David Chelsea's Blog, page 38

Icosahedral Perspective: Anny’s House

Here is an example of the kind of 360º perspective I was doing just before I began drawing and painting on spheres. This drawing of my sister Anny’s living room is from 1994.

David Chelsea is reading:

Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants That Time Has Left Behind

by Richard Fortey

Anny's House Drawing flat

I was inspired by seeing Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion World Globe projected onto a twenty-sided icosahedron to try the equivalent in perspective- an entire 360° visual field as seen from one point in space, drawn onto twenty triangles to form a continuous image. Space does not allow a detailed explanation of the perspective construction, but each of the six vanishing points in the scene is located on the midpoint of an edge between two triangular faces.

Anny's House drawing folded into icosahedron

I only did a handful of icosahedron drawings because I got tired of the difficulties involved. Each of the twenty triangles has its own perspective, and it’s extremely difficult getting objects to line up over the gaps. Eventually I figured out a method of spherical perspective, which was much simpler to draw.

Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Globe

You can view a large version of the original drawing here at Flickr.

Flickr panorama

One drawback to both spherical and icosahedral perspective is that while the image is drawn as if it were traced on the inside surface of the ball or icosahedron, because of size considerations the drawing can only be viewed on the object’s outer surface. Fortunately, the experience of viewing the image under ideal conditions can be simulated in Flickr. Through a complicated process involving CGI, I was able to convert the drawing to an equirectangular panorama which can be viewed immersively here.

By the way, the baby in the picture is Anny’s son Ivan, now a a gifted musician who is a sophomore at the University Of Chicago. Here is a video of him singing his composition Marigold with Angelica Garcia .

Blog post about spherical perspective

Another one.

RIP, Reverend Sun Myung Moon:

Modern Love Illustration for the New York Times, 2005

David Chelsea is listening to:

Steve Jobs

by Walter Isaacson

The Kids Movie: Another Preview

Thumbnail

Five stages of a panel for backup story in the forthcoming Snow Angel comic:

David Chelsea is watching:

The Simpsons: The Fourteenth Season

Pencil rough

Line drawing

Watercolor layer

Final art

Just Out: The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes

Slight correction to that last post about my three-part comics story The Girl With The Keyhole Eyes; I had thought the first installment would appear in Issue #15 of Dark Horse Presents in September, but actually it appeared in Issue #15, which came out a few days ago. Hopefully your local comics retailer still has some copies left.

David Chelsea is reading:

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

by Robert A. Caro

The second installment will appear in Dark Horse Presents #16 this September.

Preview: The Kids Movie

Two frames from The Kids Movie, a four page backup story in the forthcoming Snow Angel comic from Dark Horse. Appropriately, these are two of the previews.

David Chelsea is listening to:

Super Hits of the ’70s: Have a Nice Day, Vol. 10

Various Artists

RIP, Marvin Hamlisch:

Caricature for New York Observer, 2007

David Chelsea is listening to:

Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art

by Gene Wilder

RIP, Gore Vidal (With Norman Mailer):

Caricature from 1999, Client: who remembers?

Drawing To A Close: The Survey Balloting Ends On August 4th!

Emulating provocateur artists Komar and Melamid, I am taking my cues from the great reading public in crafting my latest comics project. From 1994-1997, Komar and Melamid worked on the series, People’s Choice, whereby they created the “most wanted” and “least wanted” paintings of various countries based on the results of surveys conducted by professional polling companies. Their book, Painting by Numbers: Komar & Melamid’s Scientific Guide to Art, published in 1997, explains the statistical underpinnings of the polling process and provides the results of each country’s preferences. Doing likewise, I have been polling comics readers to ask what kind of comics stories they most want to see, in which style, even down to details of lettering and coloring technique. Based on their answers, I will produce two stories- one, assembled from elements that respondents say they most want to see, the other featuring the qualities they least want to see. The Survey period is drawing to a close; I will be taking it down after this Friday, August 4th.

Take The Survey online at Survey Monkey

Previous blog post about The Survey

Another one.

Preliminary Results

The Oregonian Picks My Brain

Portland’s daily newspaper The Oregonian asked me, along with a number of other Portland comics artists (Steve Lieber, Dylan Meconis, and Paul Guinan among them) to weigh in on the topic of movies based on comics. Here are my responses to their survey:

David Chelsea is watching:

Sense And Sensibility

“1) What’s your favorite film of a superhero comic book and why?

The 1978 Superman with Christopher Reeve. I lived in New York back then, and even though they call it Metropolis, the movie is full of details that evoke that time for me- I love that Lex Luthor has his hideout in Grand Central Station, and there’s a great shot of Clark Kent glancing dubiously at one of those newfangled telephone non-booths when he needs to change into Superman.

2) What favorite superhero comic of yours was, in your view, botched in its screen version and why?

I’ve never been much of a superhero reader, so it’s hard to make comparisons. It did strike me as not quite Supermanly that Christopher Reeve kills a helpless opponent at the end of Superman II.

3) What superhero comic that you love hasn’t been made into a film and ought to be?

This dates me, but I think it would be a gas to see Wonder Warthog on the screen.

4) What’s your favorite non-superhero comic/graphic novel adaptation and why?

I think pretty much every film version of a graphic novel that I’ve seen, from The Rocketeer to American Splendor, has been better than the original simply because its script went through more than a first draft; probably my favorite that I can remember is Hugo. Why? I love Scorsese, Sacha Baron Cohen and movies set in the 1930s, and it had the most stunning use of 3-D ever.

5) Why (besides money) do you think the movies and comics/graphic novels have become such a potent union?

Anthony Burgess once said that movies were more about flying than walking, and that filmmakers should stop trying to adapt Tolstoy and instead make movies from mythic sources like Beowulf. Comics are the mythology of our time.”

The full article appears on the Oregonian website here, as well as in the A&E section of Sunday’s paper. Check out also this fine essay on the subject in comics form by Mike Russell and Bill Muldron.

Fun fact: Even though I have been a published illustrator for close to forty years, living all but eighteen of those years in Portland, and even though my work has appeared in such major publications as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, Village Voice and Reader’s Digest, as well as most Portland publications, and even though The Oregonian reviewed my graphic novel David Chelsea In Love and sent cartoonist-reporter Mike Russell to cover my first 24 Hour Comic event, the paper has NEVER hired me as an illustrator.

Still Not Going To San Diego

The San Diego Comics Convention begins tomorrow, but this year I’m passing it up in favor of working at home on a big project I can’t talk about yet. Next year may be a different story, but in the meantime, here’s a recently rediscovered stereo photograph taken at San Diego in the early 90s of cartoonist and fellow 3D buff (note the camera) Marc Hempel.

David Chelsea is reading:

Thinking, Fast and Slow

by Daniel Kahneman

View it big at Comics Lifestyle, and while you’re there, check out photos of other comics luminaries like Peter Kuper, Batton Lash and Nina Paley in my San Diego Stereos Album.