We have put up another 3 minute sketches to final video on YouTube.
The main purpose of these isn't so much to show "how to draw", but to show that the really, really rough starting sketch is a part of the design process, and not indicative of the final quality work.
They are rough because we cannot afford to spend a lot of time refining the initial starting concept, as it may not be the one used. To put that another way, if the initial sketches were refined, the customer would have to pay for several finished illustrations, rather than the one they want.
The instrumental music in this is also unlike most of our stuff, in that it doesn't have any guitar in it. It is all Arturia Arp2600 VST and drums, all put together in Reaper using a Roland Midi Keyboard Controller.
They combine our original music with samples of our graphics, how they were made, or a demo of some technical article from our main website, Art & Technology.
Currently the most played video shows initial rough sketches, a few progress steps and the final illustration for a series of our car caricatures.
But that changes. Not always the same.
I find it interesting that these get played far more than just the soundtracks on SoundCloud. That is really because most of the video have an educational "how To" aspect to them, especially the ones that accompany the articles on the website.
I have visited Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, CCRMA, pronouced karma, and met John Chowning several times. During the Tokyo ICMC I was even a bit of a translator at a restaurant with him and a few other attendees.
He invented FM Synthesis, which Yamaha then went off to refine and eventually produce the Yahama DX-7. The biggest selling synthesiser until the Korg M1 hit.
John of course is a composer, and has been in the Academic Computer Music world for a long time, and the CD he gave me was of his works..... this isn't pop music.....
I spent years in Music Technology R&D and attended the International Computer Music Conferences and AES trade shows, and a few others.....
You probably didn't notice me as I kept a very low profile. One of those that did know who I was was Dave Smith, of Sequential Circuits fame, even though he was at Korg R&D at that time.
This is a really interesting talk on Dave Smith's history and what he has been involved with.
I have some parallels with some of that in my own career..... details here
This 3 minute track is mostly ARP2600V from Arturia with some drums and guitar. Fun bouncy, happy.... put together in Reaper. The distorted wha guitar is the only thing similar to many of our other tracks...
The surfing suited Astronaut makes what fun and what sun a bit clearer.... and we did have Dark Star and the Red Dwarf ending theme "fun fun fun in the sun sun sun" in mind too....
What it points out though, as even if you can do everything, produce a great product, have complete artistic control, you still need connections to get out to an audience.
You might have the most brilliant material, in whatever field your in, but no one will know about it without help. Joe's break was his album was used, AND credited when played, in the Winter Olympics broadcasts that year.
Even with the self publishing options now, we all still have the same problem of discovery, and the problem that MOST people don't go and find new stuff. They wait for someone else to do the mining and refining and point it out for them.
And I don't have the answer to that. Wish I did.
Don't have a 16 step sequence to follow.....
Joe says you need to tell your story, as that has impacted on what you create.
Now you tell your story through your works, which in my own case is quite a mixed bag of things. You are a combination of you influences, cultures exposed to and discoveries.
I'm one that has always drawn pictures and made things. And in the process of growing up with influences like Astroboy and Thunderbirds have also seen technology as a future hope. Something that Science Fiction, and not fantasy, has also contributed too, as have the hi tech motor sports of CAN-AM, Le Mans and high end drag racing and custom vehicles. But due to the influence of music, the electric guitar and audio, took me to university studies in electronics and software, and not car design.
And the music of Dr Who puts another unusual twist on things. The theme music for Who is probably one of our oldest musical influences. And then Deep Purple took us in another direction, where Machine Head is still one of our favourites, but don't forget the car cartooning of Ed Roth or Dave Deal, or design of Tom Daniel.
Now professionally I ended up being involved with music production and instrument design at Fairlight Instruments Australia and Roland Japan for a while. Cutting edge electronics and firmware development in fact. One being used in making some versions of the Dr Who theme, as it turns out, but that didn't stop me drawing and being involved in the graphics arts too. A lot ends up being vehicle centric. And I'm not an employee of an instrument company now.
I spent a long time living and working in Japan in a synthesiser company, that also took me around the world and to non synthesiser things. About half my working life in Japan in fact. In Japan, design is also very important. Comics are also not just kids stuff there, and that visual communication is also very significant in how we work now.
All comes down to Art and Technology in the end, and both are a studio based, crafted activity to us.
We do freelance, technical, illustration and design work, and people generally find us at our website.
