Roger Harkavy's unpublished Imai material Artbook

[yellowlightman]

Art 1 has a good amount of character line art, and a good four pages of valkyrie lineart, but other than that, you get two small pictures of only the popular mecha (thee if your lucky), almost no supporting vehicles, no transformation sequences, etc. There's almost nothing on the Cyclones or Invid. The robotech RPGS had way more lineart.

The REF Field Manual had a ton of real line art, but every other RPG book was chock full of Palladium's own medicore artwork.

So yes, for an artbook, barely any lineart.

What part of 1986 English language artbook don't you understand? It was great for the time, and you really cant judge it by today's standards.

Edited April 6, 2007 by yellowlightman

[Ginrai]

Art 1 has a good amount of character line art, and a good four pages of valkyrie lineart, but other than that, you get two small pictures of only the popular mecha (thee if your lucky), almost no supporting vehicles, no transformation sequences, etc. There's almost nothing on the Cyclones or Invid. The robotech RPGS had way more lineart.

So yes, for an artbook, barely any lineart.

Dude, you are totally full of it. Art 1 has 81 pages of lineart. It has lineart of almost every character with any amount of screen time, 4 pages of the SDF-1, 4 pages of Valkyrie, a page on Britai's flagship, a page on the Regult, a page on the Glaug, a age on the Nousjadel-Ger, a page on the hovercycle, a page on the Spartas, a page on the Auroran, two pages on the Bioroid, several pages of Southern Cross armor, a page on the Mospeda, two pages on Inbits, two pages on the Legioss. Not, it is not comprehensive and it does not have every mecha or every character, and it is not Macross Perfect Memory, but it was serving three different shows in a book that had a limited page count and had to also summerize every episode of the entire show in the days when the whole show was NOT available on video, as well a section on the the history of anime/manga, which was totally uncommon in the US at this time.

81 pages of lineart. Absolutely none of it is fan art.

Robotech Art 3 has 73 pages of line art, none of fan art. Again, it is not totally comprehensive.

The RPGs have like 15 volumes to give you art of everything and a lot of it is bad American intrepretations of the Japanese line art, like they were looking at it and drawing it with thick ink lines but weren't allowed to trace it. Yuck. Granted, there are some exceptions where it is just the Japanese line art (REF Field Guide is pretty much all Japanese Mospeada art), but it is absolutely not correct to say they have "barely any line art". And we have no idea how comprehensive the new Art of Shadow Chronicles book will be yet, so it's hardly fair to say a product released 20 years ago is indicative of the current Robotech projects.

Say what you will about Shadow Chronicles, but it is a far cry from Robotech The Movie: The Untold Stories or Robotech II: The Sentinels.

Edited April 6, 2007 by Ginrai

[Ginrai]

Ooops, double post.

Edited April 6, 2007 by Ginrai

[danth]

The REF Field Manual had a ton of real line art, but every other RPG book was chock full of Palladium's own medicore artwork.

Wrong. The Macross and Southern Cross books had lots of original line art. They also had artwork by some other guy. But, unlike the Robotech artbooks, the RPGs had lineart of the support vehicles, transformation sequences, various shots of the Armored Valkyrie, etc etc.

What part of 1986 English language artbook don't you understand? It was great for the time, and you really cant judge it by today's standards.

The RPGs came out in 86 also, and had way more lineart.

Seriously, I know it's become the thing to do in this thread to disagree with me for the hell of it, but this is retarded. There are obvious reasons to find the Robotech artbooks lacking.

Edited April 6, 2007 by danth

[yellowlightman]

Wrong. The Macross and Southern Cross books had lots of original line art. They also had artwork by some other guy. But, unlike the Robotech artbooks, the RPGs had lineart of the support vehicles, transformation sequences, various shots of the Armored Valkyrie, etc etc.

I'd suggest you look through the Southern Cross book again, as nearly all primary art for that book is by one "P. Simon," and his stuff is largely garbage. What little artbook there is in there is small and mostly multiple-angle shots. Unfortunately my Macross RPG book is nowhere to be found, but I can assure you you're very wrong about the Southern Cross artbook.

Furthermore, Art 1 has a TON of character lineart, something the RPG's barely even feature. Not to mention a lot of color artwork, the Southern Cross and New Generation sections are a bit lacking... but overall you get a lot more artwork for your money.

Seriously, I know it's become the thing to do in this thread to disagree with me for the hell of it, but this is retarded. There are obvious reasons to find the Robotech artbooks lacking.

There might be, but you've yet to find any decent ones.

[danth]

81 pages of lineart. Absolutely none of it is fan art.

Spread super thin, with one two, two, or ocassionally three small line art images on each page, unlike any other artbook I've ever seen, or the Robotech RPGs, which have pages packed full of line art. Counting by page is meaningless. For example, the page 193 of Art 1: one image of the Auroran. Page 216, one image of the Invid Shock Trooper. 194, one image of the Invid trooper, incorrectly called the scout. Wow, one image each of cool mecha, and no more anywhere in the book. No images of the Lancer or Rook cyclones, no Invid Enforcers or Pincers or scouts. Page 218, mostly white space with a picture of the Legioss in battloid (the only one in the book) and another of the cyclone. Way to pad the page count. Good thing I grew up with the Robotech RPGs that had multiple images of these from different angles.

Robotech Art 3 has 73 pages of line art, none of fan art. Again, it is not totally comprehensive.

Bwa ha ha! Are you farting kidding me? Here's a perfect example of the line art pages in Art 3:

[attachmentid=41778]

Cruddy art, crudely colored to ruin any beauty of the lines, and no image of the battloid or guardian modes. THAT's what the Robotech art books are like. They suck!

The RPGs have like 15 volumes to give you art of everything

Nope. The Macross RPG book already gives you more Macross lineart than Arts 1-3 combined. REF Field Guide gives you more Mospeada lineart than Arts 1 - 3 combined.

[yellowlightman]

What was the point of your argument again, danth? Something about how Roger should release the unused lineart through Palladium as an RPG sourcebook?

Edit: You do realize the Robotech Art series is just as much an artbook by HG as the RPG books are, right?

Edited April 6, 2007 by yellowlightman

[drifand]

I for one would love to own actual hard copies of these artworks with properly translated notes instead of just a couple of JPEGS on my hard drive. If Harmony Gold produced high quality translations of the various Macross TV source books, I'd buy them too. After all, none of the original Japanese publishers seem to be interested in the overseas market.

[Radd]

Owning all of the Art books, and a good number of Palladium's RPG books, I can vouch that other than the REF Field Guide, there's really not much in the way of good art, and almost no studio lineart in any of them. The image danth posted is representative of what you'd find in the Art books, and most of the RPG art is done by Palladium artists. Some of that seems to be traced or eyeballed from official lineart, but is not itself actual studio lineart. Again, the Field Guide being an exception.

That said, I have not read through the linked thread, just this one, but I would not be opposed to a new Robotech Art book. If it turned out nice, I'd probably buy it. If it turned out crap, I'd simply pass.

However not all of danth's arguments are without merit. This is unused Imai artwork we're talking about? Imai the model kit company? Tatsunoko, and therefor Harmony Gold, do not necessarily have the rights to use this artwork if it was created by Imai. If I draw a picture of Mickey Mouse, Disney does not automagically get the rights to use that. Rights are a bit more complicated than that.

[wwwmwww]

This is unused Imai artwork we're talking about? Imai the model kit company? Tatsunoko, and therefor Harmony Gold, do not necessarily have the rights to use this artwork if it was created by Imai.

Roger correct me if I'm wrong... but as I understand it this is material created by ARTMIC. Imai owned or was at least in possession if it when they went under. It was when Imai's stuff was sold off that Roger's friend gained possession of it.

If I draw a picture of Mickey Mouse, Disney does not automagically get the rights to use that. Rights are a bit more complicated than that.

I agree its a complicated mater and I'm no lawyer. In your example, I agree Disney couldn't use your image without your permision but I think Disney could also stop you from making any money using your image of their character too.

Carl

[wwwmwww]

Then again I may be wrong about Disney...

Check out this image made by Gabe Bridwell.

Now check out this piece of art published by Disney without Gabe's knowledge or approvial.

There is a little article on this topic here:

http://www.andrewdabb.com/blog/index.php?p=15

Carl

[sketchley]

wwwmwww: scary!!!

I'm actually quite speachless; aside from the nagging image of a late night talk show that went about attempting to show the "dark side" of the Mickey Mouse corporation. Sad that they stoop so low.

[Totoro242]

Not to stray too far from the topic at hand, but one thing I have seen related to this Disney issue, is that there are a lot of unscrupulous artists out there, especially in comics, who will copy or imitate panels, covers, poses, etc. from any source they find rather than create it themselves. Its not necessarily the licensers fault since they can't scour the internet for artwork before posting an image, but they are responsible for terminating the artist once their deception is exposed.

These people are not artists, they are thieves posing as artists. They should be taken outside and stabbed with their own pencils. It bothers me sometimes that my artwork is on the internet and freely available to be stolen...

[Knight26]

The tron thing may have also been what Lucasfilm pulls. Right before Ep3 came out a really fantastic CG artist Steve "Coolhand" Tyler (no relation to the Aerosmith Frontman) created this awesome star destroyer model inspired by the early shots of the EP3 Star Destroyers. Fast forward to a couple months after EP3 came out and a poster, or possibly book cover (I don't remember anymore) came out that clearly showed Coolhands Stardestroyer on it. Steve felt honored and simply wrote to lucasfilm liscencing asking for credit for the design, not for money, just an acknowledgement. Lucasfilm's reaction was to tell him that he had no rights to the design because it was based on/inspired by lucasfilm intellectual property. Steve of course did not have the means to fight this, simply asked that he be given credit, was denied and has since stopped doing any CG modelling of star wars. This also convinced many other fine CG artists to abandon their own SW based projects for fear of the same thing happening to them. So it is possible that Disney pulled the same thing. Heck at least other studios give credit when fan designs end up in their work.

[wwwmwww]

Right before Ep3 came out a really fantastic CG artist Steve "Coolhand" Tyler (no relation to the Aerosmith Frontman) created this awesome star destroyer model inspired by the early shots of the EP3 Star Destroyers.

I remember watching that thread. I even saved these links in my favorites folder at the time:

Scifi-Meshes.com - Star Wars - Legacy Star Destroyer

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20177

Scifi-Meshes.com - Star Wars - Old Republic Shuttle Craft

http://www.scifi-meshes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21629

I haven't been back there in ages... just don't have the free time any more. Just checking now both links seem to be dead links and even my user id to their forums is no longer valid. I guess if you don't make a post in a year they delete you or something. Anyways... I really enjoyed his work. Did Lucasfilm make them take those threads down? I now wish I had saved all the nice images and animations Steve had posted.

Carl

P.S. Are you sure about the name? I did get this to work:

http://web.archive.org/web/20050909040751/...ead.php?t=20177

And it appears his name is Howard Day, unless that's just his login ID.

Edited April 10, 2007 by wwwmwww