001 12 Oct 2009
Hello All. You are receiving this either because you added your details to a mailing list on the stand I had at Hitchcon 09 on Sunday or because you have contacted me in the past expressing an interest. If you've changed your mind and would prefer not to receive mailings please reply to that effect and I will remove you from the list. I would like to thank you all for visiting the stand and also a "thank you" to those of you who bought prints. I have never done anything like that before and I only had a lead time of 3 days to prepare so I hope it didn't all seem rather too makeshift ! Another thank you to those who returned for the auction which because the main events were running late did not actually take place till just after 6 pm. My apologies to those who agreed to wait till the delayed time. There were several bidders and the winning bid was £45. I've actually already had a couple of mails asking how long it will be before I add original artwork items to eBay. I do intend to do this as soon as I can get myself sorted out. But I'm afraid I have rather a long list of priorities stacking up at the moment at the top of which is a storyboard for which the client is currently waiting patiently. Hitchcon was rather a last minute desperate interruption to all that stuff so I have some serious catching up to do before I get to sorting out eBay etc. But I will definitely be distributing information that will contain detailed descriptions, pictures, and search references etc whenever I add an item to eBay. Please be a little patient - I will certainly get there before too long but unfortunately I have to keep on trying to make a living ! I had a lot of questions about the nature of the "original artwork". Many find it hard to grasp the notion that there never existed any single assembly of artwork that represents a complete frame from the animation. It was in fact compiled by making multiple exposure passes under the rostrum camera so that any scene might have had as many as 12 or more exposures of various elements that contributed to the final complete frame. That is why the original artwork consists of individual separate elements that were only a part of the final shot. The item that was being auctioned at Hitchcon was the original Rotring tracing on celluloid made from a pencil drawing of Arthur at the point of being ejected from the Vogon airlock. The reason it was so large was that the shot began as a close-up on Arthur's eyes and the scale was governed by how close the rostrum camera could get to the back lighting glass. The tracing was contacted onto Lith film to achieve a clear line on black. This was then back lit with a colour gel and the camera moved away a fraction per frame and the image rotated manually by a fraction per frame. A similar representation of Ford was then treated in similar fashion as a separate exposure run. As there seems to be quite a lot of interest in the technicalities of production I am considering adding an illustrated section to the web site that describes the process we used in detail. Of course those that have the double BBC DVD will have already seen Kevin Davies' excellent section on this in his "The Making Of ..." It was the first time I have done 7" x 5" prints and as they seemed to be quite popular I also intend to add them as an option for ordering prints on the web site. Again, it will take me a little time but I will let you know when they're up there. Some of the prints I had up on the display board ended up as slightly "exhibition soiled" because when peeling off the Velcro stickers from the back a bit of the rear surface peeled away. As I can no longer offer these at full price I will be adding these to eBay as well eventually in an attempt to recoup a little of the rather excessive printing costs involved. One or two of you might also be interested in the 2 A3 sheets on the display that showed the complete selection of images currently available. I'll stick those on as well on the off chance. I have had a bit of criticism in the recent past as some visitors to the web site would have liked to be able to pay for their orders immediately online rather than having to send a cheque or do an online banking transfer. In fact I have actually lost a couple of orders which were cancelled for that reason. So as part of the updating of the site I intend to change the system to go through Paypal rather than the existing rather clunky method. This will require a complete redesign of the Hitch-Hiker section so will take a while to fit in between other stuff. Will let you know. Finally ... 3 visitors to the stand at Hitchcon were kind enough to tell me that they were in the graphics business and that it was the animated graphics in the TV series that inspired them to make their career choices. I am very touched by that notion and another "thank you" to you three for your kind words. It certainly adds a considerable significance to the whole thing that we could never have possibly imagined at the time. I hope none of you have any regrets ! I've rambled on much more than I intended to so another apology for that and I really must dash now to get on with that storyboard that's waiting. I'll only mail again when I have any more info. All the best, and thanks again. Rod |