Time once again to electroshock Sci-Fi-O-Rama from it’s semi-dormant state, here with a selection of work from the late Scottish sculptor and artist Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005).

Paolozzi has always been a favourite of mine, particularly his beautifully composed, ultra-vibrant graphic screenprints. This post was sparked when I recently picked up a copy of “Paolozzi” a 1999 paperback publication that gives a chronological overview of Eduardo’s work. Here is the back page synopsis, note that I’ve embellished this slightly, altering present to past tense.

Eduardo Paolozzi (of Italian descent) was one of the major figures of postwar British art: A father of Pop Art a creator of key icons of the nuclear age, a brilliant manipulator of the images produced by the media, an iconoclast and traditionalist, an outsider and academican.

Onto the notes, I’ll keep it simple and won’t attempt a heavy analysis. If you would like to read more about Paolozzi, his methods, motivations and technique then the best place to start is his in-depth wikipedia page. One (patronising!) point I will make is when viewing, remember that all of these images hail from the 60′s or 70′s, long before the age of Photoshop. An obvious point for sure, but for me something that underlines just how sophisticated and forward leaning this work was at the time.

Top: “Hollywood Wax Museum from Zero Energy Experimental Pile (Z.E.E.P)” 1969-70 Screenprint on paper. We kick off here with a real trademark pieces, and I’m actually referring to the title not just the artwork, every bit as out there! A real diverse mix of elements features here, Sputnik, attitude indicators, giant Mecha robots, Marylin Monroe and the uneasy focal point of a NASA space monkey (Sam?).

2nd top:“B.A.S.H”1971 Screenprinted on paper. A flat colour, more geometric offering, this one gives clues as to Paolozzi’s background in surrealism.

3rd top: “Silken World of Michelangelo from Moonstrips Empire News” 1967 Screenprint on paper. Another great example of the way that Poalozzi used repeated patterns, to layer up composistions, at no point here does the eye rest easily. Also of note; the deconstructed Disney image worked down to mosiac form, something that appears in other screenprints.

4th top:“Print from Mein Kolner Dom: Blueprints for a New Museum” 1980-81lithograph and screenprint. Another playful and innovative composition; a giant blue bottle, Skylab (remember that?), Albert Einstein, jet packs and more, all playfully juxtaposed over the inners of a grand gothic cathedral.

5th top: “Part One, Frozen Terror… Part Two, Fangs of Death”1965 screenprint. This piece and the subsequent lower two are taken from http://www.paolozziprints.comand are available to buy, signed by the artist with the edition number. Another fab title, this mixes familiar pattern geometrics with pin girls and a strange alien type crusader creature, printed with a typically vivid contrasting colour palette.

6th top: “Cover for a Journal” Screenprint. This more abstract piece features a slick example of overprinting.

7th top: “Why children commit suicide…read next month’s issue” Signed and numbered photolithograph 1965-70. Another crazy title!

8th top: A photo of the artist, taken at a Hamburg ship breakers yard in 1961.

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Images taken from paolozziprints.com scanned from Paolozzi (Fiona Pearson 1999) http://amzn.to/mwl61i

Once again apologies for the brief pause in posting, and the slow response to emails, going to try and catch up this week/weekend. Actually part of the last month’s break has involved work on a Sci-Fi-O-Rama spin off project with Dan McPharlin, more on that in a moment, first here’s the lowdown on this article…

Kind of a quick post this one whilst I’m prepping some more wholesome material, I had intented to run this on the 29th of March as that was in fact Sci-Fi-O-Rama’s 3rd birthday, but alas didn’t get time! Anyway so for no particular reason other than it was at the top of the stack here’s another hyper-real selection of Hajime Sorayama’s masterful, airbrush craftsmanship. A few notes:

First of I’m embarssed to say I’m actually not sure of the titles here as these images are via the Hungarian Fantasy/Erotic Art bunker known as http://www.net-cafe.hu/ I do own a Sorayama book, but it’s in storage, so if you know how any are named please let me know. I’ll ad-lib then…

Top Image: This sultry vixen, adorned in glimmering chrome and gold crested armour is typical Sorayama subject material. If your your familiar with this strain of Sorayama’s work you’ll know how far he veers into fetishistic porno, by his standards this example only vaguely hint’s at eroticism. What I love about this piece is not just the flawless, impeciable rendering but more so the suit’s detailing, look closer and you’ll see many of Hajime’s familiar trademarks such as the venting on her inner left thigh, and the tiny winglets on the left forearm. It’s as complicated and fussy a design as a modern F1 car, and every bit as amazing (no doubt better too watch too)…

Middle: Although it’s what he’s most renowned for not all Sorayama’s work revolves around scantliy clad females undergoing robotic metamorphism, on a more advertising/commercial tip he also prouduced a series of metallic animals of which this dinosaur creature is one. Again check the beautiful detailing, such as the ever so spindly chromed hydraulics.

Bottom: This final example features one of Sorayama’s famous ‘Gynoid’ creations which I posted a little more about way back in September 2008. Something so quintessentially 80′s about not just this one but all three examples here – love them!

To check out more on Hajime Sorayama visit his official site – be warned there’s explicit content! http://hajimesorayama.com/. Also of interest I featured a post on British Illustrator Jasper Goodall who admits to being a fan, if you missed that it’s definitely worth a look check it here.

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Finally a quick one regarding the aforementioned Sci-Fi-O-Rama spin off project. I’ve managed to tie in my day job to the blog and with the help of Kieran Gutteridge and Dan McPharlin am currently developing a special Sci-Fi-O-Rama quiz game coming very soon to iOS… In fact if any iPad owners out there would like to take part in the Beta trial please get in touch via Twitter – send me a Direct Message with your iPad’s UDID cheers, Kie.

Still in movie poster mode and continuing on from Mondo here’s short but sweet entry focusing on another of my personal favorites that I’d filed for posting and then – as is often the case – completely forgotten about.

The art in question is this Bob Peak example of fantastical, illustrative master craftsmanship, produced for the 1966 big screen musical adaption of Arthurian myth and legend. Despite starring possibly one of Ireland’s finest ever exports, the late, great Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave I’m not sure the movies really regarded as a classic, however the promotional artwork with it’s strong Gustav Klimt overtones almost certainly is!

Renowned American Illustrator Bob Peak (May 30, 1927 – August 1, 1992) made a name for himself after working on the poster for the classic 1961 musical West Side Story and upon this initial success Peak’s career took flight eventually spanning 25 years and more… Within this time frame Peak became pretty much the Hollywood’s default first choice, responsible for creating iconic artwork for classics like Rollerball and Apocalypse Now, so then it’s pretty much fair to say he also redefined the genre along the way.

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Star Trek fans will also be familiar with Peak’s work for it was he that created all promotional art for the first 6 Star Trek Movies, James White AKA signalnoise.com ran a post on those over on his always excellent blog, check that post out here: http://blog.signalnoise.com/2009/12/10/star-trek-movie-poster-artwork/

I’ll run a further posts on Bob soon, as I’m very much of fan of his Excalibur Artwork, in the meantime you can read a little more about his career here on Wikipedia or for a much broader selection of art and info check out his official site http://bobpeak.net/

A final note – the Image comes via the art and design blog BurningSettlersCabin.com curated by by Sean Adams. There’s another great article here on the Camelot Poster Artwork and Leo & Diane Dillon’s “The Fox” which I’ve also featured… Anyway do check out the full article: http://www.burningsettlerscabin.com/?p=5081

Ok so this is something of a re-post lifted from the excellent designboom.com. Re-posting content in such verbatim fashion is something In which I tend to shy away from, but since it concerns quite possibly the worlds premier Sci-Fi Illustrator I’ve made an exception! We are of course talking of French comic artist/legend Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius and this article relates to his current exhibition “Transe-Forme” which is running now at Fondation Cartier in Paris until Saturday the 13th March, 2011. So as of time posting you have roughly a month too experience it.

Read the full article over at DesignBoom with a much larger selection of images of this simply stunning exhibition.

Many thanks to Manchester based Illustrator/Designer Ben Lamb for originally pointing me towards the article…

*** Quick amend thanks to Micheal Van

Official Home page of exhibition: http://www.moebius-transe-forme.com/

Check these videos from/of Moebius for exhibition http://dai.ly/e86lED

Namaste! I’ve just returned from a 3 week break in South India, which I’d thoroughly recommend to anyone, such an amazing place and people. Amidst the traveling and odd bit of partying (thumbs up for Arambol North Goa and The Silent Disco near Palolem South Goa) I kept my beady eye out for bit’s to collect for the blog, and now own a substantial collection of outlandish Hindu graphic paraphernalia, including window stickers, postcards, labels and even (my fave) some super kitsch Lenticular Printed Artwork which of course, sadly am unable to scan

So here’s the first batch of my collection, I’ve tried my best to match the vivid, lurid colouring through scanning and tweaking, and whilst I’m sure these designs perhaps won’t be every readers ‘Cup of Chai’ personally I just can’t get enough of the relentless iridescence and saturation overdrive…

Here’s a bit more on each card and deity, I won’t attempt to explain the history or symbolism with each image as alas currently it’s a subject matter I know little about – so please feel free to post and explain more!

Top: This beautiful, tropical rendering is “Ganesa” (also spelt also spelled Ganesha or Ganesh) perhaps the most instantly recognisble of all the Hindu pantheon. Read more about Ganesa.

2nd Top: A portrait of “Bala Krishna” literally meaning “Child Krishna” or “Divine Child Krishna”. Read more about Bala Krishna.

3rd Top: This is “Krishna” often depicted as here playing a flute, he’s also known by many other names and titles including Govinda, “finder of cows”, or Gopala, “protector of cows”.

4th Top: The Cobra crowned ‘Maha Vishnu‘ or “Sri Maha Vishnu’.

Bottom: The Goddess Kali also known as Kalika is the Hindu goddess associated with eternal energy. The name Kali comes from kāla, which means black, time, death, lord of death, Shiva.

All images scanned from original postcards – produced by “Spectrum” for vzindia.com

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I’ll run a future post with some of the gorgeous sticker designs, and create a full sticker set – but next up a special feature on a certain Austin TX based collective…

Dovetailing neatly into our 300th post (thanks for all the orders so far!) we have another special feature; an exclusive in depth interview with Australian artist/designer and Sci-Fi-O-Rama logo creator Dan McPharlin. Before I start that I’ll quickly add some notes on the selected imagery…

Top: “Pretty Lights – Spilling Over Every Side” Cover art for 6 Track CD / Download. An excellent example of Dan’s powerful blending of Sci-Fi elements and the geometric surreal – as with all of his work much of the feel is down to the warm painterly textures. I’m not sure whether intentional (I forgot to ask) but this reminds me somewhat of artistic themes featured in cult French/American 80′s animated kids show “Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors“. Check the track here at prettylightsmusic.com

2nd Top: “Pretty Lights – Glowing in The Darkest Night” Cover art for 5 Track CD / Download. A brand new piece from Dan, great mood and composition with a strong echo of the legendary lates 70′s Illustrated “Terran Trade Authority” series of SF books. Again you can check the music here: Check the track here at prettylightsmusic.com

3rd Top: “Dylan Ettinger – New Age Outlaws” Artwork for 6 Track 12″ released on Not Not Fun Records 2010. Where to start with this one? absolutely love it, deceptively simple yet extremely evocative – harks back to the very best of 70′s sleeve art, and IMHO could easily slide into the Hipgnosis portfolio.

4th Top: “The Sword -Tears of Fire / Farstar” Kemado Records 2010, Formats: Hexagonal-shaped picture disc. Art for Texan-based metal band The Sword, James White ran a feature on this set over a little earlier in the year over at blog.signalnoise.com

Bottom: “Year One” A superb post apocalyptic ‘dustscape’ Produced for the Life in 2050 exhibition,  curated by Transmission as part of the 9th Sci-Fi London Film Festival 22 April – 4 May 2010. More details here: www.life-in-2050.com

** Interview **

Q: What’s been the creative highlights for you over the last year ?

A: There have been a few but I think the cover artwork I produced for The Sword was probably a highlight for me. Warp Riders was essentially a concept album depicting an epic space opera meets meets post-apocalyptic Western, somewhere between Dune, Asimov and the films of Rene Laloux. I really enjoy producing these elaborate illustrated gatefolds but there’s always a lot of work involved.

I definitely slowed down a bit this year. Things were happening just a bit too fast and I felt I didn’t feel I was really allowing my ideas to ‘breathe’. Its very easy to end up in a bit of a creative holding pattern when you’re constantly chasing deadlines and I thought it was important to pull back from that a bit.

I intend to focus on a few personal projects over the next year. I have a sketchbook of ideas I’m itching to explore. I’ll hopefully focus on my music a bit more too.

Q: What part of the Design/Illustration Process to you enjoy the most?

A: Adding that final stroke to a picture is always very satisfying but I also enjoy the sketching process so its hard to say. There’s always a great moment where you start to hit your stride when producing a painting; suddenly you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it takes the pressure off a bit!

Often when I finish a piece of work I like to throw it randomly into a slideshow with other work that I admire, just to see if it holds up. I’m also constantly checking my artwork at different sizes; these days people are more likely to first see the artwork as a 250 pixel wide thumbnail on the web than a 12″ on the record store shelf, so the artwork has to stand out at various sizes.

Q: What’s the one creative tool you couldn’t do with out?

Probably my Wacom drawing tablet. I’ve almost worn a hole in that thing.

Q: Is there a particular visual style/genre of Sci-Fi you identify with more than others? (ie Cyberpunk, Post Apocalyptic, Surrealist?)

Surrealism has always been an influence and I suppose my work also draws heavily on what I consider the ‘golden age’ of sci-fi art. The artwork that is the most exciting to me was what I grew up with; lavish paperback covers, record sleeves and game boxes by Roger Dean, illustrated speculative fiction like the Terran Trade series, art books published by Dragon’s Dream, Paper Tiger (exactly the kind of thing you feature on Sci-fi-O-Rama in fact!) I remember a handful of tattered school library books that I would borrow over and over. I think there was one called Space Wars that I just kept re-borrowing for a whole year; my name was probably the only one on the library slip!

A lot of the newer genres I know very little about. While I find a lot of contemporary work technically impressive, I often have a hard time connecting to it emotionally. For me mood and atmosphere always trumps technical verisimilitude so thats what I try to bring to my work.

Q: I know you are very much into classic Synths, how intrinsic/influential is creating and listening to Music/Audio with your artwork?

A: Music is very important. I feel a bit like I’m losing my soul if I’m not creating music regularly. The things I’m drawn to in music are similar to those I’m drawn to in visual art; form, space, atmosphere. I love music that evokes strange worlds, sound environments that seem more like natural phenomena than anything created by human or machine. I’m always listening to something while I work on my art; there are a handful of artists that tend to inspire the right mood while I’m creating; Gyorgy Ligeti, Arvo Part, Klaus Schulze, Jeff Mills, Basic Channel, Toru Takemitsu are a few names that come to mind.

Q: Like myself you grew up as big Commodore Amiga User, what’s your most treasured 16 bit memories?

A: Well the Amiga was such a brilliant machine. It carried on the DIY spirit of the C64 but the graphics and sound were just light years ahead of its time. Such a pity Commodore dropped the ball with marketing etc. As for memories, well I probably spent more time with Deluxe Paint 2 than any other program; zoomed right in and painting each pixel by hand. It took forever! I would love to dig up some of those early 32 colour creations to show you (many are similar to the work I’m doing now), but I fear most of my 3.5″ floppies have rotted away by now. Such is the fate of a lot of old digital work; I still have all of these disks somewhere but I dread to think what state they’re in.

Octamed was another program I loved. It was one of those vertical music trackers, favoured by game musicians at the time. It worked in hexadecimal but once you got the hang of it it was just so quick to come up with compositions. Its really encouraging to see the old trackers coming back; I’ve been using Renoise on the Mac for a year or so now and loving it.

Q: What’s the best piece of Sci-Fi related material you’ve come across and been impressed by recently (book, film, artist)

A: I’ve actually been really impressed with a couple of recent films. Moon and District 9 are both terrific examples of a return to serious ideas-driven science fiction, not unlike classics of the genre; Solaris, 2001, Blade Runner. Apparently they used real models for the effects shots in Moon (embellished slightly with digital effects) which is just fantastic. I’m a big fan of model work; I think when you put real objects occupying real physical space on film it just looks so much better (I’ll settle for a second rate practical effect over a second rate digital effect any day) But beyond that, I think science fiction is the ultimate playground for ideas, and I wish more film makers would realise this!

Q: Finally a follow on to the last question, any classic Sci-Fi material (book, film, artist) you could recommend you think reader’s might not know of or have overlooked?

A: Well I’m not sure if you could really classify his artwork as sci-fi, but a recent joy for me has been discovering the work of Polish artist Zdzislaw Beksinski. His quiet, ghostly paintings, particularly those of his fantastic realist period (which were all untitled) are quite remarkable. Beksinski’s landscapes and architecture have an epic, timeless quality; cathedrals and trees are constructed from a spindly lattice of bones, abandoned car wrecks are layered with sediment and melt into the landscape. Unfortunately his biography is a tragic story, culminating in his untimely death in 2005.

I’m also a bit of a fan of Tony Roberts sci-fi art, particularly his late 70s period. I think he’s often overlooked next to the heavyweights of that era but I’ve always been a fan of his style which adorned many paperbacks of the day (he also contributed to the Terran Trade series). There’s something about his earthy colour palettes and his airbrushed seed-pod like ships plastered with alien graphics, that draws me in.

Many Thanks Dan!

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…You can check out past Sci-Fi-O-Rama posts featuring Dan’s Work here or better yet for all the latest examples check his Flickr feed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/danmcp/

A return to rip-roaring, full on Sci-Fi Illustration here with 3 samples from the vast portfolio of Welsh Artist Jim Burns (born in Cardiff, April 1948). Jim’s enjoyed a long highly successful career since graduating from London’s St Martins School of Art in 1972, and has an instantly recognisable style, he was also one of the major contributors – along with other British artists such as Angus Mckie, Chris Moore and Peter Elson – to the highly popular Terran Trade Authority series of books, published back in the late 70′s. Other career high points include working with Ridley Scott (also a St Martins Graduate) on his 1982 Sci-Fi Film Noir BladeRunner, and winning the Hugo award for best professional artist three times, most recently in 2005.

Some notes then on the featured images:

Top: “Scoutship Pilot” – This Illustration comes from the book “Planet Story” written by Harry Harrison in 1979, it’s available on Amazon here: http://is.gd/eY5M3. This image (which I’ve cropped) was originally scanned and posted by occasional Sci-Fi-O-Rama collaborator Jeff Love over at the excellent http://ski-ffy.blogspot.com, Jeff’s been very busy posting new content to Ski-ffy recently, so if you’ve not checked it out for a while I highly recommend a visit! With regards to the piece itself, this is an excellent example of what defines much Jim’s work, a beautiful girl in a figure hugging outfit posed at the helm of advanced craft, obviously that’s typical subject matter for much Sci-Fi Art, but Jim handles it with real verve – love her hair!

Middle: “Exordium 4 – The Rifters Covenant” (thanks Ed!) Image is sourced via the Hungarian Fantasy/Erotic art horde http://www.net-cafe.hu/fantasy.php. I picked this sample to really highlight Jims strength when working with colour, a great mix of super saturated orange, vivid ultra-marine really make the girls drab olive uniform leap out, there’s also a nice military feel to the general styling, Jim’s work definitely has a slightly darker edge than most of his peers – oh yeah, love the furry gremlin things!

Bottom: This piece is a great demonstration of lighting, rendering and texture and again, slightly embarrassingly I don’t know the title or source!

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For more info and Artwork check Jim’s official website with a chance to buy prints, books, and originals. His Wikipedia profile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Burns

Ok something of a bit of an exclusive here, from a contemporary Artist & Illustrator I’ve long admired – Brighton based Jasper Goodall (UK).

I first came across Jasper’s work as a design student around the turn of the century, his work prominently featured in Angus Hyland’s seminal “Pen and Mouse: Commercial Art and Digital Illustration” the book that triumphed traditional Illustrations transition into digital and thus the 21st century. It may seem strange now but once upon a time traditional illustration was in it’s death throws, out in the cold, superseded by saccharine layers of cheap and nasty Photoshop/Stock imagery that thanks to lazy graphic design had (horrifically) risen too prominence in the late 90′s. Something needed to give, and did, a new wave of Illustrators adapted, opting to use the Mac as a primary tool rather than just a finishing repro one, the computer became an integral part of the image making process, giving rise to a new fresh approach that continues to evolve – Jasper Goodall remains at the vanguard of this creative zeitgeist…

As something of a fan I decided to approach Jasper directly to ask him to supply Sci-Fi-O-Rama with a selection of recent work which he’s kindly done. Before I add the notes I’d like to point out that prints of all of the above images are available at http://www.jaspergoodall.com/shop.php

Top: This wonderfully lit latex beauty is entitled “Eye of Horus”, part of Jasper’s brand new “Sunrise Series”.

2nd Top: “Perpetual Dawn” – another superb rendering, with a slight echo of Hajime Sorayama to whom Jasper admits to being a fan…

3rd Top “Into the Void” – a flawless example of a superior digital airbrush technique.

4th Top & Bottom: “Dione’s Rapture” and “The Birth of Erebus”, these two final pieces came out of Jasper’s work for British Alternative Rock Band Muse, though they were not used as covers they were inspired by the project – see the full selection of Muse A/W here: http://www.jaspergoodall.com/projects.php?show=4#1

** Further Reading:

I hope to feature more on Jasper at some point in the not too distant future, in the meantime however do check his portfolio website for projects past and present: www.jaspergoodall.com

Ian Albinson over at the excellent artofthetitle.com got in touch with me the other day asking me to help identify the original artists and books that were used in the title sequence of the 2009 Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite) Comedy “Gentlemen Broncos“. You can view a movie of the the whole sequence here: http://is.gd/dbKfK

In total of 24 books were used by production designer Richard A Wright in creating the title sequence, and I’ve included a small selection here. A few of the designs look familiar, but I must confess I don’t actually know for sure and wondered whether any readers can help out?

Some notes on the featured images:

Top: This looks either like a Frank Frazetta or possibly Peter Andrew Jones – not sure though!

2nd Top: I was thinking this has an echo of Peter Elson ? looks like a 70′s cover

3rd Top: A really well rendered painting, an older cover I think – early 60s’?

4th Top: This reminds me somewhat of StarWars concept artist Ralph Mcquarrie – late 70′s?

5th Top: No idea here! cool though…

6th Top: Again this looks slightly older – a 60′s cover?

7th Top: I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this one browsing through the extensive Flickr Sci-Fi-Books Pool but alas I didn’t favourite it.

Please do post a comment if you are familiar with any of the covers featured above or from the movie.  Also, do make a point to check out Ian’s site – a superb read & inspiration resource: http://www.artofthetitle.com/

Finally here’s a link to the trailer for Gentlemen Broncos staring the excellent Sam Rockwell http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdpFpfIBkXc

A selection of four Images taken from British Artist Ian Miller’s Illustrated compendium “Green Dog Trumpet and Other Stories” (published by Dragons Dream 1978) a book I’m lucky enough to own.

Green Dog Trumpet and Other Stories contains 5 abstract visual tales, each with a loose narrative but no written dialogue – this works splendidly, forcing you to attempt intense studies of  meticulously detailed, chaotic compositions. I tend to find that with each new browsing I notice something new, and it’s hardly surprising – even though some of the illustrations are small there amazingly intricate, worlds you can totally lose yourself in.

As I’ve mentioned in the past Ian is one of my favourite artist’s I feature on the blog, mainly because as a style of illustration it’s just so out there. In fact,  fairly recently on a trip to the cinema I caught Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland re-imaging which (superflous 3d aside) looked, as you might expect visually stunning – once again reminding me of certain close similarities between Miller and Burton’s work. I wonder if there paths have crossed at all ? or if Burton and his team have referenced Miller in the same way Roger Dean was obviously referenced by James Cameron and his Designers for last years SF blockbuster Avatar… Just a thought!