Dead Tech: Esterbrook Inkwell

Dip pens aren't dead tech. Lots of people, including me, use them all the time. That's how I did all the lettering in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.


But the Esterbrook 407 Dip-Less inkwell is an endangered species. It came singly or configured in pairs. The black bakelite Art Deco base holds the inverted glass well, which is sealed with a rubber stopper. It was intended to be used with an Esterbrook Dip-less pen, which held more ink than a simple dip pen shown above.

It was made to feed ink to a constant level and to reduce the risk of spillage. You'd find it chained to a desk in the lobby of a bank, hotel, or post office, where a steady supply of ink had to be made available to the public.

Previous dead tech: Zipatone, Waxer.

Dead Tech: Zipatone

Zipatone is an obsolete graphic design material that would let you place a halftone dot screen across an area of a black and white illustration. Also marketed as Letratone, it came a thin plastic film with a slight adhesive over a backing sheet.


The dot pattern came in a variety of gray-tone percentages and in different sizes of dots, measured as lines per inch. The one shown here was a very sophisticated gradated tone.

The way you used it was to place it over your drawing on a light table, cut out the shape with a very sharp knife, carefully lift it, and place it over the drawing. For a very complicated shape, you could place a larger piece over the drawing and cut away what you didn't want.

There were a lot of pitfalls to those steps: cutting through the drawing, getting the stuff to fold up on itself, getting a speck of junk behind it, where it attracted a noticeable shadow. My memories of the stuff aren't that happy and glowing.

Previous Dead Tech post on waxers.

1000th Post

This blog is devoted to three propositions.
1. Art is a doorway that leads into every aspect of human existence.
2. Our visual life is a frontier that is still largely unexplored.
3. I've still got a lot to learn.

For the amusement of newer readers, here are links to some of the most popular posts since I started the blog in July of 2007.

Unexpected Visitors
Gorilla Portraits
Unicycle Painter
Sky Blue
Music While Painting
Teachers Reworking
The Mud Debate

Looking ahead, there's a lot more in store for you, including a look at
The Lay Figure
Hidden Light Sources
Rethinking the Color Wheel
Tips on Plein Air Gear
Color Underwater

....and more of the regular features "Art By Committee" and "Dead Tech."

Thanks for visiting the blog, whether you comment or not. You're always most welcome, and I'm grateful to you for egging me on with this curious obsession.

Dead Tech: Waxers

The waxer was a basic tool that every graphic designer used in the analog era. Waxers applied a thin layer of molten beeswax to the back of a piece of paper.

At the bottom of the waxer was a roller that distributed the wax on the paper in a honeycomb pattern.

The piece of paper might be a headline or a column of type used in a newspaper or magazine layout.

This layout process was called paste-up. The waxer was a big improvement over paste or rubber cement, because it was non-toxic, the element could be easily repositioned, and the adhesive didn’t turn brown.

The photo above shows a Lectro-Stick handheld waxer. There were larger sheet-fed waxers, but this little one did any small- to medium-size waxing job.

By removing the red plug at the top, you could push in a sticky square of yellowish beeswax. A heating element inside melted down the wax. It took about a half an hour to warm up.

You could leave the waxer plugged in all day and it didn’t hurt it. It gave off a friendly warm smell, reminiscent of candles.

This is one tool that still has some practical uses. If you can still find one (along with a supply of wax squares), grab it! It’s still the best repositionable way to hold down small pieces of paper, like thumbnail sketches, on a larger board.

Graphics Before Photoshop

Art Center teacher Sean Adams explains how graphics were accomplished with physical tools before the digital revolution of Photoshop. (link to YouTube video)

For the amount of time he had, it's a pretty good summary, but I wish he had mentioned Lektro-Stik waxers, X-acto swivel knives, ruling pens, Chartpak line tape, Mayline parallel rules and Merganthaler Pica rulers, many of which are still useful today (I still use all of them).
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Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies
Previously on GurneyJourney: Dead Tech

Dead Tech: Proportional Scale

Before computers made it possible to scale things up or down by dragging a corner or typing in a number, the proportional scale was an indispensable studio tool.

It made it easy to calculate relative measurements when you needed to make enlargements or reductions.

It looks like a circular slide rule. The smaller inside wheel represents the size of the original, while a larger outside wheel measures the size of the reproduction. Each wheel is marked in a gradually increasing scale from 1 to 100 inches. The two wheels rotate independently, held concentrically by a grommet.

A small window marks the percentage enlargement or reduction. If you set it to a 24 percent reduction, all the relative measurements between the two wheels will be held at that relationship.

Knowing such measurements was necessary for making photographic enlargements, planning original art for a given print application, or specifying type. Although it may be obsolete for many of its original graphics art uses, it’s still a useful tool for modelmakers, craftspeople or anyone who needs to scale something up or down by percentages.

AI Art and Name Emulation

There has been an avalanche of advances in generating images from simple text prompts. In particular several people have asked me what I think about the question of name emulation using autonomous art tools. 

So here are some notes:

Since we’re in an age of innovation in machine-learning-driven art, we need to develop a bill of rights for the practice, especially when it comes to name emulation and use of trademarked properties.

Prompt: "A stunning photograph of a Pikachu wearing a cape, 8K HD, incredibly detailed"

by Cybertroniss using Dall-e2. Based on the Pokémon media franchise. 

Pikachu originally designed by Atsuko Nishida and Ken Sugimori,

Let’s assume that generative art via machine learning will eventually be able to perfectly emulate the style of a named artist, creating a pushbutton corpus of work that may be indistinguishable from samples that the artist labored to create by hand or voice.

For the purposes of play and experimentation, some artists will enjoy seeing their name / style emulated (I’m one of them), but others won’t. Living artists should be invited and should be able to opt out. The styles of artists who are dead / public domain / Creative Commons should be fair game.

Artist Studies by Remi Durant. Follow the link to explore various artist prompts

If a machine-generated artwork using name emulation is offered for sale, a living artist should share in the proceeds, and there should be an agreement in advance governing the venture that addresses approvals, distribution, etc.

We need to work this out. Machine learning tech is advancing rapidly. It may soon be able to invent new songs by Bob Dylan and new paintings by Norman Rockwell. To avoid confusion, infringement, and fraud, autonomous works should be clearly labeled so people know whether they are synthetic or authentic.

Lived-in Future, Part 1

If you’re painting a scene set in the future, it helps to consider the period of time leading up to it. Some of the vehicles and buildings might be brand new, but others might be holdovers from an earlier period in your world’s history. Surviving elements from earlier times might show wear and tear, or they might reveal changes in the culture or even the government of your imaginary universe.

Here’s one of the concept sketches for Fritz, a “hoverhead” robot that I designed for Dinotopia: First Flight (1999). First Flight is actually a high-tech dystopia, set in Dinotopia's distant past, with vehicles based on the design of dinosaurs. Fritz is based on a ceratopsian head. He's rusty and dented, an outmoded model, and he’s missing the chrome ring that’s supposed to go around his right eye.

Early science fiction paintings, TV shows, and movies often showed a world where everything was in neat, new condition and was designed in the same style. But in real life we’re surrounded not only by the latest technology but also by antiques and out-of-date equipment that we keep using. Adding this sensibility to your science fiction artwork can give much more believability.

Here’s a plein air sketch in pencil and markers of a Buick Special. Note the rust stains, the cracked window, and the fender that has been replaced with a different colored panel.

You can give your future a “lived-in” look by adding such signs of decay: rust, dents, skid marks, pot holes, chipped paint, broken glass, dead bugs, bent corners, peeling labels, faded lettering, graffiti, litter, trash, and weeds. In both digital and painted artwork, surfaces usually come out looking pristine and new, so adding these qualities takes deliberate effort.

Using "By James Gurney" as a Style Prompt

A couple weeks ago I shared the results of some text-to-image experiments. 

Code wizards have been using machine-learning tools such as VQGAN + CLIP and BigSleep to create novel images that grow spontaneously from word prompts. 

Erfurt Latrine Disaster (Twitter @ErfurtLatrine) Prompt: "Towers" #VQGAN+#CLIP

The prompts can be simple, such as "Towers."

jbusted @jbusted1 "Forbidden Lands 5"

....Or the prompts can evoke a particular role-playing game, such as "Forbidden Lands."

The results develop a unusual style if you add a descriptor naming a studio, portfolio website, or rendering software, such as "from Studio Ghibli" or "trending on ArtStation" or "rendered in Unreal Engine"

  "The Grand Hall of the Sacred Library by James Gurney"

To my fascination and delight, some of them have gotten interesting results by including the phrase "by James Gurney." 

dzryk @dzryk "The tech bubble bursting by James Gurney"

Twitter user Ryan Moulton @moultano created a set of related images starting with the phrase 'The Hermit Alchemist’s and varying only the style cue: 

'The Hermit Alchemist’s Hut by James Gurney'

'The Hermit Alchemist’s Hut rendered in Unreal Engine'.

'The Hermit Alchemist’s Hut by Van Gogh'

Matteo Vera @MatteoVera1 VQGAN + CLIP

"A castle built on the skeleton of a dead god by James Gurney"

Ryan Moulton @moultano "In the Woods, Gouache Painting." 

Using the phrase "In the Woods + Gouache Painting" (without an artist's name) yields something that appears painted in water media, like a Mary Blair concept painting, but with something weird about the kids' faces. 

Ryan Moulton @moultano "In the Woods by James Gurney"

All of the results have issues of basic logic and perspective. They never make sense or seem fully coherent, at least not yet. 

But some of them do suggest a recognizable style. Does this look like my style to you? I'm not sure; it feels both familiar and alien. It almost looks like something from a long lost sketchbook. 

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Blog post by Ryan Moulton "Tour of the Sacred Library" using my name in the prompts.