[spooge demon]

I like Dune, too. I remember travelling with my family as a teenager through exotic and fascinating lands with my walkman on my ears and my nose buried in a scifi book.

I still remember the into of the Baron, with the shadows, the glittered finger on the beautifully inlaid globe of Arrakis. "Look, sweety, there's the sixth wonder of the world!" Who cares...

Kain's drawing brought it back to mind. I had to spend some time on the phone this afternoon, soo.

[Frost]

Hehehe, every kid loves those stupid trips I can see... =)

Nice pic - it's possibly the first time I see a line sketch of yours... =)

You did that sphere freehand? Ouch. Nice.

[This message has been edited by Frost (edited August 11, 2000).]

[aquamire]

Aw man, that rocks! I love Dune! The movie did not do it any justice at all.. blah.. maybe the mini-series will be better, but who knows, Dune has so many dimensions, it would be very hard to capture it all on film.

However, I think I noticed ONE thing wrong with your pic Spooge, yes you, I found a mistake, or what I interpret to be a mistake. The same mistake the movie made.. the baron does not fly about.. he wore gravity suspensors that made him carry only about 50-60 pounds on his feet. He was not a flying fat-man, heh. The feet on that pic seem to appear as doing so.



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/Aq
[email protected]

[phreaknasty]

sweet jebus! dig the mottled shadows and the inlaid gold. very loose.

i'd love to see the process you go through on such sketches. is it similar to you rusty pipes?

coming from a gamearts background i am used to separating out my colors, shadows and highlights onto separate layers to facilitate tweaking and realism. however i've found that you loose much of the painterly effect in doing so. how about yourself, do you do most of your painting on a single layer?

damn, anytime i think i'm getting the hang of this painting crap you guys come along and make me feel like a wee child.

[AliasMoze]

Yeah, Dune is one of my favorite all-time books. It's really a masterpiece that transcends its genre, I think. It's got a hyped up Shakespearean quality to it that hasn't been equalled in modern times.

Cool sketch, too, Spooge.

BTW, I just got a new Sargent book. Doh! I have learned allot by looking at his stuff what one can do with just a brushstroke, or two. Also saw a Wyeth book I want.

[spooge demon]

Too bad the book got saddled with that movie. I had an opportunity to work on the SciFi channels upcoming miniseries, but could not due to prior commitments. I was gonna do Arakeen and the emperor's palace. That would have been a kick.

You are right about the non-floating baron! Boy is my face red. My apologies. I should have jumped of my little stool and waddled over to the bookshelf and re-read my dog-eared paperback

Aliasmoze, one thing that doesn't get mentioned about Sargent much is how much he tried to simplify things. I think that is why he would repaint a head many times, to really understand what was important in that particular head.

Another cool thing about him, esp the 1880 Venice work is the overexposure in the lights. He really painted his haltones blown out. At the time people called the highlights "chalky." I don't think people had seen enough bad photography to know what they were seeing. For a long time I thought it was bad reproduction, but that is the way they look, I think. Sargent was into photography, at least a little.

[Visigoth]

I fucking hated Dune. No other way to say it. I thought it was poorly written, and ill-planned/thought out. =P There were far too many technical errors in it for me to enjoy it. =P

~{V}~


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Your car is a fiberglass penis extension.

[Gambit]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting it

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www.gamingvault.com

[Anthony]

Nicely done, nicely done, yes.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[Rinaldo]

Never got around to reading Dune. Could never find the first one in a secondhand bookshop, which is where I buy most of my books. Is it really worth the retail purchase? (Hey I'm not rich)

But I love that pic Spooge. I always enjoy fan art.
When I was a kid I always wanted to draw stuff from books but wasn't good enough to put my runaway imagination down on paper.

Would you be interesed in doing some larger image requests. There are a few of your pics that have been giving me nightmares. after hearing fred talk about how even your ultra detailed pics are very loose close up I have been interestd in seeing some at a larger size.

[Isric]

Wow, man alive! I LOVED dune and have read it way more than once. Mr. Mullins, this representation of dune stuff makes my knees quiver, my literal hero, painting stuff from one of my favorite books.
I know it may seem an imposing request, but would you draw more dune stuff in your spare time? I have never seen anyone with a better grasp on light, and would kill to see more.

[Gothic Gerbil]

Ah Dune, I loved the book! Too bad I lost it when I was rereading it. I should pick up a replacement sometime. Too bad I saw the movie first, and the cut version at that. I like the image, but it really does hurt my eyes looking at it. The colours, or no actually I think it is the textures in there that keep throwing my eyes for a loop. It took me a long time to find his feet too. The planet seems really tall.... ack, ok, need more tea.

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-- Jeff Land
http://www2.andrews.edu/~landj/
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[Sumaleth]

I was in Borders today (big book shop) and come across a "sci-fi classics" stand. I saw the Dune book there and since it seemed pretty popular here I picked it up and had a look.

I was holding it for less than 15 seconds when suddenly there's a guy standing next to me asking if I've read it. It was the guy from the help desk - he'd seen me looking at the book and had walked all the way over from the desk to me to ask me that question.

Turns out he's read just about every sci-fi book ever printed and he said that I couldn't consider myself a sci-fi fan if I hadn't read Dune. I am a sci-fi fan damnit! So I had to buy the book.

(it better be good!)

Sumaleth

[ceenda]

Yeah, DUNE is a tale that really needs to experienced in the written word for it to do Herbert's fiction justice.

I get annoyed at the constant ranting against the film though. The overall design of the sets was good. The music (ambient, not the upbeat Toto stuff) was nice as well.

Sumaleth: "Dune Messiah" and "Children of DUNE" are quite good if you enjoy reading the first book, however the sequels were not very good. I can't vouch for "Prelude to DUNE" though.

[phreaknasty]

i just reread dune for the first time in years, and its hard to believe that strength of the correlation between Dune and Star Wars.

the voice = jedi mind trick
baron = jabba
dune = tatooine in particular the Dune Dea
worm = Sarlacc - pit of carkoon (gaping hole jaba tries to throw luke into)
Bene Gesserit = Jedi
Baron being Paul's uncle = Darth Vader being Luke's father
swords and knives domination the battles of a futuristic world = light sabers
feudal titles such as duke and baron = Princess Leia and the emperor
and i'm not quite sure when or where but doesn't c-3po mention spice mines....
in some of the latter novels there are Honored Matres = Darkside

[Nex]

interresting thought- but anyway.. who could go uninfluenced by starwars?
I don't know any science fiction movie from that time that I can still watch today and get totally engulfed by it.
The characters, the story.. and the music.. everything is brilliant.
I must admit I know every line in the movie by heart and have seen it about 30 times by now.

Did you ever notice that everything in the movie has a particular music theme? The Force, Luke, Darth Vader, Leia-- and they are mixed in some places.

So they played some notes from the force theme withing the Luke theme.. so you kind of knew before what would happen.
terrific.

[Kenzo Tanaka]

Nex: Dune was first printed in 1965 and Star Wars didn't come out until 1977. So I'm thinking that Star Wars had very little influence on the Dune universe

[spooge demon]

Nex,

That's called leitmotiv, an invention of Richard Wagner, I believe. He certainly perfected it's use. There are hundreds of leitmotivs in his Ring cycle. They combine, invert, foreshadow, comment, etc. what is going on on stage. His influence on just about everything cannot be underestimated, for better or worse.

If he was around today, I bet he would be making movies.

[AliasMoze]

I think more of Star War's influences came from Joseph Cambell's insights into world mythology. It's a myth, with a sci-fi shell.

Spooge, I'd not heard any of that stuff about Sargent before. But I've noticed the simplicity in his paintings, almost at a ridiculous level at times. I wonder where that came from in his education.

As for the blown-out look, I noticed it in allot of his stuff. Never thought too hard about it, though, since I've seen it done so much since. I guess the people back then had never played with the curves in Photoshop either

Nex, in animation you might lump "anticipation" in with that. The character projects what he's about to do. You'd think it might blow the surprise, but it doesn't. It's just to say "hey, look at me, I'm about to do something."

Notice how the Darth Vader them would instantly make any scene more ominious. You could overlay it over video of your grandma, and she would seem evil. Music, IMO, is the best and quickest artform for creating emotional responses. I just wish I could play.

[This message has been edited by AliasMoze (edited August 12, 2000).]

[aquamire]

I recently got a book named Eye, which was a collection of short stories by Frank Herbert, including a tour of Arrakis which was done with the help of illustrations by some guy.. I wish I could remember the name, I no longer have the book. Anyways, the books prologue goes on about Frank Herbert's take on the film, and it also went into how he dislikes Star Wars for the fact that it ripped so many parts out of his novel. It was rather humorous,or at least I thought so.


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/Aq
[email protected]

[Nex]

Kenzo: I did not know that dune was earlier. Interresting fact.

Spooge, Alias: I agree, music is for sure one of the most important parts in any kind of presentation (be it a movie or or whatever)

I have a small collection of classical music and I really dig wagner and beethoven. If you listen closely at beethovens symphones you will hear that in all his symphonies he has themes from his last the 9th.
This is off topic but I think that Beethovens 9th symphony is one of the most powerful peaces of music that exist.
I could imagine a great video to it.. it IS like a mind video somehow.. well blah.

gonna go 2 sleep now.