Well, hello Rod! I'm impressed that anyone finished those jigsaws, they must have been a trial. I think the 250F was the first to have anything other than a completely white background - we added a graph-paper pattern as some form of aid! I really appreciate your cartoons - cartooning seems to fall into at least two camps - one where the drawing takes second place to the words (assuming it is not entirely visual, which is the third group!) and another, where the artwork is of a very high standard and the words take second place. Yours seems to fall into another group, which henceforth shall be knowne as ye fourth groupe, Sire, in which the artwork is superb and the words match it! I have done a few, many years ago for friends, and more recently (but still a long time ago) as commissions, but I have never been happy with the outcome. It takes time, I think, to establish a style, and I needed more practice, but there is no guarantee that I would ever have developed a style that really worked, and my illustrating discipline is a bit of a hindrance when it comes to real 'loosness'.
As to building cars, I dunno, my problem has always been too many interests, so no concentration, apart from the cutaways. Vintage, historic rebuilds, modern stuff (I admire all the small/smallish builders like GN and Frazer Nash, early Lotus Cars, up to and including Radical) and I do occasionally wonder what would have happened if I'd joined March in 1971/2 as I was 'invited' to... no self confidence. Ho hum. Anything that combiness manual skills with a degree of intellectual challenge is up my street, but I'm best at doing what people ask me to do, rather than what I should do for myself - then the decision is made for me.
Thanks for the very kind words Tony! Maybe it's a peculiarity of artists [ or Geminis--you wouldn't happen to be one would you?] but I empathise with you, especially when it comes to building a car. I've been planning to do so for years, collecting a vast array of ingredients and equipment--including an English wheel. I even have a cast alloy grille for a Kurtis Kraft midget [surely a classic shape for a racing car] and a Halibrand quick-change diff for the other end. Just missing the bits in between! The difficulty is in being attracted to so many types and shapes and realising that settling on one will exclude all the others. Rather like making a solemn pledge to a lady.It all brings to mind a drawing by the wonderfully whimsical Melbourne cartoonist, Michael Leunig; He depicts a bloke who starts to build a yacht to sail around the world. Construction wanes in favour of a newfound hobby, breeding chickens which he houses in a coop on top of the boat. This in turn gives way to a passion for astronomy and we have the bod standing on the deck of the incomplete boat/chookpen, hens eyeing him strangely as he gazes through a telescope at the moon. Oh yes......Cutaway drawings.......
