Saturday, September 05, 2009

Some depressing news...


Hey.

Just popped in to tell you we sent the Draconis Combine ‘Mech writeups off to proofreader Jeff Kamper and the Capellan ‘Mech writeups off to Dan Eastwood of ‘Giant Battling Robots’ fame. I am hoping to see these back by Friday, Sunday the 13th at the latest. Hopefully by then I will have more in hand from Geoff (fingers crossed, knock on wood).

Payments went out today to Jim Lafferty for the Fox and Eriance for the upcoming Anvil. I hope Eric's school work will eventually allow him time to work on both his commissions, but I’ll have to be patient. I have not heard from our layout man, Jim Devlin, and will shoot yet another email to him this morning. Perhaps he is shoulder-deep in alligators. No telling, but I know he is very good at his craft and may be quite busy with work. Another email will go out to Lee Madison, who may have a rough sketch of the Mastodon and the Horatio for me if I am lucky.

Unfortunately, I just received really bad news from Mike Sullivan – he located another steady internet connection and re-established rendering software that he understands, only to find himself abruptly with no time.

Naturally, Mike will NOT be able to do the Lyran Panther, the Marian Hegemony Velite, the Capellan Jian MMTV and the Free Worlds League Striker II . This sucks for me, because the Jian and Striker II were based heavily on Mike’s own designs. Furthermore, the Velite was to be based on a really sweet existing design he’d already made. Now I will have to find another artist who can do a good, timely job.

Jeremy Pea has not sent me the inked version of the Diatryma yet, but I think it might get done over this holiday weekend. I will email him and we’ll see. [JP, I screwed up. It's Karl assigned to this and it's the Panzer IX, not the Panther] Karl Olson is working on the Panzer IX – this is a very large tank at 95 tons – and is currently kicking around ideas to mount the three Ultra 10 autocannons which do not replicate existing gun layouts. It’s a massive undertaking, to say the least, but he did well with the Zhukov II so I have high hopes.

Finally, I have approached Mike Sullivan to use one of his pieces based on the Crinos to serves as an internal ‘color plate’ in place of the scenes I’d hoped would grace the TRO. Unfortunately, my contact with David Dryburgh is sporadic at best; I have not seen anything new on the CM-33 ammunition carrier since week before last. David may be the best qualified artist to do the interior scenes and I have asked him to take a shot at one of them. However, he seems to be quite busy with other projects as well, so I must take my color art where I can get it.

I have work of my own – mostly tidying up the Table of Contents and Dedication page. The vehicles have all been edited and proofread, so they are ready to go. We are waiting on Geoff’s final edits for about three-quarters of the ‘Mech writeups (and their accompanying proofs). I am happy to report that Geoff and his sweetie have arrived safely in Japan and are busy settling in. Meanwhile, I am debating a rework of the Sarpedon’s art, but must wait until my current crop of commissions is completed (and paid for!) before I assign anything else.

Well, it’s midnight and I am getting sleepy. Time to call it a day. Hope you all have a good Labor Day weekend – school has begun and I anticipate a general slowdown of progress as autumn closes in. So far we are on schedule, but that will change unless I begin getting finished artwork in the next few weeks.

Steve



1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks Steve!

Well I do have a home for now (short term most likely). I am working on things but it's not going to be easy. Wish I could do those vehicles but I just have too much stuff going on at the moment.

I loved working on this with you though. I really hope everyone loves it!!!

Mike