Robo-revvin’

I’m trying to get momentum up and going for the next issue of Father Robot.  So, this morning’s warm-up is this funky sketch of some poor, robot bastard who with lost the rest of his “jaw” or just had a real wicked designer.  Because, what ‘bot doesn’t need some scary tusks to make his daily existence easier?

I started with his arm, which is my favorite part of any robot drawing.  I don’t know why… and then I moved on to the creepy head.  Once I got to the “waist”, though, I kind of lost interest.  He deserves more care, I think, but it’ll have to wait for another day.

Between the lines.

No matter how many times I study reference books, go to a live model study, or just look at my favorite artists’ work, I always end up slipping back into my old patterns of drawing folds.  Those standard clothing fold that happen with all tight, hipster garb, regular fitted clothing, loose, oversize idiot-wear, or even the occasional spacesuit have some definite rules to follow.  I can’t help but ignore some of them.  So, I try to constantly retain myself with what clothing does on certain limbs, joints, body types, tension points, and all that jazz.  It’s a losing battle.  If I don’t keep up on it, i always revert back to bad habits.

Anyway, here was a warm-up space suit I did this morning, trying to get my folds focused.

I used a Copic drawing pen.  I love the feel of the thing, but the one I bought has the most inconsistent ink flow of any tool I own.  Sigh…

Stars in their eyes.

Have you heard that when you live in zero gravity for extended periods of time, you’re eyeballs start to squish?  That’s amazing!  I’m a pretty big fan of all-things-spacey, but this is news to me.  Not good news, I guess, but still interesting…

So, I assume that any career spacers would need robot eyes pretty soon.  I sketched this guy out this morning, inspired by the need for my space-suited characters to have mechanical lenses instead of stupid, squishable, meat balls for seeing all the awesome stuff out there in the cosmos.  Also, it seemed right to give him a little cone head too.

Still loving the pillowy, fluffed-ot space suits for now.

Lurking in the shadows.

When I do a turnaround for a new design, I always include a silhouette.  This helps me to make sure I have the shape and style right, that i’m not going to start using a concept that isn’t going to end up fitting correctly for what i need it to.  Also, silhouettes are great shortcuts for storytelling, especially when you’re just totally burnt out on drawing the same character over and over again.  My designs tend to be heavy on detail (because I LOVE details!), so it’s nice to know that the overall shape is clear too.

This is the silhouette from the lady’s space suit in the Garman Hagland project.

Who’s that girl?

You may recognize the pose from other work I’ve recently put up.  That’s because I reworked the pencils, laid down some vellum, and re-inked the drawing to try a little variation of the regular suit.  I really like the “puffy”, padded kind of space suit fabric, and while I didn’t commit to covering every section with that here, I still think it’s an improvement.

I only had one-sized pen with me today, so I didn’t get a lot of line thickness variation.  However, some a little practice piece, I’m pretty happy with it.

Spring fashion

If this suit looks familiar, it’s because it was an early design for the suit Cody Hagman and I are using to do out Garman Hagland project, which, in case you were wondering, has many more awesome images to come soon.

I’ve been in a bit of a dry spell lately due to melodramatic changes in my life.  However, things are beginning to stabilize, thanks to friends like Cody, and I’m promising more unbelievably soon.

Until then, enjoy more sketches, unused designs, and just random stuff like this.

I wanted to make a suit that was decidedly feminine in shape, but still somewhat realistic.  To that end , I originally put more padding on this concept.  Ultimately, I trimmed it down more (too much?) in order to show off her curves more, but I still think this one has its charms.

This was done with more technical pens from my favorite brand, Copic.

Adventures in inking.

Inking, like any skill, requires practice to keep up.  Sadly, I haven’t handled  a brush and ink pot for too long.  I’ve been traveling a lot (too much?) in the past year, and it has required me to carry a more mobile set of tools to do drawing with.  So, I’m trying to make a more concerted effort to get back to adding some massive blacks to my line work.  I still don’t have an ink pot handy (they tend to make a mess when they break in your bag), but I can still apply what know with pens. This is just practice, and I thought I’d share:

Yes, it’s a spacesuit.  What did you expect from me?

Light it up.

I almost never draw superheroes.  It’s usually robots, spacesuits, starships… or robots in spacesuits on starships.  Well, recently I had a good reason to draw Superman, and while I can’t share that one, this drawing of Green Lantern came out of the process of getting the pose for that drawing down.

I used some good ol’ Copic multiliners (technical pens) to lay down some nice, clean lines, and then I use some Adobe apps to clean things up and smooth the rough edges.

I’d like to color it this week if I have time.  So, maybe look forward to that!