A very welcome to return to Sci-Fi-O-Rama for contemporary Sci-Fi/Fantasy Fashion Illustrator Barnaby Ward definitely one of my favourite featured artists. As is clearly demonstrated here, Barnaby’s capable of drawing extremely beautiful female characters whom he vivaciously mixes with the surreal and bizarre, such a cool inspiring style that always makes me want to grab a pen and start scribbling… In fact I’d go as far to say that’s there’s really only one other contemporary Illustrator capable of drawing quite such gorgeous, stylised characters and that’s Britain’s Jason Brooks.

Ok so to the notes on the Images, the top four here I’ve cropped into from a series of large Illustration intended as desktop backgrounds, there’s a full set of 9 available via Banarby’s expertly presented portfolio site: somefield.com, the final Illustration is a teaser illustration for his next major Illustrative project “Leavetaking” – all very much under wraps at the moment!.

Finally If you’ve not had a look before I also highly recommended checking Barnaby’s past Graphic Novel Work and the superb “Sixteen Miles to Merricks“.

A long overdue feature on Eric George Fraser (June 11, 1902 – November 15, 1983), one of the great British Illustrators of his time. Eric’s most renowned for creating lavish covers for the long running Radio Times Magazine as well Illustrating many classic scenes from mythology, Shakespeare and Tolkien – Here’s some notes on the featured images:

Top: The Red Dragon Express – British Railways menu card dating from 1960 via Flickr User: Mikeyashworth

2nd top: Eric Fraser Beowulf & Dragon via Flickr user: hitmissmaybe

3rd top: Exploration of the Moon – book jacket 1965, again via Flickr User: Mikeyashworth- The structure is very Norman Foster Associates!

4th top: St Peter, St Paul and Atilla (Pen Ink and Watercolour) dust jacket cover 1968 via: chrisbeetles.com

5th top: The Talisman (Watercolour and Bodycolour) 1956 via: chrisbeetles.com

6th top: Laxdolela Saga (Pen and Ink) Dust Jacket 1964 via: chrisbeetles.com

Bottom: Smaug (Pen and Ink) Illustration taken from The Hobbit published by the Folio Society in 1976 (thanks for the tip Zhu) see the full set here: tolkien.com.pl

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For further reading and or galleries, check out:

Eric Fraser @ chrisbeetles.com with a chance to buy signed prints…

Also check this Flickr group: Eric Fraser – artist and illustrator

Finally here’s a link to buy Eric Fraser: Designer and Illustrator a hardback coffee table book compiled by Sylvia Backemeyer.

A selection of differing illustration styles all linked from my Flickr Favourites – I figured that rather than post these one at time It’d be better to pack them into groups as a kinda round up. So here’s the notes on the images:

Top: Ejection “Captain Lockhead and The Starfighters” – A 7″ single sleeve, in a style somewhat reminiscent of Barney Bubbles though it is in fact the work of Rodney Matthews. Love the plum and salmon pink colouring here… Image via Flickr User Daevideo

2nd Top: This is one I spotted a while back via Will Schofield’s amazing A Journey Round my Skull. This cover is from a 1975 Estonian Childrens book “Panga-Rehe Jutud” by Jüri Arrak – a typical of the rare, outlandish source material Will so often posts…

3rd Top: Another lift from “A Journey Round My Skull” this image comes via a special feature “Women Snakes and Stalkers – South Asian Book Covers”. Well worth checking out to see a really diverse range of Illustrative work – also check the source: http://www.womensnakesandstalkers.com/ superb stuff…

4th Top: So back to more SF orientated material, and here’s a cover for the 1975 Robert Silverberg Short story collection “Sunrise on Mercury” art by Peter Goodfellow. What actually caught me eye here was that this wild sunscape actually reminded me very much of the 1988 Sega arcade game “Galaxy Force 2″. Not sure if any of you remember that, it was kinda an evolution of sprite scaling tech used in Sega’s Outrun or Afterburner. Anyway the Coin-Op was pretty rare in the UK, expensive to play and not particularly entertaining. On the plus side the level graphics were pretty imaginative and considering this is a 22 year old game the pseudo 3d effect looks very advanced for it’s age! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaLRLo2yB04. Image via Filckr user: Martin Isaac

5th Top: A 1963 cover for the John Wyndham apocalyptic classic “The Kraken Wakes” art by Denis Piper. Even though it’s over fifty years old (first published 1953) this is still definitely one SF novel I’d class as essential reading – a plot thats mirrors the plight face with potential global warming and rising sea levels – highly recommended! Image via Flickr user: metoikosdraig

Bottom: The final image is another classic penguin David Pelham SF cover. Here’s a link again to the Penguin SF Book covers gallery: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/ – this image is via Flickr user levar

Ok this post I’ve put together with the help of Tommi Bren over at the excellent http://www.houdinination.de/ an excellent online archive of science fiction literature…

The above images are taken from the 1971 German Sci-Fi Novella “Der Purpurne Planet” (The Purple Planet) Illustrations are from excellent Werner Ruhner, whom I confess to know little about! though very much like his style… Fortunately Tommi has helped with some translation, and here’s a little bit more on Werner via German Wiki:

Werner Ruhner born 27 May 1922 in Meerane, Sachsen, Germany – According to the very short entry at Wikipedia, he is or was an assistant at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig (where the artists Neo Rauch and Peter Piller teach, for example). In the former East Germany, Ruhner was among the busiest illustrators for a variety of genres, science fiction (Verlag Neues Leben Berlin) among them. He allegedly lives in Borsdorf near Leipzig.

Tommi also adds that finding information on German / East German Illustrators isn’t always that easy as not all them have have really made it big – Kelly Freas being the most prominent exception…

Scans via http://www.houdinination.de/

A selection of Coin-Op/Arcade Machine “Marquees” beaming gloriously in brash 80’s technicolor… Marquees (in case you didn’t know) are used to illuminate the name of an arcade game at the top of its cabinet.

Stopping with a friend recently I was reminded with just how amazing this art is as he has a small selection of these marquees as fridge magnets! and I haven’t featured any Coin Op / Pinball design for a while, so figured it was about time to run an update…

So what makes this Art so cool? for me it’s the punchy low palettes & comic-type colouring, mix this up with super striking Logotypes and the fact of course that the whole thing is designed to be backlit! It’s actually worth pointing out that I worked in a seaside arcade as a 16 year old, in retrospect it’s obviously mcuh more than just the game themselves that made a major impact me… My Favourite ever Coin-Op’s ? Turbo Out Run, Aliens, Rolling Thunder and Special Criminal Investigation aaah, things were simpler back then!

So a bit more more about the samples collected here:

Top: “Alien Syndrome” – A top down Commando/Gauntlet-esque shooter dating from 1986, designed and manufactured by Sega, it’s one I missed in the Arcade, though played it on the 8-bit home systems of the day, decent game! Here’s a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsZ0g6HE684

2nd Top: “Sinistar” – By Williams in 1982, this an evolution of Asteroids, and is similar to Bosconion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcyBtVwAsfg embarrassingly I’d never even heard of Sinistar before researching this post! I’m still not sure how I’ve missed it! Check the freaky Sinistar Sample too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-XEINagmaU

3rd Top: “Commando” – From Nihon Bussan/AV Japan released 1985. Another genre-defining rock solid classic, I’m more familiar with the Speccy version where you had to rotate the joystick 360 degrees to lob a grenade (very difficult).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qctKI_t5eY

4th Top: “Asteroids” – By Atari 1979. One of the most popular arcade games of all time, this marquee featuring an obvious Battlestar Galactica reference. You must of seen Asteroids, so here’s a clip of Atari’s lesser known 1987 sequal “Blasteroids” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFmhK3VM3Ng

5th Top: “Tempest” – By Atari, released 1987. The wireframe vector graphic legend that’s been recyclced many times, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxIquJIRZHU&feature=related

6th Top: “Crystal Castles” – Another Atari title, this time from 1983 – this is an Isometric platform/maze/puzzler which utilises a bizarre collection of sprites, a game I loved as a kid, and like most games I’m still completely useless at it… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f01M2l9oGJI

7th Top:”Zaxxon” – More isometric viewpoint action, this one from Sega and dating from 1982. Supremely ambitious for it’s time, in many ways this still looks great http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHORFz6ZCC0&feature=related

8th / 9th Top: “Galaga” and “Galaxian” – These classic precursor’s to the Vertical Shoot-em-up both hail released from the Namco stable, appearing 1979 and 1981 respectively. Just in case you forgot how Galaxian plays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzitZv8Enmc

10th Top: “Bosconian” – The original 8 way shooter from Midway, released 1981. Again this is one I remember from the 8-bit systems rather than in the arcade itself, here’s a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC5_RYXmfsc

Bottom: “Rastan” – A left scrolling fantasy platform fighter from Taito released in 1987. If the throttled Lizard-Man hasn’t jogged your memory, here’s a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvn2pPsaE4I

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All games referenced via KLOV “The Killer List of Video Games” AKA http://www.arcade-museum.com
a superb reference site…

Images collected from various sources via The Google.

A selection of 5 superb poster designs from UK based Designer/Typographer/Illustrator Simon Page, beautiful work that harks back to the classic geometric abstraction of Josef Müller-Brockmann

You may already be familiar with Simons distinctive styled work as it’s made it’s way round many of the major design blogs, rightly so I think you’ll agree!… For further reading I definitely recommend checking out his Flickr Photostream for all his latest updates http://www.flickr.com/photos/simoncpage/. Also check his Portfolio/Blog that offers the chance to buy exclusive prints http://simoncpage.co.uk/blog/

Featured posters are from Simons ‘Astronomy Posters‘ set on Flickr.

Another Classic David Pelham Penguin Cover, for the Pohl / Kornbluth collaborative novel “The Space Merchants” this dates from 1974. If your unfamiliar with Penguin SF Book cover art and want to see more, the best place to start is here: http://www.penguinsciencefiction.org/

Scan via Flickr User metoikosdraig who has assembled this great selection of Classic SF Book Covers

A quick follow up to a feature I ran a year ago on Roger Dean’s Artwork for the computer game “Shadow of the Beast” published by legendary 80’s/90’s 16bit software house Psygnosis. This image is a close up of the highly sought after limited edition T Shirt featuring a graphic bio-mechanical Deer (reinterpreted from the Box Art) and that oh-so-cool Logo Type!

Scan is part of SOTB Boxs Set selection via Flickr User Pocket Clouds.  “Psygnosis will never die!” … amen to that!  In fact if you remember Psygnosis you might want to check out this superb French tribute site: http://psygnosisamiga.free.fr

Two enchanting Illustrations with an echo of both Tolkien and Tove Jansson, from London based Illustrator Jake Blanchard. See more of Jake’s excellent portfolio at: http://jakeblanchard.co.uk/

First spotted via ffffound.com/cornhustlah

A vintage Astronaut used as the cover of the 1958 first edition of Robert A. Heinlein’s book “Have Space Suit – Will Travel” art is by the late American Illustator Ed Emshwiller

Image sourced from Flickr User Glen Mullaly’s Flickr Photo Stream – http://www.flickr.com/photos/glenmullaly/ not just an avid collector of gorgeous vintage Illustration but a talented artist himself www.glenmullaly.com

– addendum

A little more on the book here: http://is.gd/Z9UF I’ve also added the B&W illustration, a fantastic costume design I reckon.