Staying busy while isolated

Ddaddy · Mar 26, 2020

i have been working from home for the past few weeks and trying to stay busy in my down time from work. I have been restoring/reworking vintage magazine covers and magazine art. I have done close to 50 of them now and I figured I would share so others can be distracted for a little while viewing them.

Ddaddy · Mar 26, 2020

Ddaddy · Mar 26, 2020

Ddaddy · Mar 26, 2020

toolmanmike · Mar 26, 2020

Wow Dave. Those are really cool stuff

Ddaddy · Mar 26, 2020

toolmanmike said:
Wow Dave. Those are really cool stuff

Thanks! Most of these images start as small badly degraded copies of 80+ year old basement issues that have been scanned at low resolution. The challenge in restoring them is part of why I do it.

Here is an example of what I started with and what I turned it into...

toolmanmike · Mar 26, 2020

That is cool stuff.

67Dart273 · Mar 26, 2020

I used to love those old mags. I did not realize my fortune at the time. We moved into what is now the "recently sold estate" when I was 6 years old in about 1954. This was the house that Gramps and Dad (and my Aunt) built. Gramps had stacks of old mechanics and science magazines from the '30's up through the 40's and 50's. I used to love to read those. In those days, some of the mechanics mags had a photography article each month, and a "radio" article each month. The WWII era ones were rife with articles on the war, and war machinery.

"Gus Wilson" and his garage

Who was the bald guy in Mechanics Illustrated who tested cars? OH YEAH, Tom McCahill. I can still remember vaguely, him on the cover, standing proudly beside a slab side Citroen (similar to one in American Graffittii) with the blazing headlines, "Can this be the world's ugliest car?"

Unfortunately, time, and mildew took their toll

diymirage · Mar 26, 2020

67Dart273 said:
Unfortunately, time, and mildew took their toll

one of my favorite things to do as a kid was go out in the backyard and dig a trench
the i would cover up the top with wood and toss some more dirt on top for good measure and id have my very own "underground bunker"
i would snatch candles from the cellar and go in there and read my comics
of course, anything i drug out there stayed there, and sure enough, after a week or so, my comics got that peculiar smell to it...another week after that and the would start growing fuzz

44070dart · Mar 26, 2020

Dd where do you find them .. great to see.

Ddaddy · Mar 27, 2020

44070dart said:
Dd where do you find them .. great to see.

I find them all over the Internet. A lot of them are from sales ads of people selling old magazines. They often do a quick scan of the cover for their ad.

Ddaddy · Mar 27, 2020

Did a few new ones last night and today. I’m learning new techniques as I go to make them better.

ocdart · Mar 27, 2020

Always enjoy seeing your work!

Ddaddy · Mar 27, 2020

I’m always looking for new ones that I haven’t seen before. Today, I found this one. Oh boy, it is in bad shape...but the content is too good to ignore. This might take me all day tomorrow to make decent.

inkjunkie · Mar 28, 2020

I should be working on the images that I owe people...just not able to do it for one reason or another. Have had several folks ask me to create a "Red Light Club" album, as well as some different edits for them...yet...

Ddaddy · Mar 28, 2020

Well, it took me 5 hours...but I got it done! Turned out pretty well...

Ddaddy · Mar 28, 2020

A couple of new ones before I ran out of steam for today...

halifaxhops · Mar 28, 2020

Those would look great on tin Dave!

Ddaddy · Mar 28, 2020

halifaxhops said:
Those would look great on tin Dave!

Thanks, I haven’t figured out yet how I might want to print them. Metal, posters, plastic, vinyl. Will do a few different types as tests at some point.

Tooljunkie · Mar 28, 2020

Some great stuff there,Dave!

Ddaddy · Mar 28, 2020

The Disney stuff always makes for good images. I never realized that Sunoco had a contract to use Disney characters before I started restoring old images...

Ddaddy · Mar 28, 2020

Similarly, I never knew that Dr. Seuss did images for Standard oil/Esso back then either...

Ddaddy · Mar 29, 2020

A few new ones today...

Ddaddy · Mar 29, 2020

This one was the worst of the bunch today. Here is the before and after...

Before

After

Ddaddy · Mar 30, 2020

Work stuff is slowing and I expect to be unemployed in few weeks based on how it is going. No worries, I have been long prepared for it. Like always, I will just find another gig.

Since I had a fair amount of down time today, I did a few more including some new finds that I found quite interesting.