GEAR: INTERVIEW the waves crispy sharp, wrapping endless point breaks and inhabited by surfing elves. The whole vision was so 70’s - “searching for empty perfection”! “My work was mostly inspired by the literary world created by Tolkien (The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings which I carried around like a stack of bibles) & Robert E Howard (Conan) and the artwork of Frank Frazetta, Dali, Rick Griffin and Bill Ogden.” And speaking of Tolkien, one of Shane’s works has a particularly special place for us – the Smaugasboard! He explains… “The Hobbit obsession led me to airbrush this board for myself around 1975. I designed the board with retro - already back then - influences and had Keith Paull shape it. The airbrush is of Smaug the dragon, in his treasure cave conversing with Bilbo the Hobbit, supposedly invisible at the time. “I called it ‘Smaugasboard’, after the dragon, with a pun on the spread of food. It was one of a continuous string of retro-inspired designs including a mini Plastic Machine (circa ‘74) and the first of the Modern Mals we built at Whangamata.” Art-wise, airbrushing is insanely difficult to master – a fact that few would understand today, since the advent of Photoshop and digital art. So for those who don’t understand exactly how it works, we asked Shane to give us a quick explanation of the process to produce an airbrushed image. “While the airbrush has its limitations, for what it can do, it’s the perfect medium - especially for skies and water, where there are mostly soft edges, fades and colour blends. There was no airbrush academy, or book of instructions - I just had to work things out as I went along. “Martin Worthington was doing his own thing at Hot Buttered in Sydney, and there was no peer group to compare notes. There was no specific paint for the airbrush. This took a lot of experimentation as well - especially for painting on the foam and being glassed over. There was fading, de-laminating, bleeding, clotting and spattering to overcome and different stencil materials to test. “I would sketch the layout in the lighter colours and add layers of darker colours - all the while the images becoming more in focus and dimensional. Knowing just when to stop was often determined by the swell conditions. The fibreglass layer over the top enriched the effect and became almost jewel-like. “It was a beautiful era really. Surfing was an art and so was the board building process. There wasn’t much money involved - we just did it for the love of surfing. In comparison, I think today the surfboard has the status more befitting a tennis racquet. And with regard to today, what about how the digital world has changed what art is, and how it’s produced? “Well, you know... I used to have thick calluses on my fingers from the airbrush, and you had to swing your arm around quite a bit, with big swooping movements. I just don’t know how that action would translate to a mouse. “While I’m amazed at where the digital world has taken us, it is kinda sad to see the virtual disappearance of art as we knew it. But hey, after Dali, Frank Frazetta (of Conan art) and Surf Airbrush, there’s not much that hasn’t been done. As a result, stuff just gets wackier in an attempt to be different - and that’s okay, but not quite the same. “With Photoshop and digital reproductions, you can have anything printed on anything, and that has dispelled a lot of the magic. Commercialism also hasn’t helped individuality. “I believe that movies are where art is presently at its best, but this requires a makeover. The technology is there for us to make beautiful audio-visuals, but our minds are in the gutter. There are a lot of great stories out there, so no excuse. I’m a big fan of 3D. Some people have a problem with it but it works for my eyes. Can you imagine what would be going through Walt Disney’s head, watching today’s 3D digital animation? Shane tells us how he’s always really thrived on the creative process of art and functional design. Thesedays, with a small beach resort to run, and the art mostly about designing for their shop, he says he still just enjoys being creative and treading new ground - from building his home, resort accommodation and landscaping the surrounds to writing and surfboard design in particular, for which he still has a unique taste for. “I’ve always had a couple of boards including a state-of-the-art and one of my retro-fusion designs - which has been a parallel evolution on the Plastic Machine-theme. I’m finally content with where the design has come to. and now it’s my main board. “ The waves here are really fast and hollow and it works perfect - crazy! It has lots of different features, like re-designed, cropped fins... But the most obvious are the cropped nose and tail - effectively reducing the board length by a foot. No more points for me! “I’M FINALLY CONTENT WITH WHERE THE DESIGN HAS COME TO.” Shane’s cropped compact design, shaped by the boys from Oke Surfboards. Check out the 2007 Musica Surfica DVD extras for a segment on it. 126 SMORGASBOARDER | MAR/APR <strong>2013</strong>
Cape Woolamai Beach, on Phillip Island, Victoria MAR/APR <strong>2013</strong> | SMORGASBOARDER 127