A few years ago you’d have been hard pressed to muster up much enthusiasm from the general public on the distant topic of Orcs, elves or even the Tardis. But now that everyone’s going bonkers for the new Doctor Who and the Lord of the Rings films have become some of the most successful ever, it seemed the relevant time for the AOI to stage Beyond Imagination – The world of Science Fiction and Fantasy Art.
The old style wooden seated lecture theatre where the seminar took place felt curiously appropriate as Dick Jude introduced the audience to the historical background of the fantastic in art. Dick, who has managed and bought science fiction for twenty years for London’s Forbidden Planet shop, as well as writing books and reviews on the subject, covered cave paintings, the darkly atmospheric engravings of Gustave Doré and the wonderful imaginations of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac before arriving in the 1930’s.
This period opened up science fiction, and the cheap ‘pulp’ novels gave readers easy access to the medium. Horror was mixed up with sci-fi, and the horrification of established tales such as Frankenstien and the Invisible Man – man tampering with man’s condition – caused a suspicious view of science.
Black and white line interior drawings had to be bold to deal with the paper quality, and scraperboard was used to good effect.
Through the 1940’s things had not changed much, but by the1950’s the magazines had a more relaxed approach to sci-fi. Paranoia induced by the Cold War kept the fear of science alive. Chestry Bonestell painted the Conquest of space pictures which, with their realism and sense of space, run through sci-fi from that point on.
Robots are, of course, an iconic device in Sci-fi, and Dick showed a whole range of them, from this period through to Chris Moore’s sexy robots and French illustrator Stéphane Martiniere’s work, little seen here.
Dick’s time line then took the audience through Dan Dare, 2001 A Space Odessy, the loosening up of imagery in the 60’s, the use of photography in the 70’s and the introduction of Star Trek and Star Wars; Roger Dean’s album art for Yes, the airbrush (which several of our following speakers excelled in), and names such as Sid Mead and John Harris.
Work of the speakers to follow was featured amongst the 80’s imagery. Jim Burns’ alien seascapes and Alan Lee’s watercolours were shown along with Rick Berry’s artwork for the Neuromancer novel, the first pixillated cover, and JK Potter’s dark fantasy photo montages.
The 90’s produced more fusions of digital and painted imagery, with more examples from Daryl Anderson, Steve Stone and more of our speakers. Which led appropriately on to Chris Moore.
Credits: Hannes Bok
Chesley Bonestall Conquest of Space
Frank Frazetta Manape
Stéphane Martiniere Cosmo
Roger dean Yes album cover
JK Potter images:
www.geocities.com/skofearna/ potter Chris Moore Chris described himself as a ‘veteran of the business’, revealing that he’d been illustrating since the early seventies. He originally hadn’t been considered sci-fi in terms of his imagery, but moved more in that direction after being asked to create some Philip K Dick book covers for Methuen. Chris’s gleaming futuristic style becoming more recognisable from then on. He discussed how he likes to give the sense that something is happening just outside the frame, and how he introduced slanted horizons for his alien landscape to induce a feeling of euthoria. This is displayed to great effect with The Simulacra by Philip K Dick shown here.
Chris described how he enjoys adding elements of humour into his work – though he’s generally asked to remove them at rough stage. An example of this which had the audience laughing was a first visual for the Shrinking Man which had the main character looking down the front of his trousers with a distressed expression.
He first started using a computer in the mid 90’s, but it has been ‘a love/hate relationship’ even though it has given increased flexibility to creating and changing images. That flexibility also means that publishers expect a lot of changes to be done. He employs a 3D modelling programme which he imports into the more familiar Photoshop. He admits that with the ‘space operas’ the imagery is often the fairly similar, and he had introduced acrylic painting back into his work with a cover for Bloom by Wil McCarty, however the commissioner rejected it, wanting the more familiar Moore smoothness.
Credits: The Simulacra by Philip K Dick
The Complete Roderick by John Sladek
Bloom by Wil McCarty
Original acrylic version of Bloom
Alan Lee 
Writer and broadcaster Brain Sibley joined Alan on the stage, introducing him as ‘the driving force behind the Lord of the Rings trilogy’.
Alan took us through some of his earlier projects such as his famous book Faeries, made in collaboration with Brian Froud. Still in print after original publication in 1978.
Alan has been involved with creating imagery for film makers for a long time, starting with Ridley Scott’s film Legend, where as the concept artist he was producing soft watercolours and sketches to give the film’s writer a pictorial slant. As with all the work he showed us, Alan’s ‘concept’ drawings and paintings are beautiful, showing an ease and mastery of line which few manage to attain. They stand up as individual works regardless of their original intention.
He took us through the variety of things an illustrator can find themselves doing on a feature film, and commented on producing all this work that the viewing public will never see, ‘I consider it quite releasing as you are never going to have to finish it.’
His illustrations of Tolkien’s centenary edition of Lord Of The Rings had caught the attention of director Peter Jackson and he became the conceptual designer for the three films that followed. He designed the buildings, forts and cities and also worked on imagery to help the director and the digital team understand what exploding masonry from buildings would look like, for example. With constant reference to Tolkien’s text everything had to be designed from scratch – from armour to architectural details, and over the six years working on the films he made 2500 pencil drawings and 1000 Photoshop studies for visual effects.
Working with the large team on the trilogy had been a great experience. It was not glamorous, but he misses the social side. ‘There’s a degree of energy and excitement which is difficult to recapture on your own’.
Credits: Brontosaurus stampede - A concept drawing for Peter Jackson's King Kong
Finvarra - Watercolour illustration from Faeries, published in 1978, a collaboration with Brian Froud.
Two images that were done as concept drawings for Ridley Scott's Legend Circa 1983.
Concept drawings for the city of Minas Tirith in The Lord of the Rings films. These, and many other drawings are published in Alan Lee’s The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook published by Harper Collins 2005
Orthanc, from the Centenary edition of the Lord of the Rings
Helms Deep concept painting, in watercolour, for the film trilogy.
Jim Burns 
Jim launched into his presentation singing the praises of Dan Dare, and how as a child growing up in the fifties this character became a major influence, ‘Dan Dare’s creator, Frank Hampson, inspired my visual imagination’. He also discovered an ambition to be a pilot from Sydney Jordan’s Jeff Hawke strip in the Daily Express – an ambition that was eventually realised, ‘Planes were the closest you could get to space machines.’
His space age craft retained a ‘cosiness’, still influenced by the imagery of the 50’s, ‘I can’t do ships like Chris Moore!’ And he continues to employ the airbrush, though he loves to paint in oils. He showed how some textures he has made were done by blowing watercolour through straws. Jim used to read every book he was commissioned to cover, as he enjoyed getting as close as possible to what the author was thinking, but now finds he is less enamoured of the literature.
For models Jim uses found material which is manipulated, or asks family or friends to model. Or combine the two, as he did with the Venus Prime series, where found heads would sit upon his wife’s body. He is encouraged by publishers to sex up his female characters, and told us of an ever dropping spacesuit neckline which his commissioner insisted on for one of the Venus Prime covers.
Jim creates great alien creatures, often animal based, which seems to make them more convincing (and scary), and he likes to design sentient, organic machines. His space craft on the Naked God cover are incredible shapes. He finished up showing some of his fantasy work, a style that he has surprisingly not been commissioned in as much as the sci-fi.
Credits: Venus Prime 4 The Medusa Encounter by Paul Preuss and Arthur C. Clark Published by Avon Books
The Naked God by Peter F. Hamilton Published by Pan Macmillan
Paradox by John Meaney
Ancient Light by Mary Gentle Published by New American Library
Lisa In Space (detail) Private commission from U.S. collector
Terran Derelict (detail) Personal work for a stillborn illustrated book project with Games Workshop
Fred Gambino 
Fred’s slick digital imagery, like Chris Moore, developed out of painting with acrylics, and over the last five years his publishing work has narrowed down to military hardware sci-fi. He showed us how that development happened as he became known for excelling in huge fighter robots.
His early work included 3D models, using chicken wire frames and modelling with insulating foam, though this later developed into sophisticated modelling using computer programmes within which he would build a model for a spacecraft, for example, which could be used on several cover artworks of a series by just changing the viewpoint angle of the craft and generating a different background. Fred includes painterly elements into his work to prevent it becoming too 3D rendered. The applications he uses are mainly Lightwave and Photoshop, with some ZBrush.
For characters in his pictures he asks family of friends to pose for him, and on occasions uses model figures publishers may send him.
He too has worked as a film concept artist, recently on the forthcoming animated feature The Ant Bully. He created concept pieces to establish mood and visualise ideas, helping to establish the look of the original insect characters – who initially looked like insects, but were gradually made less realistic. He was obviously disappointed to see his designs watered down as the process continued, though some elements of his creations survived. Aside from that he found it a great experience and enjoyed working with a close knit group of illustrators on the film.
Credits: Various book covers
Yellow image includes 3D models
Dave Mckean Dave introduced himself with his director’s reel – a short compilation from his animated and directed works, including clips from his recent feature film Mirror Mask. Mixing live action with fantastic animated creatures produced slightly disturbing imagery imaginatively lit.
His work has always been about storytelling, and he read us a tale he’d written and illustrated about the passing on that goes on from parent to child.
Dave has collaborated extensively with writer Neil Gaiman, and they worked together on the Sandman comics for DC which were later collected and published as a book. He then produced his own story in comic form, ‘something from my own world’, which started to draw fan mail – irritatingly enough attempting to pre-empt his storytelling. His solution was to add an incomprehensible section in the next episode, which silenced the assumptions of the fans.
Dave’s recent work embraces several styles, and though he has always used collage, now it created digitally as opposed to the abusing of colour photo copiers to produce images in the past. He combines photography, models and line to produce posters, editorial work, CD packaging for his own record label and advertising. His Mini Cooper adverts were familiar, though lacking his identifiable style.
He has spent the last three years doing children’s work – which suppressed ‘all this psycho sexual energy bubbling away’. This he alleviated with a series of strong, and strange images which had obviously got things out of his system!
Credits: Alchemy of Mirrormask
CD cover Monsters and Robots by Buckethead
Panel discussion The day was rounded up with a question and answer session, with questions ranging from ‘How do you work?’ (Jim – ‘galleons of tea’), to ‘Do you feel your work is compromised?’ (Dave – ‘I’m doing my thing. Some of it is for me, some for other people’). They talked quite extensively about how working digitally had affected them. ‘What I love about computers’, said Alan, ‘is the flow from rough sketch to finish in one continuum,’ and Dave told how he had been put off buying a computer as ‘it was like a pact with the devil...but I loved it. It had everything I wanted to do.’
Drawing skills were discussed, the state of sci-fi publishing and the positive aspects of self publishing. The artists signed books and talked with attendees when the Q & A was over, bringing what had been a really interesting event to a close.
The success of the day was certainly due to the broad range covered by the speakers and their imagery, and the incredible pictures – from Dave’s more personal interior world to Chris’s richly detailed other worlds – left you with a different perspective as you stepped back out into the now more mundane looking city.
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