Toby – Page 30 – Toby Weston

Cross Pollination: Featured Interview with Greg Prado

Lobster Books is linking me up with other indie authors to do some cross-pollination. Continuing the series, here is an interview with Greg Prado. I have not read his books myself, but hear good things!

Thanks for doing this interview with Lobster Books!
Science fiction authors necessarily spend a lot of time thinking about what might happen. A few standard tropes tend to make their way into the public mindset as well. Of the following more common tropes, which do you think will chronologically come first, and why? Tropes: first contact with aliens, instant (ansible) communication across unlimited distances, teleportation, deep space travel with humans in stasis, colonizing other planets.

I feel like colonizing other planets has to be the first possibility. Outside the extremely random possibility of an alien finding us, I’d say that’s a given. Moon base would likely be first, followed by Mars or Venus, then who knows?

When huge changes in technology occur, they are always accompanied by massive shifts in social aspects of humanity as well. What kind of social impact do you think will happen alongside the next major technological discovery?

I think general AI (unrestricted learning) is going to be the biggest game-changer in our society. People are just naïve enough to allow themselves to be programmed out of a job. I truly hope it is regulated soon. Otherwise cruel men will do what they always do and cut out entire segments of the workforce. I think either way the change will begin to occur soon. I hope we are wise enough to handle the repercussions.

Many sci-fi books and movies rely on a unified Earth government in the face of an alien threat. Do you think something like is possible? Are humans capable of coming together to face an external threat or will our inability to get along en masse be our undoing?

Not at first. I think if a few cities got glassed, we could probably reach an agreement a bit more quickly. I think once we decided to collaborate, we would put aside our differences while the immediate threat passed, while also trying to figure out how to come out on top post-conflict.

What kind of futuristic technology that’s currently being researched fascinates you the most? (Thinking of mentally controlled prosthetics, quantum entanglement, private space flight / tourism, brain augmentation, etc.)

I use mentally controlled technology a lot in my books. I first used it in my book “Darkly” almost ten years ago. I decided on the name Neuralink back then. It is funny because after Elon Musk’s innovation, now everyone is going to think I copied his name.

In my books the interface is mainly used for extremely quick vehicles and exo-suits. This enables the user to naturally control some very difficult to work machinery. I think that it will be a huge challenge to implement well, but I also see some great potential for applications.

Awesome! Thanks for doing this interview!

You can find more about Greg and his books at the links below:
Website: https://www.GregPrado.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gregpradowrites
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/gregpradowrites

Sci-Fi Art Feature — theRenderCode (Andrew C Popa)

Continuing our series in epic SciFi Art, we have some favourite pieces from the very talented Andrew C Popa. Andrew was kind enough to answer our whirlwind ‘getting to know you’ Artist speed dating questions too.

Thanks for doing an interview! First, tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started in art and what’s your overall goal? Where do you see yourself going?
Hi, my name is Andrew Popa, I am 20 years old and I live in Romania. Reinterpreting the things around me has always been something I was interested in. As most artists I have been passionate about drawing from a young age, but on top of that I was also building things out of cardboard and later on sculpting in wood or in clay. Nothing that was SF related at that time. About 5 years ago I started making portraits, but my focus shifted when I discovered 3d modeling (2 years ago). I couldn’t stick with both, so now I do mostly CG renders, but when I have time I do sketches to study human anatomy. For the most part I do environments, in the next years I would like to explore the process of creating characters, which is a bit more complex.

What inspires you to make sci-fi art? TV shows, books, other artists, etc?
What we surround ourselves with eventually changes the way we see the world, the way we interpret things. Even though most of the concepts that are presented in a SF universe are not possible at the moment I want to be surrounded by them in some way. Creating in 3d allows me to get a better feel of that universe. It allows me to interact with the objects, modify their shapes, paint on them, arrange the lights in the way I want. It’s a small simulation I get immersed in, and I want to share it with other people to see how they react and what cool ideas they have.
I love space exploration and I find inspiration in movies like: Avatar, Interstellar, Passengers, The Martian.

Which of your pieces is your favorite? Why?
I think the one with the portal is my favorite. I did a photoscan of an old room that is located in a small house in my backyard. It turned out to be pretty accurate and I kept thinking about how I could use this digital representation of an actual place with something that I would like to see brought into reality. I remembered that I had a model of a portal that I created a few months earlier. It was designed for another idea of mine that didn’t really work at that time. I put the two objects in the same scene and started adding secondary elements to come up with a story:
“While loading the coordinates of the destination, a glitch occurs which causes the other dimension to be seen reflected in the objects around.”
More about the project on Artstation.

What’s your technique like? Do you finish pieces in a single setting or spread them out over multiple days?
My workflow is spread across multiple days. Going for a realistic result requires a lot of attention spent on the small details, most of the time I have to remind myself that I have to finish at some point. I start by working on the main element of the image and then building around it, but sometimes I get distracted by some new idea and that prevents me from getting the project done. I think a time constraint allows for a more creative control, rather than getting caught up in the technical aspects, I can focus more on what story I want to tell. Recently I got started sculpting characters. I wanted to do that for sometime, but I was afraid to start, thinking it will take too long and I’ll never get anything done. So, I set out to sculpt a head within one hour and call it done by the end. I was surprised to see how much can be done in such a short time. It’ something that I should try for other types of projects as well.

Finally, of all the future technology consistently theorized across all forms of media (teleportation, instant communication, genetic editing, spaceflight, cloning, etc.), what would you like to see the most?
Definitely teleportation and spaceflight. I love the idea of going far out into the space and exploring how things evolved on other planets. We don’t know what to expect, what can be found out there, what forms of life. We can try to make assumptions based on what we know, but our perspective it’s limited to the things we came across. I wonder how art will be influenced in a future where those things could be possible.