a series of station IDs meant for a renamed and relaunched satellite channel. Unlike 99% of the pitches I’ve ever worked on (or heard of) this one was greenlit. Amazing! A week later, the network decided they didn’t want to rebrand the channel after all. Typical!
This scene never even appeared in the final pitch, but I’d gotten sort of interested in it and I kept working away, thinking it’d turn into a print at about 18 x 24". It started working so well that I decided to make it even bigger, which meant that I had to up the resolution on almost all its elements, and so like I said I ended up working on it for about six weeks.
There are 21 characters in this final version. We see a group debarking from the monorail - and at least one passenger about to board - while up above, a construction crew is overseeing a couple of "Big Lug" robots, and in the foreground, we’ve got a pleasant evening party getting started on an art deco balcony. Retropolis itself fades off into the distance and we see that what we always suspected about this sort of City of the Future is true - it’s a terrific playground for the birds.
This picture’s proved to be a sort of watershed for me. First off, it’s the first picture I’ve done on my newly built latest computer and I was happy to have so much more memory, and faster processing, than I had before. But also it’s a sort of break from a lot of the work that I’ve been doing on a very large project. No matter how hard I work on that one I never seem to be any closer to a finished piece of work, and when I go for a very long time without making a finished piece I like I start to get grumpy. So having finished this, I am a considerably less grumpy artist.
The print is a print-on-demand reproduction of my digital painting. Its resolution is 300 DPI at a full size of 30 by 20 inches. There’s a narrow border on the sides all around the image area. You can frame the print as is or matte it, if you like, to a different shape.
|| $48.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/2810229/The Astro Cafe is the preferred late night diner of the retro future. If you wander on in at three in the morning you just never know who you’ll run into, or how they’ll feel about your running into them; but mainly the Astro has a relaxed atmosphere and a tempting menu for both people and mechanical people.
Mabel, the robot waitress, has been there for as long as anyone can remember and she’s pretty hard to impress. Mostly, folks don’t even try. But she serves a good strong cup of coffee - which is important - and she’s not outright abusive. Mostly.
There’s something sort of comforting about knowing that she’s there, wherever you are, yourself.
The Astro cafe scene is one I worked on for quite a while back in 2004 (in the days of the Day Job, when hours were few) and to my surprise it only took me a week to finish it up and get it ready for prime time, as it were. As usual, this is all 3DS Max and Photoshop.
Oddly (or not) I once lived just around the corner from a coffee shop called Astro in LA’s Silverlake neighborhood; and there was a hostess there who was not unlike Mabel, in some ways. But although I did once see a rocket go by, I never saw anyone wearing goggles in there.
|| $40.00 || http://www.deviantart.com/print/6857600/