Tom Roberts Stamp of Strangeness Dune Art Print Release

Original Drawing, INSANE Detail

My buddy Colin commissioned English artist Tom Roberts to create a print based on the book Dune by Frank Herbert. I had never seen Tom's work before but after Colin told me about him I checked out his Instagram and WOW the man is a great illustrator.

He is some info from Colin on the process:

Anyway, I recently commissioned a piece of art based on the book Dune by Frank Herbert. Both the artist and I were so thrilled with the end product that we decided to get some prints made. He's still real new to 'the game' and has only produced giclees of his work to this point. This one will be his first ever screen print. Once I convinced him we should look into screening it I hit up VGKids and got the ball rolling. Super happy with how it came out.

I talked to Tom about the design and asked him about his background:

Ok so I'm an illustrator living in rural England. Heavily inspired by books mainly mythology. I draw up commission work for books, album covers and work with breweries for murals and pub signs etc.

I had always meant to read dune so when Colin's commission came in I brought the book before we had actually discussed anything about the work haha. Colin had brought an original drawing i was exhibiting in a show in new York. That's how he found my work.

I drew up a couple of rough sketches. Then I started the drawing whilst I was reading the book itself. So I began drawing in the bottom right hand side and as the book progressed I went upwards around the top and back down to the bottom.

I'm left handed so do a lot of my work this way to reduce pencil smudging etc. By the time I'd finished the book the artwork was nearly done. I quite like how the drawing developed with the story. If you read the book then you can almost follow the story around the paper.

So this is my first screen print. Colin has been amazing with sorting it all out. I was approached by a couple of companies wanting to do the same with the work but we thought going it on our own would have the best results.

We chose sand and dusky colours to best suit the book.

I don't think photos can do the paper and inks justice as when you hold the print in your hand...I dunno it just feels so authentic.

Details on the print

4 screens on 140# Speckletone Kraft paper. Printed by VGKids
A2 sized 420 x 594 mm 16.5 x 23.4 in.
Prints limited to 65 as the book was released in 1965.
(5 additional artist prints exist - never to be reprinted)
Prints are signed and numbered.

Shipping worldwide. Tom will take care of European orders and will send all the North America ordered prints to Colin to ship in order to help folks on shipping. So if you're in the US be patient.

On sale May 9th at 7:00pm GMT, 2:00pm EDT, 11:00pm PDT at http://tomrobertsillustration.bigcartel.com