I got a new computer! After my laptop kept freezing and getting unbearably slow and finally decided it wouldn't connect to the internet I went down to the shop and got something newer. It's not state of the art but it's better than what I was using. These are some roughs for the Robot Museum short piece.
I'm heading out for the weekend, my friend Bruce is getting married in the woods, not outside though.I've been having computer problems so I'm sorry it's taking so long to respond to stuff. At the moment I'm crouched in awkward position in the living room because this is the only place I can get in the internet.I'm also dealing with a couple of deadlines. I've been doing a short Robot Museum piece for Scholastic, I have to have sketches and an updated script done by Monday. Also, the kids I teach are in finals, throw in the book launch and it's a pretty busy time right now. Times like this I just want to sit around and read a book.I'll post more about the Scholastic thing next week. This picture is a bit of a break from the Robot Museum. It's Kathleen, a character from the science fiction book Slan by A E Van Vogt, one of my favorite books. Great epic scale space opera. He was Canandian too. Next week I'm going to relax and treat myself to an Indiana Jones Matinee. Have a great weekend.
Originally made as a toy for children, these tiny antiques flutter about the Museum and the forest outside. The Museum originally purchased fifty but now they seem to number in the hundreds as lost and forgotten Feebots find their way to the Museum. At night the in the forest you can see them gliding about, their lit bellys casting a weird greenish glow.
Once the most popular model, the Hausbot was seen everywhere. Hausbot was the ultimate in brass servants. Since the Lokmek corporation has been given the full monopoly on robot construction, the day of the unique, custom robot has passed.
Catbot is about one hundred years old. No ones knows what it is for.
Astrobot would wait patiently in the spaceship as it hurtled through the galaxy waiting to clamber out and fix anything that broke or got hit by meteors outside. This robot was found orbiting Pluto, no one knows how he got there.
Created to withstand harsh conditions, Egbot has seen some of the worst environments in the Galaxy. It is outfitted with tools for any situation. Egbot is the toughest robot there is. Now it clomps sadly through the Museum. It would tell stories but it's voice systems are broken and you can't get those parts anymore.
Once the robotic servants of royalty two centuries ago, there is only one working Mimbelbot known to exist and it resides in the Robot Museum. Helpful, polite and strange, you can hear it's feet clunking loudly down the corridors.
Once it seemed that everyone had a Potbot. They floated along the city streets in huge numbers, they were in every office and home. They made the world seem strange and mysterious, these ornate clock-work looking robots. No two were exactly alike. Now, sadly, they are relagated to museums as the last one was made over 40 years ago. People say they still float around abandoned deep space colonies, waiting for someone to return so that it can take notes, run errands or record stories. They are best at recording stories.
Here is the key holder to the robots at the Museum. I'm going to concentrate more on the Robot Museum comic book over the next few months. Here's the plan: I'm going to work on the Museum while I do odd illustration jobs over the Spring and Summer. I'll post on my progress as I go. Plus I figured out how robot brains work! Photons! I just had my first mad scientist moment. I'll be reposting some robots so you can see all the robots together.
The Flobot holds the keys to other robots and computer systems. This stationary robot takes commands and passes them on to other systems, a sort of hub for artificial intelligence. Flobots are about the size of a car. They talk slowly and consider every word. They enjoy games with numbers.
This is a fairly definitive drawing of the Mimbelbot model, although all the robot models have many variations. I imagine that when it walks slowly it wobbles but when it runs it's steady and fast. I'm going through all the robots and doing definitive versions. The robots in the museum all come from a golden age of robotics. The golden age follows the first wave of deep space exploration and ends at the outbreak of war on the deep space colonies, which is a period of about one hundred and fifty years. I'm considering putting together a booklet of sketches called The Golden Age Of Robotics and selling it online.
Here's Quentin and Nora again. Quentin is working on the robot, he has telekinetic abilities so he can take apart the rivets and wires. I like the colour scheme here, I was suprised when I painted this. I thought the museum would have very different colours, much cooler. I was pleased with this one because it it let me understand this world a bit better. I have the outline of a script done that I'm pretty happy with. I was having problems because I haven't done comics in a while, mostly picture books which have extremely simple narratives which wouldn't work in an extended, all ages story. It helped to read a lot of Science Fiction. I'm finishing up a portfolio piece right now and doing pencil drawings exploring the world of the Robot Museum. I have school and library visits coming up which I have to admit I find terribly stressful. I always have fun but I find these events hard to plan. How do you guys plan these things? Do you plan them at all?
By the way, which Uncle Gilbert do you all like better?
Linda at Sketched Out(
http://sketchedout.wordpress.com/)wanted to know what an earlier version of Uncle Gil looked like. This is another idea for the character, not terribly different, but much larger. I imagined him at one point to be an ex-boxer who had let himself go. I liked the visual impact of a mountainous man moving in a cloud of pipe smoke.
Thank you so much, Alicia.
Here's the latest version of the Robot Museum. I'm quite happy with this one. I want it to reflect a number of ideas or concepts, some of which don't obviously go together. I wanted a vision of the future that is optimistic, a 1950's future. A sort of land of tomorrow look. But I also want it to look like a gothic castle. A bit brooding and creepy. I like that it is somewhat isolated on an island and I based some of the look after medieval and victorian castles. I also wanted something a little strange and organic so I've been looking at Hunterwasser'd architecture, who is a 20th century architect who was in opposition to the angular modern style. Finally, I wanted the materials that it's constructed out of to look earthy, so I gave them a yellowish sienna tone. The museum is in a harbour where there is a city, so it's not that isolated but can certainly feel that way. The ball at the very top is supposed to function like a lighthouse light or a light-tower for airplanes.
Here's a new sketch of the museum. I'm working on a colour version right now, and I'll post it when I'm done.
Hee's another Robot Museum sketch. Nora is the eleven year old daughter of the museum's curator. I'm having fun with the look, although it's about robots the pallette is very warm and earthy. The architecture is influenced by Hundertwasser, with big curving shapes and colourful accents.
This is Quentin with a mimbelbot behind him. Quentin is a transgenic creature, part human and part telekinetic alien squid. This type of creature was created for the task of robot mechanic. It's telekinetic abilities allows it to take apart and manipulate the robots without touching them. These creatures are fairly expensive and the museum could only afford one.
This is a new design for the Robot Museum. Previously, the Museum was in a sort of park in the middle of the city and had a bright, cheery look. Here I wanted something darker and more isolated looking. Now it's an island, complete with it's own light house. It's built right into the stone of the island. It's usually reached by Aeroscraft. I'm a big fan of lighter than air travel, check this sight out : http://www.aerosml.com/Aeroscraft%20Info.asp
Cabal the dog is braver than lions. He's braver than elephants and braver than generals. But, I discovered last night, he doesn't like thunderstorms, and turns into a worried two-year old child when the lightning strikes and the thunder roars. Which is why I got
very little sleep in the small hours of last night.
Anyway...
The email from Paramount that came in earlier today contained good news --
Stardust opened at Number 1 in Russia, and took 3 million already -- and bad news -- we were Number 4 on Friday night in the USA and took 3 million. Which means, it went on, that the projections are that we'll easily break $100 million internationally; and that as the majority of US reviews are good to excellent*, and the exit polls they've done on people coming out are as good as could be hoped for, that
Stardust will hang around for a little while longer in the US (which is, after all, about 40% of the theatrical market) and hope that word of mouth does what the ad campaign has significantly failed to do.
* Stardust reviews can be read athttp://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/stardust(Although the review collections leave out the NPR review at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12688902which I like mostly because it describes it as reminding him of
the Princess Bride with a healthy dollop of Blackadder.)
There's a fascinating article about
Stardust and
The Princess Bride, and about how Paramount marketing seem to have come a cropper on the same pitfalls that
The Princess Bride did:
Meanwhile as an author, the thing I found strangest last night was being able to watch people, more or less in real time, come out of the cinemas and go on to Amazon and order a copy of
Stardust in one edition or another. There's a new Amazon Feature which rates the most popular items for an author individually rather than lumped together, and as I type this there are four editions of Stardust in the top five of my things on there (with the audio book of
Stardust now in my Amazon top twenty -- hurrah!)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/15213/....
Could you, by any chance, post the mole footage? I know it seems silly, but of all the animals I've seen living in Minnesota (foxes, deer, bears, minks, otters, grouse, pheasants, giant snapping turtles, chipmunks, bald eagles and a few pelicans), I've never actually seen a mole. I feel very curious about the look of the thing.
Sure -- let me see if I can figure out how to put it up here directly through blogger without putting it onto youtube or something first. It's just film from an old phone, and it's small to begin with.
...
I really enjoyed this presentation and annotation, by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, of a letter from an Australian bookselling chain who think they deserve more money from small publishers, so are trying to charge them for the privilege of being stocked, and the reply from an irate but sensible publisher:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/009263.html...
So a few months ago I noticed that things had stopped working. The Slingbox. Various computers. The house network didn't do what it used to. Something was wrong.
I got the electrician who had redone the junction box, where all the cat 5 cables come out to the house, while I was away. "You did it wrong," I told him. "Everything worked before you came." He inspected all the cabling and told me, no, it was all fine.
It wasn't fine. A couple of computers were okay, but the rest of them couldn't get on to the network. Even the network printer didn't work.
Yesterday he came back and we tried to figure out what was wrong.
"I don't understand it," he said. "I mean, I hooked them all up right..."
I went on to the web and checked what where the Cat 5 cable wires are meant to go. There was a huge illustrated colour diagram showing all the different wires, orange and green and blue and brown and their stripy equivalents, and where they fit in the head. "So you did them like this?" I asked.
"Er..." and he looked, and he checked. "No. No, I didn't." It turned out he'd put them in in an order of his own devising. The strange thing was that a couple of the computers had managed to get on the network anyway, despite that.
So he put all the wires where they should have been. As if by magic, things started working...
Except for the Linux computer in the attic, which can no longer find the network.
...
And for those of you looking for your own falling stars...
I don't know if you're aware of it or will even be in the right circumstances to watch it, but tomorrow (Sunday) night around 11ish to Monday morning 6ish the Perseids are making their appearance. The peak of Perseids will be during the predawn period Monday. The professionals are saying it will be a wonderful shower with a lack of moonlight and the shower peaking at 80 meteors per hour. Even Mars will enjoy the show. Anyway, I thought this would be something you'd enjoy.
By: Eric Orchard,
on 6/4/2008
Originally made as a toy for children, these tiny antiques flutter about the Museum and the forest outside. The Museum originally purchased fifty but now they seem to number in the hundreds as lost and forgotten Feebots find their way to the Museum. At night the in the forest you can see them gliding about, their lit bellys casting a weird greenish glow.
Created to withstand harsh conditions, Egbot has seen some of the worst environments in the Galaxy. It is outfitted with tools for any situation. Egbot is the toughest robot there is. Now it clomps sadly through the Museum. It would tell stories but it's voice systems are broken and you can't get those parts anymore.
Once the robotic servants of royalty two centuries ago, there is only one working Mimbelbot known to exist and it resides in the Robot Museum. Helpful, polite and strange, you can hear it's feet clunking loudly down the corridors.
Once it seemed that everyone had a Potbot. They floated along the city streets in huge numbers, they were in every office and home. They made the world seem strange and mysterious, these ornate clock-work looking robots. No two were exactly alike. Now, sadly, they are relagated to museums as the last one was made over 40 years ago. People say they still float around abandoned deep space colonies, waiting for someone to return so that it can take notes, run errands or record stories. They are best at recording stories.
Here's a new sketch of the museum. I'm working on a colour version right now, and I'll post it when I'm done.
This is a new design for the Robot Museum. Previously, the Museum was in a sort of park in the middle of the city and had a bright, cheery look. Here I wanted something darker and more isolated looking. Now it's an island, complete with it's own light house. It's built right into the stone of the island. It's usually reached by Aeroscraft. I'm a big fan of lighter than air travel, check this sight out : http://www.aerosml.com/Aeroscraft%20Info.asp
By: Neil Gaiman,
on 8/10/2007
Well... the computers now are not so good as your robots!!!...they have a short life.
These project looks amazing! :)
Thanks Kalo! Yeah, good point!
congrats for your new computer :) interesant project... I want to see more!
Thanks Manoli! I didn't recognize you by your new profile picture...
thanks for stop'n by my blog.
it's great seeing other peoples roughs. you get to see a bit of their thought process. much respect.
Thanks C.B.!
Wonderful!
You are a finest illustrator
Pagas
Thanks Pagas!
Nice, Eric. And fun new toy! (Yeah, expensive toy, but fun, anyway! :-)
Thanks Jennifer! Surprisingly cheap to be honest...
I always dig your roughs mr orchard.
Thanks JP! ( "MR. Orchard? Yeesh!)
Eric,
what exactly are you doing for Scholastic with the Robot Museum and how did you make the connection with them?
i love the robot portraits. they are what drew me to your site a few months ago.
Thanks Joe!
The Scholastic thing is actually with Scholastic Education. So it'll be a 12 page Robot museum story written and illustrated by me. I met a Scholastic editor at a book expo in Toronto and they approached me about the museum project after the editorial staff had seen some of it on my blog. I made sure I own all rights and can take the story elsewhere if Scholastic Trade division isn't interested in doing a larger work.
I plan a graphic novel of about 100 pages.
I was hesitant to sign with scholastic Education because the book will only be available through schools but I sought the advice of people like James Gurney and Patrick O'Brien and they assured me it was a good move.
Hmm.. a bit longer than I had meant it to be...
thats awesome though!
man, i hope that pans out for you in a big way. im sure its an honor to have someone take interest in your labor of love.
It is, thanks Joe!
Though when I think about all the work involved it sure seems like a steep slope to climb!
Beautiful rough Eric! I love the sketch of the crowd you have there. It is beautiful as it is :o)
Thanks Alicia! i love this part of doing a project, it's so loose and fun.
nice! roughs are always so much fun to see, of course the general public doesn't like to see "unfinshed" works
cheers~
Congrats on the new 'baby' - that sure can make a wonderful difference!
And I was tickled at your Scholastic story - how cool! And through your blog too. Good for you.
Thanks Dan!
Thanks Tara! I'll fill in all the gaps in that story in a couple of days.
AAAAH first glimpse of robot comic :O WAAAAH it's so exciting!!!!
Best of luck with the new computer.
Ahh! It's happening!! Slowly!!
It's full on now, which is great, but it's starting to look daunting.