Site Redesign at Celtic Art & Retro-Futuristic Design

Filed under Web Development, Works in Progress

It’s been about four years since I did a redesign at my flagship site, Celtic Art & Retro-Futuristic Design. Till now, anyway. Last night I updated the site with a new look and a wider format layout that will better acommodate the continuously growing content that’s been trying to bust out of the pages.

Over the years, that site’s been laid out to work in a browser window that’s 640 pixels wide (2002), 800 pixels wide (2005), and now 1024 pixels wide (2009). It’s always looked good, but each time it’s looked good, well, better.

I can’t let the width grow until I’m inconveniencing a very small percentage of the site’s visitors. Which is, well, now. I watch the stats on my visitors and I can see that very, very few of them are now running their displays at less than 1024 x 768.

Truth to tell, I’m still tinkering with the new version a bit. But that’s normal.

See what you think!

Mabel, the Robot Waitress

Filed under Works in Progress

After a long, long hiatus I’ve just finished up a character I’ve been thinking about for years, though I only started working on her last December. She’s Mabel, a robot waitress.

Mabel’s supposed to remind you of that kind of waitress who’s been on her feet for the last forty-five years and still hasn’t had a foot massage. She’s a little cranky, maybe, and both well- and probably ill-used. She reminds me, in fact, of the hostess at a coffee shop I lived near in Los Angeles’ Silverlake neighborhood. There was fake leopardskin. There was big hair.

Anyhow, Mabel ought properly to be skating around the diner on the right: it’s a scene I started, in fact, when I was still living in that neighborhood and which I haven’t finished yet. Maybe I will, this year, now that I’ve got Mabel ready to inhabit it.

But in the meantime I have another five characters to skin – probably my least favorite task – and I’ll likely try to make some headway there. On the other hand I know that if I try to skin them all my head will explode, so there’s just a chance that I’ll escape to the diner someplace in there, too. The head thing makes such an awful mess.

You Say Mad Scientist… I Say Grumpy Visionary

Filed under Works in Progress

It’s all relative in the Secret Laboratory. And until I finish the Annihilator Ray you can call me what you like – but I still prefer “Demented Iconoclast” or “Grumpy Visionary”. Now, just sit still and let’s get started, shall we?

“Demented Iconoclast”, “Bent Inventor”, and “Lab Loon” are also good, of course. But if you must persist with the Mad Scientist thing, make it DOCTOR Mad Scientist, would you?

This began its life as a T-Shirt design for the Retropolis Transit Authority. Then it achieved sentience, climbed out of the tank, and ate a lab assistant. All in all, quite a successful experiment!

(Also on posters, coffee mugs, greeting cards, and blank books.)

“Finest Quality Airship Ballast” T-Shirts at the Retropolis Transit Authority

Filed under Works in Progress

While the plum job on an airship is – of course – the Captaincy, with that cool hat and the riding crop, there are any number of other important and prestigious positions on the airships of Retropolis.

Cooks, for example. The crews who swarm over the gas bags and make speedy repairs. The stewards who serve travellers and empty the ashtrays in the pigskin-lined smoking compartments. Cabin boys. You get it.

And then, of course, the incredibly important and yet underappreciated job we celebrate here today. Because at some point, just about any airship needs to gain altitude in a big hurry. And there are only so many ways to do that. So here, salute the unsung heroes of the skyways: Ballastmen. Provided at reasonable rates by Geo. Postlethwaite and Sons. No returns; sorry!

This is once again a T-Shirt design for my Retropolis Transit Authority site. Providing uniforms for Ballastmen since, oh, about twenty minutes ago.

Cover Preview for Warren Ellis’ Ignition City, due out this Spring from Avatar Press

Filed under Found on the Web

Warren Ellis has posted Gianluca Pagliarini’s pencil art for the cover to issue #1 of Ignition City, due out next spring.

Ignition City‘s a comics project I’ve been looking forward to since its original announcement – it’s described as a sort of unholy union of Flash Gordon and Deadwood, with disillusioned retrofuturist heroes drowning their sorrows, kicking cans, and swearing up a storm in a retro future that isn’t quite as pleasant as we might like. Sounds like loads of fun to me.

There’s also an ongoing thread at Ellis’ Whitechapel forum with concept art, designs, and yet another cover preview. Let the countdown begin!

The Future – It’s Not What it Used to Be

Filed under Works in Progress

It’s true enough: we were so good at imagining the future, once upon a time, that even though we’ve ended up with some pretty great things our present just can’t compare with the future we thought we were getting. Would you REALLY rather have an Ipod than a jet pack?

But on the other hand, we’ve gradually been freeing ourselves from some of that social baggage whose weight keeps us dragging our heels through the turnstiles of the future. So since we can nearly see our way ahead to the days when the metallic content – or the color – of our outer selves won’t make a pig’s whisker of a difference to anyone, maybe we’re getting a better bargain than it seems we are, when we dwell on that whole flying car thing.

And that’s the dichotomy I like about this picture. On its own shiny and colorful outer self it’s about one thing, but it could just as easily be about another. And whichever way you choose to see it, it’s always “Not what it used to be”.

This is yet another T-shirt design for my Retropolis Transit Authority site, among other things. Like a coffee mug, poster, greeting cards, and blank books.

New Robot Model, with a Turntable Animation

Filed under Computer Graphics, Works in Progress

(Revised, Nov. 29)

I’m finishing up a new robot character that I’m calling the “Myrmidon” – which, depending on your preference, makes him either an ant or an Homeric warrior. Actually I don’t think either of those is quite right, so we may need to add another definition.

At this point I’ve rendered out a turntable animation to make it easier to find the last little tweaks I want to make, after which I need to set him up with a skeleton and skin him. It. Whatever.

Click through if you’d like to see the animation (about 13.5 megabytes).

No! This is NOT Rocket Science

Filed under Works in Progress

This is a natural counterpoint to my “This IS Rocket Science” T-Shirt design (both are available at the Retropolis Transit Authority) – and, taken together, they’re a handy way to make it absolutely clear to anyone which things are, and which are not. Or, if for instance the poster versions are hung in the same room, they can make many people sort of short circuit and start drooling. Which is also pretty interesting to watch.

As always, or at least as, well, often, this one’s also available on mugs, greeting cards, and blank books.

Ferriss Moto-Man: the Retro Robot You Didn’t Know You Needed

Filed under Works in Progress

Let me just dust things off here for a moment… yep, that’s dust. I’ll put it… there.

I know it’s been quiet in here lately, and that’s not completely my own idea, honest. But in spite of everything I’ve just finished a new design for t-shirts, blank books, a poster, greeting cards, and whatnot. Whatnot = mugs and stuff.

This is a Retropolitan advertisement for the Mark II version of Ferriss Moto-Man’s Big Lug robot. He’s a handsome and very durable heavy-duty robot who’s perfect for any task you’ve got, provided that task doesn’t need more brainpower than you’d find in your average Pomeranian. He’s big and he’s useful, but he’s not the brightest bulb on the chain, if you know what I mean. But cheer up – he’s Entirely Safe When Used As Directed. Like me, that is, and probably like you too.

Awesometastic Pulp Magazine Covers

Filed under Found on the Web

I’m sort of incommunicado this month and won’t likely be posting much of anything new, but these are too good not to share:

Here’s a whole collection of great old pulp magazine covers posted at a collectors’ forum. Everything from detective fiction to science fiction, westerns, war stories and whatnot. Some great, great stuff.

I found it through a post by Mark Seifert of Avatar Press at the Whitechapel Forums, in this equally nifty thread there. Canny readers may note that I infiltrated it with one of my own neo-pulp posters.