How do we do it?!

Cody Hagman and I are working on a new project. You’ve seen a few things I’ve been working on for it, but I thought folks might enjoy seeing the steps it takes for us working together.

I work in a fishbowl.

Some people complain because they work in a cubicle. I feel like my desk, which sits in the middle of an intersection of busy hallways and has absolutely no privacy, is like working in a fishbowl. That being said, I’d gladly don a big round fishbowl-like helmet if it attached to a spacesuit for work. There’s just something about a techno suit that has everything you need to stay alive that I love.

New year, new gear.

I’m feeling spacesuits that are too heavy. Remember that movie Deadman? These cowboy-types are out in the wild, being cold, and one guy says, “don’t worry about your arms, they’ll take care of themselves. Keep you body warm.” I’ve always felt that way about spacesuits. The armor has gotta be on top.

Breathe deep…

Up to a few months ago, I was working on a project about the experience certain children (young adults?) have when they have to go in the hospital for fairly serious procedures.  It was a difficult project because of the subject matter, and very personally challenging for me because it was a drastic change-of-subject for me.  No robots or spacesuits in this story…

Anyway, I posted a few panels from the pages while they were in-progress, but I wanted to share one of my favorite pages as well.  The finished page was colored and has some dialogue where the poor kid is being warned that he’s about to be put under (breathe deep!), but I kind of like just the cleaned-up line work.  I feel like the “fading” visual works better in black & white.

One funny thing, when drawing this POV, I used my own legs as reference.  I guess it’s not enough that the poor teen had to be in the hospital, but I had to go and give him 40-year-old-man-legs.

Dress for success.

I’m trying to wind myself up for a new project.  It involves lots of spacesuits, robots, and ruined, industrial sci-fi settings.  Really, everything I love in life… imaginary life.

One of the most-difficult ongoing struggles I face is finding enough time to draw.  The last year has been so busy, I’m thinking about not taking on more freelance commissions for the near future, at least until I’ve finished drawing a few things that have been waiting for a while now and are pounding at the door on my conscience.

Enough of that, you came here for the drawing, right?  So, here’s a little sketch I cleaned up to get the juices flowing.  It’s going to be on the table for that upcoming project.  More on that soon…

The new year.

Hey!  Busy, busy, busy.  I’m determined to get more posts out, though.  Lately I’ve been working like a madman and sleeping very little.  The weeks fly by and I find myself nearly into the second month of 2016 already, with no real recollection of what happened to the month of January.  I still find myself thinking of what I’m going to accomplish in the new year, and then realizing I’m well into it.  Accomplish I have, though!  Most excitingly, the printing (finally) of issue #3 of Father Robot.  I’ve been waiting for the publisher to put out the digital version, to no avail.  I have no idea what’s going on there…

Anyway, in the spirit of all things FR, here’s a sketch from way-back in the development days of the series.  I don’t know why he has no arm.

I’ve got to get back to work, but I hope you enjoy the drawing and please feel free to drop me a line here or at sam@samgarlandillustrations… especially if you’d like to acquire a copy of the new issue!

I miss Seattle.

That’s it, pretty much.  The title kind of says it all.  I’ve sort of settled in Oklahoma City now.  I have a day job that takes pretty much all of my waking hours during the week and the freelance work takes up the rest of it.  From too little work to too much.  Ugh.  I miss rainy days and mellow liberals.  Does Seattle miss me?

To the rescue.

Just when you thought I was down for the count, here I am again, stronger than ever.  These words are brought to you by the following superhero, who I worked-up from a rejected commission sketch recently:

It’s been a busy month, relocating myself and business to Oklahoma City.  I haven’t lived in this part of the country for 20 years, and it’s been a little readjustment.  I don’t mean that sarcastically, it’s only taken a small amount of effort to be comfortable here.  It helps when there’s family nearby (I was born and raised not too from from here) and when the culture is a familiar and welcoming one.  This area seems to be exploding right now, but it’s still incredibly affordable and roomy compared to the cities I’ve lived in on the West Coast.

All that aside, the freelance work has really picked up and I’ve had to hurry to keep pace.  When combined with a new day job, I’m all-of-a-sudden out of the free time I’ve been enjoying for the past 8 or 9 months.  So, enjoy this little piece I did last night, while a bout of insomnia had hold of me.  I’ll post more as they sneak their way out.

Shades of gray.

Throughout the 80’s, Hayao Miyazaki created a comic called Nausicaä.  I didn’t discover the series until about 10 years ago, but I was blown away by the style it was done in.  There was a lot of hashing instead of solid blacks (for shading) and everything was done in a kind of loose, organic line work.  It created such a unique feel for everything, and really even created a mood for the whole world.  I feel like these 3-value drawings of Father Robot I’ve done in the past couple of days remind me of how Nausicaä made me feel back when I first read it.  Not that it’s in the same style or anywhere near as well-rendered, but I do like how this has come out.

Again, this was done with Copic technical pens and sketch markers.  I got a little more variation in value by blending the markers together when I could.

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!