DIY

The period of time after the first film in 1977 was an especially fertile one for folks building and emulating what they saw on the screen. It was an open house at the GM Tech Center in Warren, MI where I saw the model shop’s rendition of one of Ralph McQuarrie’s most iconic designs. The experience caused a synaptic connection between what my dad and his colleagues designed and manufactured in Detroit with the work Ralph McQuarrie and George Lucas were doing in California. (Of course) Star Wars wasn’t the first film to launch the imaginations of the masses. From all indications, however, it appeared to be a creative slap-in-the-face that energized people to cut through that thick, late-seventies malaise. Was the movie a clarion call (from a narrow-tubed war trumpet) that restored the faith in our resourcefulness? Our freedom to vac-form and kit-bash at will .. to glue Estes model rocket engines to anything not bolted down? DIY!

GM Design Staff folks in the dome at the Tech Center.

The GM R2 had Hot Wheels glued at the base of his dome; their wheels in a track enabling spin.

Nothing says 1970′s like a scratch-built R2 D2 and shag carpeting.

RMQ

Ralph McQuarrie inspired generations. 

He will be missed. 

 

MAD metal jacket

This marks the 50th year of MAD Magazine’s Spy VS. Spy! Olde LucasFilm colleague Jon Bresman and David Croatto at MAD combined their wonder-powers and sent me the blank figure to garnish in ways that were self-pleasing. Kit-bashing was the order of the day. Something like 12 random kits, Cyanoacrylate (and kicker!) and primer.. 72 hours passed and as I ran out the door to go to India I threw this in the mail to David. Please feel repelled to see more views here:

http://mad.blog.dccomics.com/2011/08/02/spy-vs-spy-custom-toy-project-jay-shuster/#more-18521

On the subject: here’s another custom figurine thing from 2006. Kevin Skinner hooked me up with this gig. I augered-out the solid wood head with the Dremel and kit-bashed the brain. I never get beyond primer and simple color with these things. form is everything. sometimes.

auto rickshaw

 

The only thing missing from rush hour in India (Indian rush hour= 24 hours) is the body count. How the 3-wheelers, 2-wheelers, 4-wheelers and 16+wheelers intermingle without a Michael Bay movie happening is beyond western sensibilities. The force that surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together apparently also prevents large trucks from squishing vespas in New Delhi.

avionic

Photocopied sketch from 1998. Indian Air Force? I don’t know. That MiG silhouette is the best. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra directed ‘Rang De Basanti’ in 2006: It’s a film that alternates between British-occupied and current day India and folks finding their identity in the process (overly simplistic synopsis).. but then ends with an epilogue revealing how an inordinate many Indian Air Force MiGs and pilots have crashed and died in the recent past. A viewing will dispel the mystery..

roadfood

My brother, Bill, drove the 64 droptop over to the Hunter House for photo ops in the early half of the decade of excess. (or, atleast, that’s what one 80′s compilation called it.) Decades of subsequent excess later the airborne grease particulate from hundreds of thousands of pounds of fried beef has secured the restaurant’s legacy and window seals from the four seasons. You can almost smell the kitchen exhaust wafting across Hunter in the spring/fall air. (subject to verification by Bill who will either confirm or deny he wore his trench coat in all weather types.)

Car and Driver’s best-of article circa 1980′s. One can only hope the ‘lovable hillbilly girls behind the counter’ can still be found behind the counter.

Alive.

And Bill’s follow-up letter to Car and Driver:

waste naut

Here are sketches of a Waste Allocation Loader Lifter-Earth (class). Some of the first development work circa 2006..

 

Down Mexico way

These highly compelling images are absent of human beings. And, for the most part, our time spent in Tulum, Mexico (on the Yucatán Peninsula) was just that: peaceful and, at times*, eerily void of breathing sapiens, simians or the primitive prosimian.

This is a view, north, to the dining room from one of the outdoor patios at La Zebra- where the majority of the wedding party took up residence.

One undertakes the study of thatch roof construction when in the presence of thatched roofs. the dining room (looking west here) utilizes a redundant internal roof. they are extremely effective in the transmission of rain away from ones material possessions. which begs the question: do we ever truly possess anything?

*Some days the beach swelled with all manner of burned, tanned, pale-white mankind pushing the ecology and euro-speedo to its elastic limits.

Speaking of isolation and roof construction; Dick Proenneke mastered both in 1967.

 

APE 17, Sketch Crawl 29

Sketch inspired by the Alternative Press Expo last weekend.. coincided with Sketch Crawl 29! (and first post in over a year)

Pop, cult.

Used to be I’d spend much time and resource on my new year’s card. The trend will be reinvigorated for this model year. (I determined that just now) Here’s a look back at 2000′s card featuring Pop Culture and Dot Com vs. MilleniaMan and Miles 2000. Remote-brandishing Pop joined by then-cultural force, Dot Com, to swindle millions from millions in a race to reign the internet box. Vigilantes MilleniaMan and Miles 2000 stay wired to keep the forces at ebay. To be further expanded into Graphic Novelette, books, web-series, screenplay, toy line and off Broadway production. All rights reserved.