Art: June 2007 Archive Page

News emerged over the weekend that Church authorities have complained to Sony about the depiction of Manchester Cathedral in the game. Some reports have stated that the Church may pursue legal action against the company.

But according to Alex Chapman of Campbell Hooper solicitors,"The Church will have an uphill battle in a legal claim against Sony, and indeed it is likely that there is no basis for a claim." --Church will face ''uphill battle'' if suing Sony, says legal expert (Games Industry Biz)

I've been following this story about Resistance: The Fall of Man.

I'm reminded of when sculptor Frederick Hart was surprised to discover that that a copy of a sculpture he had created for the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. was featured for about 20 minutes in the movie Devil's Advocate, and that the filmmakers had actually animated the sculpture to turn it into what the Anglican church leaders called a distortion of a religious sculpture.

Sony was forced to re-edit the film before they could release it on DVD and video (after agreeing to put disclaimer stickers on the copies of the movie that had already been produced).

The National Cathedral case involved a living artist, who still owned the copyright to a work that was commissioned for a religious purpose. The Manchester Cathedral case probably doesn't involve much recently-produced art, and the leaders object to the fact that the digital re-creation of the church is the setting for a gunfight.

It will be interesting to see how the mainstream media represent the Manchester case, since it involves a video game. (We've already seen that even the very edgy indie Slamdance Film Festival is not a safe place for envelope-pushing videogames.)

I am an animator and concept artist by trade. However, I don't think my art is really so great that it deserves a "how to". My devotion to my live steam hobby however, lends my steampunk designs a level of authenticity that often lacks in steampunk art. Therefore, this is just a quick explanation of parts, and how to draw and design a machine that "looks" convincing.

Please keep in mind that these are super simple explanations of different components of live steam, and steam buffs will probably will tear these descriptions to pieces :) I feel that it is important to get the basic idea without having to go into dry and boring detail. By no means am I an expert in steam engines. This info is taken from my personal experience working on small scale live-steam engines. Most of the examples below are found on model engines, which works off of the same basic principle as the big ones. This is also just a guide. There are no set rules for concept art. You just make whatever appeals to you. In other words.... this is steam for artists, not really to educate you in details of steam power! :) However, it is important to understand some fundamentals of steam power, in order to make your drawings look believable, as something that could have been built in Victorian times.

First you have to understand steam, and how it works by looking at each part of the machine. --How to Draw SteamPunk Machines (www.crabfu.com)

I love the site -- it's got some really cool artwork and photos of steam engines (toy-sized, but real).

Some day when I have time, I want to re-design my whole website with a steam punk theme.