Don't miss original Hitchhiker TV Series artwork on ebay

 Rod Lord has put a lot of new incredible items on ebay and continues to put new ones each week. So if you're interested with incedible collector items for The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy TV series, you have to watch very closely this list :


http://shop.ebay.co.uk/rodlord/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

If you don't want to miss any item posted by Rod Lord on ebay join Rod's H2G2 mailing list http://www.rodlord.com/pages/hhgg.htm

New original Hitchhiker TV Series artwork on ebay

Rod Lord has put on auction four more Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy TV series artworks. Be careful it's just three day long auctions.


H2G2_ AW_011 : Babel Fish Sequence (early design)

"An item from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.This item is an early "key" pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper made by Rod Lord in the early stages of planning and layout for the part of the sequence where the Babel Fish turns head on in the centre of screen while a human head appears on the left and an Alien head on the right."

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290584173244&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123

H2G2_ AW_012 : Babel Fish Sequence (early design)

"An item from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.
This item is an early "key" pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper made by Rod Lord in the early stages of planning and layout for the part of the sequence where the Babel Fish turns head on in the centre of screen while a human head appears on the left and an Alien head on the right.
The drawing on the left fixed with masking tape is an early stage of the change from the earlier more rounded style to the more "digital" feel of the final animation.
On the back of the drawing is an early stab at a similar change for the Alien's brain."

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290584177955&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123

H2G2_ AW_013 : Babel Fish Sequence (early design)

"Items from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.
These two animation cells were traced by Rod Lord and intended for the part of the sequence where the Babel Fish turns head on in the centre of screen while a human head appears on the left and an Alien head on the right.
When these cells were traced the intention was to paint them on the back in the conventional animation technique and use them as artwork layers under the rostrum camera using normal top lighting. They never got painted because the whole approach to technical production changed."

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290584571172&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123


H2G2_ AW_014 : Babel Fish Sequence (early design)

Items from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.

This package represents the initial design work for the shift from the early more rounded style to the straighter more digital feel used for the finished work.

1 - A pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper for the Babel Fish.
2 - A pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper for the innards.
3 - A pencil drawing on 305x252 mm animation paper for the skeleton.
4 - An animation cell with a painted outline of the Babel Fish intended for the early intention of conventional top-lighting under the rostrum camera.
5 - An animation cell with a painted mask designed to be used over the outline for when the innards layer would be added.


http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290584182030&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:GB:1123

11 Early designs of the Babel fish on ebay

The great Rod Lord has put some new stuff on auction on ebay. This time this is no less than eleven drawings of the Babel Fish made during the preparation of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series.

"I have come across a few items from the early stages of the Babel Fish sequence, the first half of which constituted the initial pilot test piece for the BBC.

These items were part of the early design process and use the initial slightly more cartoony design for the Babel Fish before I "straightened" it all up for the actual finished sequence to give a more digital feel.

This item offered for auction is a pencil drawing on animation key paper (31x25 cm) and is one of an animation of 11 turning the Babel Fish from side view to front view. There should be a number 12 but I haven't found that yet. If I do come across it at a later date I will offer that too.

I am offering these as separate items rather than a single package with the intention of giving as wide an opportunity as possible to an interested group rather than confining ownership of all to one individual.

This will come with an accompanying authenticating letter embossed with the Pearce Studios Ltd seal.

I will sign the drawing - and the letter of course !"

To find Rod Lord's drawings on ebay, clik this link.

New original Hitchhiker TV Series graphics on ebay

Rod Lord who made the graphics on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the galaxy TV series has put some original artwork on ebay. This is incredible stuff so if you've got enough money, you won't want to miss such an opportunity.

The auction ends the 17th January. Click this the link to go to the auction.


According to Rod Lord's description on ebay :

"This package is made up of :

1 - The original storyboard for this sequence.
2 - One of the masters used under the Repromaster to animate Arthur and Ford away into space at the start of the sequence.
3 - The key animation guide for the first 12 positions of this animation.

This package will come with an accompanying authenticating letter and description embossed with the Pearce Studios Ltd seal.

I will sign each item - including the letter of course !

I will include a full description of how this animation was generated and used. The large Rotring pen drawings on celluloid which were the starting point for the animation were auctioned at Hitchcon 2009." 

Exclusive interview with Rod Lord!!

Rod Lord is the genius who made the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy TV gaphics! You can read an exclusive interview on my website (also illustrated with rare pictures) :

http://www.douglasadams.info/en_index.php?p=en_bonus_interview_rod_lord

Original items from TV series graphics on ebay : Gargle Blaster package

Rod Lord, the genius who made the computer graphics, has put on ebay some original artwork and you really shouldn't miss it. End of auction : 17 Jan, 2010

"H2G2_ AW_003 : Gargle Blaster package

This package is made up of :

1 - The photographic lith film that was back-lit under the rostrum camera.
2 - The rostrum camera set-up key that has the rostrum track calibrations stuck on it.
3 - The camera dope sheet in Rod Lord's hand writing.

This will come with an accompanying authenticating letter and description embossed withthe Pearce Studios Ltd seal.

I will sign each item - including the letter of course !

This is the first item I came to in the first box I opened. The hand writing on the camera key and dope sheet is definitely mine but my memory does not deliver who designed this and put together the original black on clear from which the camera artwork was made. This may be somewhere among the huge quantity of stuff in one of the other boxes - if I stumble across it at some point I will make that available.

It is entirely possible that Kevin Davies did this. Kev - if this is so you'll get a %age of whatever this raises ... if anything !

Kevin very probably did the dark room work, registered it with punched 35mm film, and did the black paint spotting on the film.

I'm vaguely surprised that the calibrations on the tape from the camera track stuck onto the key do not show farings or "easing in and out". That would normally have been the practice.

But perhaps it was decided that a sudden start and finish looked more "electronic".

Who did the camera work ? Who knows ? Could have been me - or Kevin - or John Percy? To determine that we would need to still have the camera sheet which went with the can to Rank's film labs for processing. Sadly that is long lost with all the other camera sheets from that time.

I will continue to dig my way gradually through the pile and list on eBay anything that looks viable - ie not just wadges of lith film welded together !"

The auction is here 

UPDATE : the item was sold 120,00 GPB

Join Rod Lord's mailing list

Rod Lord is the genius who did the wonderful graphics for the Hitchhiker BBC TV series. Those who were at the Hitchcon had the opportunity to talk to him and buy some prints. There was even an auction for an original piece of artwork (that i sadly lost).

On Rod Lord's website, you can get a lot of details on Rod's work on Hitchhiker, watch a video interview, order some prints and also add your details to a new mailing list to be kept informed of when items of original artwork are to be posted on eBay or new items or features added to the site.

http://www.rodlord.com/pages/hhgg.htm

The Hitchhiker's Adventure Game on Radio 4 wins BAFTA Best Online Entertainment Award.

This year's Interactve Bafta Awards gave the award of Best Online Entertainment to "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Adventure Game - The 20th Anniversary Edition". The original Hitchhiker's Adventure game has been created by Douglas and Steve Meretzky in 1985 for Infocom. It has been a big commercial success for a text only adventure (250.000 copies sold) and remained a quite popular version of H2g2 during all these years (for more infos about the original game check this place).
Douglas, who was quite proud of the game, had an online playable version of the game on his official website. And when Radio 4 decided to launch a big website for the upcoming broadcasting of the new radio series based on the last three books of the Hitchhiker's series, they chose to work on a new version of the Hitchhiker's Adventure Game which would be playable on their website.

But Radio 4 did not just put the old version of The Adventure Game online. They asked to Rod Lord (the guy who created the guide graphics in the TV series) and to Sean Sollé (from Douglas' company The Digital Village) to work on a brand new version to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the game (if you want to learn how they made such an exploit check here).

In fact, the new version of the Hitchhiker's adventure game is one of the reasons why the Radio 4 website is so succesfull. The graphics are great, and Sean made a wonderful work to update it and attract new players to this wonderful game.

You can notice that there is now two versions of the game with some new graphics from the young artists Nolan Worthington and Andrew Wyld.

The new version of the game is excellent, has well deserved this prize and we all hope that Radio 4 will let it online after the broadcasting of the new series this spring.