correct: there isn't any storyline behind the drawings (perhaps i shouldn't have revealed that). sometimes there are loose ideas that we joke about, e.g. "let's have a series of vehicles with names based on historical figures: vlad the impala, etc." we'll then 'jam' in skype and throw out a list of stupid names until there are a few to play with.
other than that there isn't any planning. i'll just draw something when i have a flash of inspiration. usually the end result isn't anything like i'd expected it to be. as i don't use any reference images, all i concentrate on is drawing something that has correct perspective and looks implausible using current technology. (well, i've used two reference photos so far: a hamster and an impala automobile.)
the vehicles tend to build themselves as they are drawn. better ideas come along as i'm doing them so large bits get rubbed out and something more stupid will be put in its place. then end result is scanned and cleaned up a bit in Photoshop. after that i may go back and erase bits from the original sketch and put new things in knowing that i've got a 'safe' version stored on the computer.
then i email it.
Tim then looks for ways of making the vehicle seem plausible and gives it a purpose. i may offer a suggestion sometimes as to what the vehicle could be, or i might point out a detail that i think is important to write about. mostly, Tim has total freedom to write what he likes. that's where the fun part is for me. i'm always pleasantly surprised by what he writes. it's always more than i could have thought of myself; more detail, more history, more big words. he connects the implausible parts of the vehicle so that they have a purpose which is very satisfying for me to see.
other than that, sometimes i may add an extra line or a paragraph to explain something i think can't be ignored. Tim always gets the tone right and he has evolved the background story into something that 'could' go somewhere. There was never a real story behind the original idea for the website but now i think we have one. hopefully this will become obvious when we try to put it into the illustrated book. at present, there isn't any story for it but i hope that it will manage to explain what the Transportica was all about.
