Transcripts


Transcript: Space4U podcast, Richard Green

Written by: Space Foundation Editorial Team

Hello. I am Nancy Reed with the Space Foundation, and you’re listening to the Space4U podcast. Space4U is designed to share the stories of the amazing people who make today’s space exploration possible. Today, we are joined by Richard Green. Richard is an illustrator in digital artwork and brings his passion for aerospace and technology to life in his award-winning work over the course of three decades.

 

He has created a portfolio that is inspired and odd. With technically accurate illustrations and 3D models, as well as fantastic futuristic, 3D graphics, illustrations, and animation. His work for the Space Foundation began in 2009 as the featured poster artists for the 25th annual Space Symposium. He also created a poster art for the Space Symposium in 2012, 2013 and 2019.

 

In 2009, Richard was awarded the Neutrino prize in the CERN Atlas, worldwide animation competition. And his work has been published in popular science and scientific American. He has worked with industry leaders, such as the us air force space, command pack, car lock, tronics, Lucas, arts entertainment, and Lucas learning, LTV, Sony, online entertainment, Activision, and two K games.

 

Richard earned a degree in industrial design from the art center college in Pasadena, California, and his favorite real and fictional spaceships Saturn five rocket. And the millennium Falcon. He is always accepting new clients in the aerospace industry for 3d illustration, motion, graphics and animation projects.

 

You can see as illustration and motion graphics [email protected] and that’s a R T B O t.com. Thanks for joining us, Richard. Thanks for having me here. You’ve had a very impressive career in 3d and animation design. Richard spending over three decades. Did you know, at a young age, you wanted to be an artist and designer and make your living that way.

 

Um, not at all. Uh, I always loved art and I always loved building things. I was a avid model builder and things kind of changed. Uh, I think basically I was 13 years old, but I saw Star Wars. Yeah. And I love the movie and I was really, uh, just excited about what I’d seen, but not necessarily from the standpoint of like a Star Wars fan, as opposed to seeing those special effects on the screen and having an interest in models that I’d already had an interest in, you know, special effects in movies and that sort of thing.

 

So when I saw that it was just. You know, a, just a giant leap forward in terms of, you know, what they were doing with models and the camera work and everything. And then I saw that and I was just blown away. And I, I think I literally went home that same day and just like started making movies. So it sounds like it was a life-changing experience.

 

It was. Yeah, but it’s, it’s, uh, it was more of a hobby at the time and I never really thought I would make a living doing something in that vein share with us a bit of your history and why art is important to you from your perspective of art itself. What were you doing at the time? What are your favorite things to draw?

 

Especially when you were younger, what were you gravitated for towards? Um, I think like any, a young boy. I, um, well, I’m, I’m old now. So I grew up in the late sixties and early seventies as a, you know, as of elementary age kid. And, uh, it was a really fertile time. Um, it was kind of crazy, you know, I mean the Vietnam war was going on.

 

The space program was in full swing. You know, the Apollo program. I was just. Uh, really taken with, you know, the, the fantastic miss of, you know, of, of rockets and spaceships. It was just like such an exciting, different thing. And I don’t know, I think I, I thought about this question and I was like, Oh, you know, I grew up in the suburbs, I won’t say where just to, uh, not, um, uh, cast dispersions on those towns, but it was, it was a great place to grow up, but it was also a little doll.

 

And, um, so we, I just sorta took it upon myself to just. You know, make things as interesting as I could. And for me drawing and building models and making movies and that sort of thing were just what I started doing. And, uh, and mostly just for fun, I never really thought I would, you know, be an artist for a living and, uh, you know, there’s, there’s no way I could have seen where I would go, you know, 10 or 20 years down the line from that, because that business didn’t exist yet.

 

Oh, yeah, you were ahead of the curve. Uh, yeah, just lucky timing, I guess. Well, much of your 3d artwork in animation is focused on futuristic space, aerospace and technology. Tell us about your interest in these areas. Have you always been interested in space and technology? I would say yes. Um, I, I think I can trace it almost exactly back to, um, let’s see.

 

I guess I was about. Seven years old. And my mom who was a big science fiction fan and, uh, worked in the early computer industry and was very technologically, uh, involved. And, and she loves science fiction. And she took me to see 2001, I think when I was like seven and it was absolutely terrifying. And I didn’t obviously understand the full impact of the story, but.

 

I was just blown away by, you know, the, the realistic depictions of space travel. It was such a leap above all these, you know, 1950s movies of, you know, flying saucers or giant rocket ships and that sort of thing. And, um, I don’t know. I just, I think that just sort of kick-started my interest in space and seeing that.

 

You know, there was this optimistic view of taking the technology that existed at the time and jumping forward and saying, you know, here’s where we could be in 20 or 30 years. Um, unfortunately it didn’t really happen exactly that way, but, uh, there is still a lot of great advances in that time, but. Yeah, that, and then the Apollo program of course, got me very interested in, I remember vividly staying up all night, you know, wouldn’t launches would get scrubbed or pushed back and, uh, you know, we’d be up at three in the morning, you know, and I was like nine years old or whatever.

 

And, uh, and you know, watching these launches and, you know, in our, our little, you know, little TV, but, um, yeah, that’s, it’s, I just always been interested in it. Um, I think the 2001 thing is as close, although. I was, yeah. Yeah. I would say that’s as close as I can pinpoint a exact moment when it sort of clicked in me that I was like, wow, I really, this stuff’s really interesting to me.

 

Well, excellent. You earned your degree in industrial design from the art center college of design in Pasadena, California. What did you envision your career to be at that time? And did you know at the time that you wanted to do what you wanted to do with your talent? He didn’t really know. I, um, I took her, I have a weird route getting into art center.

 

I actually had a class in high school, uh, that was sort of a project like an art project class. And the teacher just kind of let me do whatever I wanted, because I guess he thought I was capable of sort of managing myself. And, uh, I remember I made a really elaborate special effects movie about this robot, that crashes on something.

 

Is it a spaceship or something? Um, it was pretty, pretty crazy. But it was a lot of work. And anyway, he recommended me for a, like a high school scholarship program that they had at art center, which was about 50 miles from my house, from where I lived at the time. And it was like a one, one day a week. I think it was on a Saturday and you’d go in and it was basically kind of a recruiting thing, you know, like get you into the school, get you to, you know, fall in love with the idea of, you know, going to this, this college.

 

And it worked because I, I. Really loved it. And I wanted to go there. And the thing was, is I was actually studying filmmaking, which I had done a fair amount of, and I was really interested in, and I kind of thought I was going to go into the filmmaking business. And then one of the counselors there when they saw my work and noticed that, uh, maybe my films weren’t as good quality as they should have been.

 

But what I had spent a lot of time and effort doing was building models and doing special effects and things. And he actually suggested switching majors, um, to industrial design. And, uh, I, I vaguely knew what that was, uh, at the time, because actually specifically, because of a lot of the people who were in the special effects business were went through industrial design programs at various schools.

 

And it’s a, there’s a set of skills that you, you get in that major that, you know, like sketching and ideation to, uh, you know, model building and, you know, building, uh, prototypes for, for products and things. You know, it wasn’t really designed to be stuff, you know, fantastic stuff or fantasy stuff, but it was a lot of the same skills were applicable to that.

 

To that field. And so I figured, well, I should do industrial design because one, it seems like a steadier business than the film business, and I liked doing it. So I figured, well, if I can get a job doing industrial design, I’ll do that. And if something works out. In the long run, maybe I could get involved in doing a movie.

 

Special effects was sort of my background dream. You know, that I was like my ultimate goal, but I wasn’t going to be too disappointed if I didn’t get there because I would still be doing design and doing something interesting, you know, for a job. Oh, that you got a good foundation for what you’re doing now.

 

So it worked out, it did work out in a very much applies to the kind of things I’m doing now. Well, you’ve created amazing animations and 3d realistic drawings of a wide variety of products and subject matter, including rockets and spaceships, race cars, futuristic city, product parts, and even a police car.

 

Since some of these items never existed until you created them. How do you come up with your ideas and what do you use for inspiration? Well, there’s sort of two, two categories. One is if you’re doing something for a client and then they have specific needs, you know, then, then obviously I’m, I’m sort of held in check by, you know, what, what that is.

 

Uh, I, I re I remember one time doing a. I think this is a good example. I did some covers proposals for, I think it was popular, uh, popular mechanics magazine, and they were doing like a special anniversary issue and they were trying to project what things were going to look like twenty-five years into the future.

 

And I did, I think, three comps for them and sent them and they unfortunately didn’t choose any of them, but they liked them, but they thought they were too far out. And it’s sort of funny because that was actually quite a while ago. I think that was maybe like, 15, maybe, maybe even 20 years ago that that happened.

 

And I, I look at the stuff that I. Did for those covers and it’s completely doable now, which is, which is, I thought I’m pretty funny. Um, because I was really trying to project forward in that realistic way that they would do on those magazines, like unpopular science or popular mechanics. And they would have, you know, some futuristic thing that seemed very attainable, but I think they were going for more, the very near future, like in five years, even though they were saying it was 25 years, but for inspiration, if I’m just doing something completely.

 

Wide open. And it’s like, uh, you know, like I’ve done these posters for the Space Symposium. Those are actually tough to do because it’s. It’s when you don’t have really rigid parameters to work within, it’s kind of difficult. It’s hard to narrow, narrow down something that you think looks good and that you want to do.

 

And a lot of times it just comes from inspiration of seeing a, I look at a lot of other work. There’s a few artists, quite a few artists that I just gravitated toward. And I just, I like there. Composition and style. And then, so I, I just, I get a lot from that. I really, I just, I look at a ton of work and then I read a lot of, you know, current.

 

News about, you know, science and astrophysics and technology, and just kind of, you know, see where everything’s going. And I don’t, I don’t, the inspiration part is, has always been interesting to me because I, I literally feel like I’m just sort of like bubbling over with like ideas and shapes and concepts in my head, like all the time.

 

And, uh, sometimes it gets pretty hard to, uh, to filter those out and sort of get something that I think is, is usable. But, uh, it hasn’t really been a problem for me. I’ve always. I’ve always had a interesting sort of mechanical, you know, sort of shape oriented mind in the way that I think of things. And I think that helps it certainly got, was one of the things that got me interested in doing 3D work and that sort of thing.

 

Cause I think I could envision it, you know, probably more readily than some people, but you’re right along with all those 1960s space TV shows and all the, the artists in the past that show things that look totally. Unattainable totally out of this world. And now we’re living and seeing these very same things.

 

It’s almost like they predicted them in your artwork, maybe predicting our future. So we may see these thrill things come to fruition. Um, you are currently. Creating many designs and animations for the aerospace industry. Can you share some of your favorite, most recent projects with us? Would it sound too biased?

 

If I said, uh, the space foundation poster, that was the one from, from this past space symposium, that was a really fun project to work on. I, you know, there’d been a lot of, uh, Um, talk in the sort of aerospace world about, you know, landing on other planets and having, you know, these, these Landers. And I’ve always liked that kind of science fiction E you know, popular science cover kind of projection of what the future is going to be like.

 

And, but, uh, to answer your question more directly, um, yeah. That’s a favorite project. I mean, that was a really fun one. It’s always great getting those poster projects. Cause like I said, they’re kind of a double-edged sword. It’s like it’s on one hand, it’s wide open and you can do whatever you want, but that almost makes it more difficult because it’s hard to narrow down something.

 

But. Recent projects, something a little different I’ve I’ve been trying to focus on doing more Mo what I call motion graphics. It’s kind of a catch all term for, you know, animation, uh, sort of information graphics, you know, there’s it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s a very popular form. Um, I’m not sure if motion graphics is really.

 

The correct term, because I think if people are familiar with that and then they think of what motion graphics are, it doesn’t necessarily always include like all the things that I might include, like, ‘cause I could include video, 3D, animation, 2D animation, you know, still pictures, photography, whatever elements are needed to convey the idea.

 

And I just did a project for a client that I’m, I won’t say who it is because it’s not been released yet. But, uh, it was one of my favorite things to work on in a long time, it was, uh, an animation and it was kind of a dream job. And, and I actually have to thank you for helping me get it because I met that client at the Space Symposium and it’s been really fun.

 

Uh, that was sort of a start to finish. I, I kind of did everything on it. I. I wrote a script for it. I, you know, I set up the animation, did the 3d work, uh, actually hired a voiceover artist, a very talented woman who did a great job, I think. And, you know, they, they seem to be very happy with it. So it’s been a really fun experience.

 

It’s it really goes back to my early days of like making movies. I just want to make these a little. You know, it’s, it’s very, it’s very, it’s not very easy, but it’s easier to make a, you know, a minute animation or a two-minute animation obviously than it is to make an entire movie. And it’s, it’s a lot of fun.

 

It’s, it’s really getting to put it all together and, and the technology that exists now makes it so easy to do that. I’m glad you get to do some of your, um, mini little movies. Like you pictured as a child. You touched on the competition of the posters that you’ve done for us to share with our listeners.

 

We have a competition each year to select a design for our official poster for the symposium and the space symposium. We’ll see it. 36 year coming up here in 2020. I know you have won several of these competitions. Can you tell us how many you’ve done for us in the last 36 years? I’ve done four and that’s been since 2009.

 

So it’s been 10 years that I’ve been involved. Yeah. Yeah. And your, uh, artwork. We have people coming to symposium every year that collect these posters and actually born their offices and homes with the posters that we do every year. So thank you for your contribution to our collection of posters. Oh, you’re welcome.

 

That was a ton of fun coming to the Symposium this year and getting to sign posters. Um, that was, that was a real highlight for me. Great. Well, I’m going to touch on an area of your background. You have a very rich background, and one of those is kind of a fun area. I understand you’ve designed over 20 video games in your career for major game companies share with us some of the names of these games and a variety of the types of games you have designed.

 

Oh gosh, we probably need a whole podcast just for that. It’s there’s so many of them. Uh, and there’s so many different styles. Um, let’s see. I actually counted them up a couple of days ago, and I think I got somewhere in the neighborhood of about 28 or 29 games that I’ve worked on. Uh, and amazingly all except a couple of those have actually shipped.

 

So, um, sometimes you get through a game and it just, you know, for whatever reason it gets canceled or you lose your publisher or something like that. But most of them, uh, did ship and, uh, they’re all different styles. I mean, I’ve started working in games in ‘92 or ‘91 ‘92, somewhere in there. And 3D you is just taking off a fad for a couple of years in there of the full motion video, where they were shooting, um, you know, live action characters on, on soundstages with blue screen, and then they would comp in the backgrounds and, uh, you know, put them into these, you know, fantastic situations.

 

And, uh, I worked on a couple of those. Yeah. Over the 26 years, the games have changed. There’s a lot. I mean, in those early days, doing PC games, predominantly PC games, uh, I think the only thing that existed really at the time where there was a couple of game consuls, there was like the Nintendo 64 and then the PC games.

 

So you were kind of, uh, you know, limited in, in the types of games you could do because they. You know, it was predominantly PC, I think the time and, you know, the, the graphics weren’t that powerful and the resolutions were really low and it was a strange time to come in right near the beginning of a, of an industry and then, you know, follow it through for, for 26 years and see, you know, all those changes that occurred.

 

But I think in that time, I think we hit kind of a sweet spot of like what the kind of work that I did and that I like to do one of my first, uh, long-term jobs. I worked for almost five years at Lucas arts entertainment and worked on, uh, some Star Wars games. Uh, and, uh, another, the Lucas are famous for their adventure games.

 

And I actually worked on full throttle, which was a graphic adventure game at the time, sort of in the vein of like they did like monkey Island and salmon max games and all these very cartoony style. But, um, this, uh, on full throttle, they needed. To do 3d because they were going to have all these vehicles and they really didn’t have the power, you know, the, the enough artists to animate a bunch of vehicles driving around because that’s very difficult to animate.

 

So they wanted to incorporate 3d into it. And I had just finished a Star Wars game for them called rebel assault. So I wound up going on to the. The full throttle game and did pretty much set up all the 3d on that. And there was a couple of other artists that helped out with some shots. And then right at the end, I came off and I went onto rebel assault too, which was another Star Wars game.

 

But as in terms of favorite game, um, I’d say in the late nineties, I worked for six years at totally games, which was a small developer. That coincidentally was right across the freeway from Lucas Arts. And it was actually kind of a spinoff from Lucas Arts. The owner of the company was an employee at Lucas Arts at one time.

 

And I think him and another guy formed this company and we’re able to maintain the, some of the star Wars licenses that they had worked on internally. And now they were an external company. They had, he had done X wing and Thai fighter, which were hugely popular games at the time. They were like flight Sims.

 

That were basically, you know, space-oriented Star Wars. Oriented. I went to work for them 98 or so. And the first game I did for them was that was a ton of fun. That was exiting Alliance, which was a SQL to one of the earlier ex game. That was a blast to work on because that was right in the sweet spot of graphics got better.

 

The tools got better. We were able to do a lot with very little and. Um, I wound up basically doing all of this cinematics on that game, uh, as well as designing a bunch of the new ships, which was just a huge amount of fun. I think that’s the game that when I look back at the animation and look at the sequences that I did, um, I think those are the ones I’m most proud of because they’re just, I think.

 

I still look at them now and I still think they’re good. And that’s, that’s, that’s rare. Would you look back at your own work and feel like, Oh, this still looks really good. And, uh, cause often I don’t feel that way about, so some of my earlier stuff, but, um, but that was a really fun game. So yeah, X wing Alliance and, uh, totally games was, was, uh, I think a real highlight for me.

 

Well, thanks, Richard. And I want to know, are you an avid gamer yourself? I would have to say no. I sort of wound up in video games almost by accident, really? Because I had worked at another Lucas company that was actually building location-based. Attractions, which were basically like simulators. This was very, very early.

 

This was in 89. The technology really wasn’t quite up to snuff yet. And, uh, they spent a lot of time and money on this, uh, developing this, this thing. And I worked briefly on it. When that division shut down, they, Lucas had a pretty good policy of trying to place people at its other divisions, which included, uh, industrial light and magic, uh, which I did interview at didn’t get a job there, uh, which was kind of a disappointment because that had been a dream of mine.

 

It’s like, Ooh, if I could be a model builder at ILM, that would be great. Yeah. But that was right in a, in a bad time when, when the effects business was really falling off and everything was starting to move towards computers and away from, you know, practical model. So that wasn’t a good time at all to get into that business.

 

But I did interview at the games division and while I wasn’t really that interested in games, I found out they were doing a 3D Star Wars game 3D in the sense of, uh, Modeling it in 3D and animating, not, not 3D. Like you think of like stereo scopic, 3D, like where you wear the goggles and it’s in 3D a 3D meaning, just 3D modeling.

 

You know, when I saw that, I, I was highly motivated to, uh, To get a job there because that was sort of a dream job, you know, are you kidding? Animating Star Wars stuff in 3D. And I was learning 3D at the time and I was actually working as an industrial designer and I had just started using a lot more, uh, 3D stuff.

 

So, um, it was just a great fit of, you know, if I could be doing 3D, which I really enjoyed at the time and, you know, getting to do Star Wars, that would be. I just thought there wouldn’t be anything better than that. And it just stuck, you know, I, I, I spent a few years there and then I went to totally games for another few years and just, you know, just kind of grew up with the industry as it went along.

 

Well, speaking of you touched on dream jobs. So I have a question for you. If you had your wish and you could design a project or a dream job, what would it be going forward? Oh, gosh. Um, there’d be so many. Oh, um, there’s, there’s so many exciting projects going on right now in terms of aerospace and development.

 

It’s um, it’s really kinda mind-boggling, uh, you know, doing the, like the moon Rover competitions and the passenger flights into space and all of this stuff is really happening, you know, right now. That stuff. I just find terribly exciting and not in the sense that I’d want to do it. I don’t know if I would take a flight into space or not.

 

I would love to do the animation of the, uh, of the actual vehicles going into space. I think when I look at those, those, uh, those, those sort of corporate marketing animations of, you know, SpaceX or Virgin Space, you know, that they’re, uh, vehicle, things like that. I would love to be involved in that sort of thing.

 

Uh, you know, Imagining. Scenarios for those kinds of vehicles or, you know, looking into the future just a little bit, you know, five or 10 years, because I like that mix of, you know, sort of fantastic thinking and projecting of what the future is going to be, but it’s all based in reality and this really could happen.

 

And it’s kind of goes back to that 2001 thing that I’d mentioned, you know, of. But like when you see this, you go, Oh, in five or 10 years, you know, we could be there. And that, there’s a feeling of that now I think. And I think it’s, I think it’s a substantial, you know, I think it’s a reasonable dream to, to think that these things could or actually will happen.

 

So I would love to be involved with something like that. If I could. Well, there’s still time. So maybe that’ll happen for you. Okay. Right. We had talked about earlier inspiration when you were younger of space artists who know in your early days, can you mention any that in particular that were inspiration trail?

 

Oh yeah. There’s, there’s a few that are, they’re huge. Um, Chris in the 70s, when I was, you know, at that age and I was really into that stuff there, you know, there wasn’t a whole lot of, uh, material available at the time. There was, you know, a few art books here and there. Um, there was sort of these fantasy book, like the, the Dean series, you know, the Roger Dean books who had the guy who had done all the yes.

 

Album covers and that sort of thing. But that was more fantasy stuff. It wasn’t really like spaceships and stuff, but you know, you take what you can get in the seventies. It was pickings were slim back then. Of course I had, you know, a subscription to, you know, Starlog and what was it? Future magazine. They often published, Oh, and an Omni magazine too.

 

They publish a lot of space art in there. And so the early people that I was hugely influenced by were obviously Robert McCall, uh, was one of the first and he’d actually done a fair amount of movie concept artwork, which. That’s the stuff that really attracted me because I love the, the astronomy side of it.

 

And when they tried to do sort of more realistic, um, you know, depictions of what space would be like, but I also loved it when they switched over and, you know, did movie work and of course, Star Wars, when those design books came out, you know, I still have the original sketchbook from the first three movies.

 

And those sketchbooks, I, I can’t believe they’re still in one piece because I looked at them, you know, like 10,000 times. And I think I have the, every page memorized because at the time the, there just wasn’t much available in terms of like film design. And there was, you know, there was, there’s a couple of classics, you know, the chose, the early Chesley Bonneville stuff that he did in the fifties, uh, was obviously a early influence.

 

But I’d say from the 70s, was that really fertile area where artists really started, uh, just. I dunno, it just, it really took off in the, in the seventies. And there was a couple, there was Kris FOSS who was obviously huge and a huge influence in a lot of movies. And I loved his work and there was, uh, Vincent fate, uh, was another one.

 

And of course, Robert McCall. And then when the big movie designers came along, those were the people that were probably the most influential. There was the first alien movie, which Ron Cobb had done a bunch of the. Uh, the hardware designs. I, you know, I appreciated what Gieger did, uh, HR Gieger and did the alien stuff, but that wasn’t really my thing.

 

I wasn’t really into the, you know, like monsters and you know, that, that kind of organic stuff. I liked the spaceships and the hardware. And that’s the side that Ron Cobb did. And he. He did like all the, um, all, you know, the hallways and the spaceships and everything. And I just loved all of that stuff. And, um, and then of course the, really the sort of granddaddy of modern, uh, industrial and movie design was Syd Mead.

 

He was quite, uh, you know, a huge figure, uh, especially at art center. Cause he was an art center graduate also from back in the fifties. And of course, you know, went on to design a ton of movies and you know, did blade runner and. Uh, you know, all these just total landmark films. So, uh, yeah, it was, I’m a big collector of, of his stuff.

 

I have a ton of his books and, um, just, I don’t think there’s anybody that will parallel, you know, his style or his abilities, uh, for a long time. There’s some great designers out there now, but you know, there, it’s just, it’s a different industry in a different time. Yeah. But he was a huge influence because everybody, everybody at our center knew who said Mead was, and everybody kind of looked up at that as being like the pinnacle of elite design, you know, getting to do what you want and people paying you to do it was a, was a pretty rarefied place to be.

 

Thanks, Richard. Um, how do you incorporate technology and science in tear futuristic spaceships? That’s a really good question. You know, that’s something I’ve thought a lot about, and it’s really hard in some ways, too. I’ve had this ongoing complaint about modern technology. I’m not against it. I’m not against it really per se, but more that in the sixties and seventies, when space art came out, it was very, it was very tangible because they were basically, uh, just going one step further than what you’d seen on TV.

 

But where we are now is this technology is so hidden and so invisible. That it’s really a challenge for artists, I think, to do something truly futuristic, because I think when you do something that’s honestly, and truly futuristic it, winds up, not looking very special. Because it’s sort of, it’s a sort of medium be invisible, you know, it’s like, if you think of something like, uh, what’s the, uh, Amazon echo or whatever, the, that you just, it’s just in your room and you just ask it a question it’s like, that’s kind of, yeah, science, fiction-y kind of thing.

 

It’s almost like star Trek, you know, and they would just talk to the computer and just sort of talk to the room and they only did it because it worked in the, in the sense of it was on TV and they needed to have a voice, you know, you needed to have them asking the question and being answered. But if you look at that from an artist standpoint, it’s really uninteresting, you know, because if you try to depict the scene with that going on and it w you know, there’s, there’s nothing to see.

 

So you were kind of up against this, you know, technology is so complicated and invisible on one hand, and yet, on the other hand, you want to show stuff that looks exciting. And that’s a, that’s a huge challenge right now, because. You know, I, I think 20 or 30 years ago, you know, you were looking at, you know, the space shuttle and things seemed very big and tangible and, and straightforward.

 

Uh, whereas now, you know, how do you depict somebody having a supercomputer, you know, that they just carry around in their pocket? You know, it’s not, it’s not terribly exciting to. To see or to, to, to look at good point. So what advice would you like to share for aspiring space artists? Well, I think everybody, you know, has their own path and, and the things that inspire them.

 

I think the thing to look for would be. Find those things that inspire you and try to incorporate them. And that’s not necessarily just space. It’s like, you know, if you’re interested in architecture or if you’re interested in, uh, you know, nature photography or some other element that you can bring into it and, and use that to help build on or inform.

 

These more far out ideas, it just makes things so much more interesting. It gives them more context and depth, I think, than just saying, Oh, I’m just drawing a couple of planets or something, you know, it’s like, and I think having a little bit of background knowledge of, of real astrophysics and real astronomy, uh, is probably helpful.

 

Um, I’ve always been really interested in that stuff, so, and it, it, you know, it’s, again, it’s hard to communicate some of those really complicated ideas, you know, in, in an image. But, you know, every once in a while somebody, somebody pulls it off in an interesting way. And so I’d say, yeah, try to try to bring in other things, uh, other influences Intuit and not just stick solely within that area, because I think you’re really limiting yourself.

 

Uh, if, if you want to do stuff that that’s interesting or, or more relatable to people who might not be into that kind of art, thank you, Richard, for joining us. Oh, you’re welcome. I had a great time. And this concludes this episode of the Space Foundation’s Space4U podcast. Keep your eyes and ears open for more Space4U episodes by checking out our social media outlets on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

 

And of course, our website at www.spacefoundation.org on all of those outlets and more it’s our goal to inspire, educate, connect, and advocate for the space community. Because at the Space Foundation, we are always here and have space for you. Thank you for listening.


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Space4U Podcast: Richard Green – Space Artist