Richard Bartrop's Journal

10:45AM - Harper Goff, the father of steampunk

An article on how the retro-Victorian look of the Nautilus in Disney's 20000 Leagues under the Sea came about. If there's a moment you could point to as the birth of what came to be known as steampunk, this would be it.

http://www.n-e-m-o.org/scale_modeler_oct74.html

4:18PM - Oh brave new world, that has such knicknacks in it.

Just think, there was a time when people were horrified by lamps in the shape of a human leg:

http://teptec.net/?page_id=728

What's truly horrifying is that this is just the sort of thing that future trendies will embrace as an example of 'Teens kitsch. Watch this become the lava lamp of the 21st Century

7:06PM - Writer's Block: B.Y.O.B. Holidays

5:37PM

Last night,  I was watching all the various reactions to Steve Jobs' passing on the news, and one thing that caught my attention was one young lady calling him her generation's John Lennon.   Obviously, there's hyperbole, but the idea that the new heroes are tech-savvy entrepreneurs makes me feel a little better about the future.

12:31AM - Noteworthy Serbian Animated Film

This one was pointed out to me by tuftears
The film is called Technotise: Edit iJa (Edit & I). It's science fiction with definite Japanese anime influences, but with a visual style that comes out of European comics. I you're a fan of Heavy Metal, or Ghost in the Shell, you should give this a watch.

7:33PM - Writer's Block: Beep, Bop, Boop

Space War, on a refrigerator sized microcomputer, during a university open house in the late 60's.  I loved it, and knew right then and there I wanted to somehow get a hold of a computer when I was older.

2:11PM - Art Cards

( Read more... )

11:38PM - AC Art

Here's a list of what I'll have at this year's Anthrocon Art Show

http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/Big-Red-Here-s-Looking-at-You-167294535
http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/One-Million-Years-BC-167343427
http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/Big-Red-Keep-em-Flying-165562743
http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/Big-Red-Cooking-with-Fire-161587647
http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/Widgets-for-VICTORY-131737797
http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/Big-Red-Bathing-Beauty-121345067
http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/Big-Red-Vintage-Cheesecake-122115992
http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/Personal-Space-121322887
http://rjbartrop.deviantart.com/art/Blackwolf-40209972
http://rjbartrop.artspots.com/image/32086

11:56PM - Writer's Block: Prone to puns

In the oy of the beholder.

2:44PM - Writer's Block: Brush with stardom

Not especially.  The ones who really interest me are the ones behind the scenes i.e the writers, the directors, the production designers, the effects artists.  The people who are actually responsible for making the world I see on the screen.  The 'stars' are just people they hired to stand in front of the camera, and say the words that somebody else wrote.

10:39AM - Big Red Art at FC

A couple of vintage pinup style pics that will be on sale at this weekend's Further Confusion.
( Art behind the cut )

10:29PM - Art Auction: Pandora (Ends Sept 8)

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9:31AM - ART AUCTION: For any Zaibatsu Tears Fans

http://www.furbuy.com/auctions/1011157.html

This time,  I'm selling a real media piece of Pi, the cyborg vixen from my cyberpunk comic, "Zaibatsu Tears",  getting ready to engage in a little wetwork.  The piece is 8 1/2 by 12 inches, and is done in acrylic wash on heavy watercolour paper.  No reserve, and shipping is included.

( Read more... )

12:58PM - Art Auction

I thought I'd give online auctions a try :

http://www.furbuy.com/auctions/1010585.html
( Read more... )

The piece is done in Conte pencil on Arches watercolour  paper, and measures 11" by 14"

5:43AM - Artistic Influences

My influences are all over the map, but here are a few of the bigger ones:

Gerry Anderson: I grew up with shows like "Thunderbirds" and "Fireball XL-5", but the visual style of his live action shows "UFO', and then "Space:1999" had a particularly strong impression on me.

CARtoons: This magazine was what I first studied when learning how to do chrome, and other reflective surfaces. When I try to do a "cartoony" style, what comes out still owes something to Cartoons cartoonist Nelson Dewey.

Rex Burnett: An artist who's cutaway drawings appeared in HOT HOD magazine in the 1950's, I was impressed by his clean, elegant inking style devoid of any cross hatching.  One of the reasons, along with Russ Manning, that I still have an allergy to cross hatching, even to this day.

Frank Kelly Freas: I discovered Analog magazine int he 70's, and the illustrations within shaped my ideas of what science fiction art should look like, but Freas' art was the one that had the biggest impression on me. I loved his approach to futuristic costume, and his wonderfully expressive faces.

Syd Mead: Probably the biggest influence, I was blown away by his visions of a future that looked utterly alien, but at the same time looked completely plausible. He's the one who really inspired me to take up science fiction and fantasy art.

Wayne Douglas Barlowe: Used his background as a scientific illustrator to that look believable, and at the same time, completely alien.

The Photorealists: Not all modern art is about blobs and squares. Artists like Richard Estes and Chuck Close showed that representational art was still valid, but also managed to put a contemporary spin on it. You can see their influence in illustrators like Sorayama. I still have a bias towards the bright colours, and the shiny surfaces that they favoured.

The Northern Renaissance: Artists like Jan van Eyck and Roger van der Weyden, these are the guys who taught the Italian Renaissance masters how to paint. I was particularly struck by their lush surfaces, and attention to detail.

Jean-Dominique Ingres: This 19th century painter was arguably one of the greatest draughtsmen ever. His view on the importance of drawing, and that true expressiveness in art isn't about being wild, or sloppy, but about having the art skills to say exactly what you want to say, and words I continue to live by.

Jim Burns: His richly textured surfaces, and exotic, yet realistic style was something I studied religiously when I was learning to use an airbrush.

Russ Manning: The artist behind "Magnus: Robot Fighter", he had clean, almost minimalist inking style that I admired very much.

Alberto Vargas: He showed that cheesecake can also be art.

Steve Gallacci: I've been following his work long before I'd ever heard of "furry" fandom, and I still think of him first and foremost as a science fiction artist. He inspired me to start inking with a brush, and the look of Albedo was a big influence when it came to my own attempts at comic art.

Ken Sample: His work in Other Suns was something I studied in my own attempts at making animal people.

Mark Schultz: The artist beind "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" I studied his inking style, as well as Mark Farmer's, when I tried to make my own comics.

Craig Mullins: This is the guy, along with Sophie Klesen, who showed me what really could be done with Photoshop.

Other influences include MAD magazine, Heavy Metal magazine, Chris Foss, John Schoenherr, John Byrne, Masamune Shirow, Yukito Kishiro, James McNeil Whistler, Charles Scheeler.

10:59AM - Arthur C. Clarke R.I.P.1917 - 2008

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7304004.stm

I spent a good portion of my formative years devouring Clarke's work. Together with authours like Heinlein and Asimov, shaped my ideas of what science fiction is about. His essays on the future continue to inspire. He lived a long, full, life, but he was also one of the last of the "Grand Masters" of science fiction, and hus passing marks the end of an era. His brand of science fiction is regarded as passe in some circles, which I think is unfortunate.

Back the days before Star Wars took over the collective imagination, there was this underlying idea that there was something more to science fiction than just a pleasant escape from the mundane world. It was more than just another kind of fairy tale, substitute aliens for dragons, and blasters for swords. There was an underlying assumption that somehow, this stuff was important. The literature was just a way to get get people thinking about the kind of world they want to live in.

Science Fiction is certainly a lot more popular now, and has pretty much entered the cultural mainstream, but in achieving that popularity, I can't help feeling that something's been lost in what used to be called "the literature of ideas". We've emphasized the literature part, which is not a bad thing, and somewhere along the way, the ideas part has been overlooked.

THe year 2000 has come and gone, and we are now living in that territory that used to be thought of s "the future". The world continues to change, and we still need to think about the kind of world we want to line in. Clarke is gone, but we need people like him as much as ever.

10:14AM - Fun with Lightwave

Current fashion dictates that spaceships should be lumpy, bumpy, and grimy. I'm still partial to the notion that they should be sleek and shiny, so I created this salute to the "Golden Age" of spaceship design. The texture map for Jupiter is from JPL, and the rest was modeled and rendered in Lightwave 8.5, with texture maps created in Photoshop.

9:52PM - Cover Art

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine has commissioned another cover from me. They wanted something in a pulp vein, so I came up with this tribute to/spoof of the work of Earle K. Bergey. It will be gracing the cover of Issue #25.