Dear friends, today we have the
opportunity to make an interview with the creator of the fantastic “Mechanauts”:
David White!
Fantascienza&Co: First of all I must say that I know
your art because some years ago I created the name Mechanauti, that is the
Italian for Mechanauts, and one day I googled this name and I found your
creation. So what’s your inspiration for the Mechanauts?
Hello and thanks so much for the
opportunity to talk about my creations. My inspiration for the Mechanauts was
older toys from the 70s and 80s such as Micronauts, Diaclone, and Transformers.
I like a lot of different toys from that era, but the science fiction toys have
always been my favorites.
F&Co.: may you tell us something about you and your
career as an illustrator?
My career as an artist started back
in 1995 after I graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design. I got a
job making computer games for a company called Cyberlore Studios. We made a lot
of PC games such as Majesty the Fantasy Kingdom Sim and a couple of MechWarrior
4 sequels. I was responsible for creating concept art and making the in-game
art too. I started doing freelance work for LEGO while I was at Cyberlore. I
created more than 200 pages of comics for LEGO Magazine over about 9 years.
Cyberlore closed in 2005 and I became a full-time freelancer. I illustrated
more than 20 Hot Wheels books and several LEGO Star Wars books for Scholastic
as well. It was a lot of fun!
F&Co.: and what about today job as a mecha
designer apart from Mechanauts?
I’ve had some fun mecha design jobs
over the years, but they are infrequent now. I modified many old designs for
the MechWarrior 4 PC games and also got to create a few new designs. I then
started working on the Battletech miniatures game. I still create drawings for
those sometimes. Here are many of the drawings I have done for Battletech.
Another highlight was when I got to
do concept art for the Nintendo DS version of Transformers: War for Cybertron.
I loved doing that J
F&Co.: Let’s talk about your awesome Mechanauts:
can you tell us something about your production process? How do you work and
which are your job devices (3d printer, resin materials, etc.)?
I use several 3D printers to make
my figures. I prefer a brand called Afinia because their machines have been
very reliable and cost effective. They are extrusion type machines and I use
ABS plastic. Making the toys takes a lot of time. THE 6 in Mechanauts have
around 75 parts and all those parts take about 20 hours to print. After the
parts are printed, I have to remove support material and assemble everything by
hand. The last step is an acetone treatment that smoothes the surface of the
pats and makes them shiny. I’m working on a series of videos for my YouTube
channel to show my entire process.