Finished at Last!!

Come and see 'Command Centre' (and other work) in G's Shed as part of Richmond ARThouse Open Studios Exhibition.

For details see:

www.gscholes.com

Here I've been experimenting with different toggle switch images, trying to reduce a complex chrome plated switch into just three colours. Tricky. Decided to settle on four colours to create the illusion. I did want to use chrome effect paint to give it that fake metallic look but it's weird stuff. When you look at it at one angle, it appears lighter in contrast to it's neighbouring colour, move your head slightly and it suddenly becomes darker.  Not helpful.

Following a major cock-up in positioning the speaker grille too low down, I have now put the telephone handset to the left of the panel and repositioned the radar. I suppose that kind of error is inevitable when you leave a project for too long. Or is it to do with the amount of paint I am spraying up my nose? Anyway... resisting the temptation to throw the whole painting in the bin, I persevered and got to the stage pictured above. More work on the radar and I'll be a happy man. 

 

Made good progress with the design of the instruments for 'Command Centre' last weekend.  This was spurred on by a visit to Sandown Toy Fair in Esher, Surrey. I like to call it 'Research'. Sandown is a huge collection of fantastic toys, nice people selling them and a cash machine conveniently in the foyer. Now that's a dangerous combination! I must have spent four hours looking at hundreds of brightly-coloured objects until my eyes stopped working. My wallet took a beating too. I bought an interesting book 'Future Toys' which is packed with quality photos of space-related tin litho stuff, and a 1960's Japanese tin toy fighter plane that has great cockpit interior detail. 

Looking at this stuff I suppose what I love about the artwork (on the toy and on the box) is that even if it is badly drawn/printed it has it's own charm, a kind of childlike innocence. It looks like children had designed and decorated these toys for themselves. Unfettered imagination. Wonderful. 

Well..what happened there?...It must be 8 months since I last updated this blog. Blimey. Anyway...I'm back on track and I've added a few more instruments to the 'Command Centre' mock-up (pictured above) and the design is really starting to take shape. I made some sketches of cockpit and control panels during a recent visit to the Imperial War Museum and developed the drawings in Adobe Illustrator. At the moment I am working on the design for a classic radar screen image - the kind you see in war films where the submarine radar operator stares anxiously at a line that sweeps round a circular green screen. Trying to make sense of the 'green porridge' I think they call it. 

How to make it stand out?...green fluorescent paint? Luminous? Can you get luminous paint in aerosol spray?  Submarines, radar and luminous paint..now that's going to send my mind off on another thousand tangents... 

Had a break since July and only managed to do a few colours of the central instrument - the ' navigation computer'. This was a bit tricky as it was very detailed in parts and registering the colours was difficult especially when small areas of the blue coat peeled off when removing layers of masking tape! Not too worried about it though, as the end result is supposed to be slightly off-register in keeping with the original printing method. That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Started on the artwork this week. Below shows the initial stages of trying out different images of gauges, locating their positions and working out colour schemes. Looked at a couple of books on vintage toys to get a rough idea of the kind of colour combinations that are used. The toy industry isn't afraid of using mad colours - lime green tanks with chrome tracked wheels?! Fantastic. Used Illustrator on the Mac to compose the drawings but I like to use felt pens to experiment with colour. Whenever I use felt pens I always think about this character I used to see wandering around Burnley, in the 70's, who wore a couple of mexican bandelero bullet belts across his chest. Instead of ammo, the belts were full of felt-tipped pens! I've no idea what the hell he was up to but, hey...great idea.