Today we celebrate the art of rodolforever, a Mexican illustrator and graphic designer who developed a passion for comic books and superhero movies – and it shows!
Robot 1 by rodolforever, 2010
Here is a short selection of his posters and illustrations embracing Art Deco and Ancient Greek mythology, Expressionist movies and Conan Doyle, vamipres and robots.
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Today, we are proud to present Waldemar Kazak, an illustrator from Tver, Russia. Mr. Kazak is very active in the media. There are just a few dieselpunk-related works in his portfolio, but quantity doesn’t really matter: Mr. Kazak is a house name in the diesel crowd and his art is appreciated by the dieselheads all over the globe. Here are some paintings, in chronological order – from 2008, when his DeviantArt gallery was discovered by dieselpunk community, through 2012.
Monster House by Waldemar Kazak (2008)
Dystopian dieselpunk can be fun. It is possible to turn horror into a cartoon. And humor can provoke serious thoughts without being too weird or too bitter.
A few months ago, we did our best to furnish your Dieselpunk setting with 1910s artifacts. Not Diesel Era yet but certainly not Steam Age. How should we call this period – Edwardian? Maybe, but King Edward VII left this world on May 6, 1910. Proto-Diesel? Too pompous. Let’s agree on a somewhat less spectacular but chronologically correct term – Transition. A bridge between two great eras, embracing old and new aesthetics and ideas.
Today, we’d like to celebrate Speed and Power. For example, the car above, the Blitzen Benz, is powered by a 21.5-litre 200hp engine. On April 23, 1911, Bob Burman – remember the guy with goggles? – piloted it to an average of 228.1 kilometres per hour (141.7 mph) over a full mile at Daytona Beach, a record that would not be surpassed until 1919.
Francisco Salamone (1897-1959) was an Italian-Argentine architect who lived and worked in Argentina, built in just four years, between 1936 and 1940, more than 60 buildings in 25 municipalities of the Province of Buenos Aires.
Monumental Art Deco buildings, including cemeteries, municipalities, slaughterhouses, squares and bridges.
They were forgotten until recent years and today they are revalued. (Source)
Guaminì – Municipality building by Walter E. Kurtz @ Flickr
It’s hard to define the style of Salamone – maybe it’s a very special kind of Art Deco, influenced by Italian Futurism, maybe “monumental modernism” label suits it better. Anyway, this architect (you can read more about him on Dieselpunks.org) built a perfect setting for a Dieselpunk story, dark or bright, Ottensian or Piecraftian.
Let’s enter this strange world of municipal edifices, slaughterhouses and cemeteries.
Dieselpunk is proud to present The 19XX Organization.
Somewhere in the 20th century…
not long after the end of the Great War, those who were capable of hearing it, received a revelation… another Great War was coming. This coming war would push the limits of technology, split the atom to create the power of a small star, and bring together forces more evil than the world has ever known. That this war would happen was man’s fatal destiny, but the outcome of the war and the details of it were not as clear. A weak League of Nations banded together to form a group. A group capable of doing what those countries could not. A group of adventurers, explorers, and scientists from every allied country to search the globe and fight a battle far from the public eye. This group is The 19XX, all the public has been told is that they are fighting for all of the good in humanity to survive the nineteen hundreds and beyond.
19XX two-page spread
Their mission is to track down every powerful relic, every modern and undiscovered weapon, and every magic incantation ever uttered on the earth’s crust, because the forces of evil responsible for the next Great War would be searching for the very same thing. Nothing in the realm of the tangible or intangible is off limits when the fate of the entire world is at stake.
Once upon a time, about fifteen years ago, there was an aviation technician who started to draw fantasy aircraft. Nearly a decade later, he discovered dieselpunk movement. And the movement discovered his art. Meet Mr. Lnago (or just lnago, as he humbly spells his nom de guerre,) an aviator, hot rod enthusiast, artist, founding father of the Atlantic Republic.
Eight-motor by lnago
Enjoy his art!
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The Dieselpunk Encyclopedia is proud to present Sam Van Olffen, one of the greatest dieselpunk artists.
For starters, a short quote from his conversation with Tome Wilson (Dieselpunks.org, Aug. 27, 2009):
This will sound strange but I don’t think that anything comes directly from my brain. I’m just a vector, a kind of supra-physical translator. I’m not kidding. I just use information to make pictures, much as a computer makes pictures with binary language. My synapses translate data which comes from I don’t know where. That’s my role.
Another quote, from an interview published on jacksondeep.com (Oct. 8, 2010):
I’m more interested in the past as a way to understand the present and how in less than one century we all became “citizens of the age of the ephemera” as Alvin Toffler said pertinently. The lost civilizations, the great conflicts, men, discoveries, etc., whole those new quantic waves that were shaping the face of humanity. Needless to say it was more impressive than… Facebook!
There’s a lot to argue about but let’s put the argument aside. And proceed to the third interview, for the Gatehouse Gazette (#8, August 2009):
I have always wanted to create universes and characters, tell stories. I have always been attracted by science fiction and fantasy worlds, robots and monsters.I like big cities, pollution, oppressive atmospheres and everything connected with death. I like architecture and above all I like history. I let things happen. With all these elements combined you get dieselpunk. <…> You are right when you think dieselpunk fits my own style more. It is darker. Dieselpunk is the psychopathic son of steampunk.
Mask
You probably know that the art of Sam Van Olffen is often labeled as ‘steampunk’. Well, it’s easy, with all these top hats and balloons, Belle Epoque and Art Nouveau aesthetics. But the artist sees himself as a dieselpunk, expanding the genre’s limitations, crossing the borders, threading new paths. Let’s take a look:
Six months ago, we started this website. Now it’s time for summing up a bit. No need to tell us that the stats are oooh sooo boooring, everybody knows it. To add a dieselpunk twist, we’ll mix the numbers with some fantastic creations of Tolga Toykoç aka ttvortex, a concept artist from Turkey (to see higher-resolution images please visit his gallery @ Deviantart).
XB-7 Death Dealer by ttvortex
Now, to the stats. More than 52 thousand visits. Daily average: 283 hits. Not bad. Still we have to work a lot to surpass the success of our Grand Opening (Jan. 1, 2012) – 2,107 visits in one day!
The world will never be the same.
Why?
The answer is simple: there’s a new book, just out of print, 200 pages capable of changing your world forever. You probably thought that Dieselpunk is about bizarre machinery, heroic aviators and cynical private detectives, movie divas and pretty flapper girls, Art Deco and Streamline Moderne aesthetics… But it’s much more than this.
Stefan Prohaczka, the author, calls himself a “diesel powered artist”. We believe it is an understatement: a man responsible for a score of Dieselpunk masterpieces should be called a pillar of the genre. Three years ago he joined the Diesel crowd and since then contributed a lot to various projects, from Dieselpunks Network to our Encyclopedia (see the emblem). After a salvo of pictorial series, covers and stand-alone posters here comes a ‘black box’ containing not only familiar images but also some information – finally deciphered.
We are proud to present the creations of Jon Hall, an outstanding dieselpunk aircraft designer who builds amazing flying machines using LEGO plastic bricks. His work is highly acclaimed by both LEGO enthusiasts and dieselheads all over the world.
Mr. Hall wrote in his Flickr profile:
“I’m a thirtysomething graphic designer ( and ex- computer game artist, and ex- film and tv animator, and all round geek ). I live in London with my girlfriend and my 2 sons. I’m currently working at book publisher Dorling Kindersley’s Licensing department where I work with companies such as Pixar, Lego, Marvel, Lucasfilm and Disney to produce books based on their films and comics etc.”
“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” Leonardo Da Vinci
Here is a small selection of his aircraft, created in 2009-2012, with some comments from the author:
Savoia S-21
A Lego model I made of Porco’s seaplane from the Studio Ghibli film ‘Porco Rosso’
Dieselpunk Encyclopedia 