John’s notebook

John Vernon Lord sent us these fabulous images from his notebook.  It includes a wonderful set of illustrated palindromes and if you don’t know what a palindrome is then shame on you and go look it up.  For those unaware of the legendary Mr. Lord or think he used to play keyboards for Deep Purple rather than having designed one of their iconic album covers then enjoy these fabulous offerings!

WORLDVIEW by James Ledger

Having acquired a decade of skills in the fields of concept art and graphic design, I couldn’t resist putting myself to the ultimate test of creating an entire world inspired by my own imagination. It’s every kid’s dream, right?

After a few months of extremely careful and realistic calculations, I decided that the time had come for me to unleash some magic and get my very first art book underway, with the intention of kicking off a series of art books to follow. “Worldview” is going to be released as a (100+page) print-on-demand product through Amazon’s CreateSpace, and also as a digital e-book.

Works in progress:

My goal is to complete all of the art and have the book ready to print over the course of a year, release date December 2018. My first book is intended to inspire and provoke imagination to all who get their hands on it; other artists, film makers, writers, or those who simply enjoy escaping into the world of science fiction.

Who will my book be relevant to?
Anyone with a love for industry-standard sci-fi digital art! Though I am already being supported by a large number of professional and hobbyist artists from around the world, there is a heavy influx of interest coming from parts of the general public who simply love escaping into the realms of science fiction.

Work in progress:

Who am I?
I’m a well-established concept artist who’s been working as a freelancer in the entertainment industry for over 10 years. You can see samples of my previous work here – my portfolio

Follow me on Facebook to receive daily updates and sneak previews on the creation of “WORLDVIEW”.

Mucha disappointed

The Walker gallery in Liverpool are currently hosting an Alphonse Mucha art exhibition and for the sum of £7 (£5 cons.) you can pop in and have a look around. It also includes a 5 minute video by his great grandaughter actress Tamsin Omond.

However, if you’re expecting to find a treasure trove of Alphonse Mucha original paintings in this art exhibition you will be sorely disappointed as most of what is on display are just prints, large prints maybe, but still prints, not the originals. The four originals included are three rough sketches and a study, hardly a collection worthy of such a great artist as Alphonse Mucha. The Alphonse Mucha exhibition is not massively large and clearly they ran out of prints, let alone originals, since a massive Burns Jones adorns much of the last part of the far wall … and there’s a Mackintosh artbook on the bench for some reason. Oh I see, that’s Art Nouveau as well so let’s throw it in. I was really very surprised to find a major art gallery hosting an exhibition by a famous artist like Alphonse Mucha with so little original work on display. The prints may be old but they are barely antiques by anyone’s standards and one or two have seen better days too.

Clearly it is all about making money nowadays and if we can get the public to pay for looking at a load of art prints why bother trying to get an exhibition of original artwork together? Pleasant enough to look at but ultimately rather disappointing and disillusioning. I think the Walker Gallery should really have done better than this.  In fact, you’d probably be better off spending your money on an art print you can keep forever by looking here.

A New Mad Hatter pops up for tea!

Brian Savory is usually more interested in old Victorian buildings, or in fact any buildings really apart from “modern monstrosities”, when it comes to subject matter for art but every now and then he dives off into fantasy as with this wonderful take on Tenniel’s rendition of the Mad Hatter, who I’m sure needs no introduction now taht pretty much every generation knows of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ since the advent of the two blockbuster films starring Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. To see more of Brian Savory’s art just click here.

To see Alice in Wonderland art prints by Sir John Tenniel just click on the Mad Hatter image itself.

To see Alice in Wonderland Limited Edition fine-art prints by Rodney Matthews click here.

DESTINY in 3D

Captain Scarlet - Destiny

Captain Scarlet - Destiny

Over the years we have heard of all sorts of uses people have made of art prints and posters etc bought from us at Artists UK. Some have used them as a basis for having tattoos done or to spray-design their bikes.  One of our customers has gone a step better and made a model based on the print he bought from us, as you can see above. To find out how this modeller went about it just read on dudes and dudesses …

THE MAKING OF DESTINY

by Peter Miller

I design, build and fly radio controlled models. I have done this for years. Occasionally I develop a sadomasochistic streak and design a model that will stretch my skills and patience a little. More importantly,
it will make those who build from my published plans shudder at the thought of all the extra work and complication.

Over the years I have designed a series of these more complex designs, all named after the Angels from Captain Scarlet and have I just started on the last one, Destiny.  For this model I wanted a very special pilot and when I saw the picture of Destiny on the Artists UK website I knew that I had found it. I spent quite a lot of time working out how to create the bust. My artistic skills do not extend to sculpting it from scratch.

I performed a lobotomy on one commercial pilot figure which provided the basic bonedome. This had the areas cut away for the transparent panels. I then ground away to create a rebate for the panels. Now that was masochistic I can tell you, the head is only just over 1” tall when finished and the rebate is tiny but in the end I got the panels installed.

The other pilot’s head also suffered a lobotomy and then some plastic surgery to make it more like a female face than the original rather expressionless character who looked like an overtired budget airline pilot.  The hair presented more of a problem but we modellers are an ingenious lot so one Wednesday morning saw me touring the toy shops in my local town with a pair of vernier calipers measuring dolls heads. I am used to getting strange looks.

Eventually I found what I wanted in the local pound shop. That was a relief! You wouldn’t believe the prices that they want for some of the dolls of the size I needed?  The young lady in question suffered the indignity of being scalped but the hair worked after a bit of trimming and setting with clear varnish. The the parts were assembled and the assembly was duly painted up including the tiny badge etc.

The final touch was to make a pair of sunglasses out of soldered up 30 amp fuse wire and adding the lenses.
I must admit that after looking at the completed figure I realised that the sunglasses need to have the lenses tinted. Those eyes do not look calm or happy. Maybe someone has told her about my flying.

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