Category Archives: Sketchbook pages

Pages from my sketchbook.

SF Colony Cops 1

At the moment one of the things I’m doing (apart from Steampunk King Arthur, my comic and a few ideas for my blog) is continuing with some SF stuff. These are early ideas from my sketchbook for some future colony police (thanks to my brother for that one!). I’m trying to get a coherent look and feel for them, though they’re more practical not too dissimilar from police forces around the world right now; so I need to inject a bit more futurism.

I’ve been looking at the science fiction police from Ghost In The Shell, Appleseed, Patlabor, the security forces in Brink, the police in Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, American football helmets, paintball masks, and futuristic motorcycle helmets. I intend to create designs for the robots, detectives and space army too, we’ll see how it goes!

SF colonial cops 1

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SF team ideas

Continuing the Science Fiction theme; are some of my early ideas for a group of SF characters (I think I first put these online on my ImagineFX sketchbook page).
(The doodles on the left are ideas for a rebels army for WH40K I was working on and some habitat buildings.)
SF team ideas 2
Here we have a shotgun-toting woman, a scarred veteran warrior and a robot (like Wallbanger in 2000AD’s Bad Company). On the other side we have a sniper (with bionic eyes) and a detective or investigator. I didn’t have more than a vague notion for what their purpose was so I left the idea for a while.
SF team ideas 2

Now in 2009 I wanted to return to these characters (adding a friendly mutant) and refining their shapes. Again they lacked a cohesive sense of purpose so again they got shelved.
SF team ideas 3
SF team ideas 4

I’m working on the new versions, with a more fixed idea of what they are, at the moment.

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Ideas for alien designs

Here are some sketches of aliens (and a doodle of a Fungi from Yuggoth) from way back in 2005. There is a point to me showing them now; I shall explain in later posts!

Alien sketches

Here is an alternative alien idea for Inquisitor or similar Science Fiction game. A kind of holy warrior with a plasma gun.

Beaked Alien design

And finally is a centaur-like alien who lives on a rocky planet or moon(hence his armoured shell) with high light radiation from it’s Sun and a relatively thin atmosphere. He (it?) has evolved to eat sillicates and get nutrients from them and has two sets of eyes for seeing in the dark and the bright sunlight.

Centauroid alien

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SF Vampires and Inquistor Ravenor

Here are some ideas I had in late 2007. I was sketching some ideas for Science Fiction vampires (which did feature in Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader) and had a go at drawing Inquisitor Gideon Ravenor in his force chair; I’ve added digital paint to this part of the page.

I really like Dan Abnett’s Warhammer 40,000 fiction so I thought I’d try and interpret this character. Thinking about how Ravenor is disabled and has to use people from afar reminded me of Ironside. A supremely powerful psychic gun-toting Ironside mind you.

I didn’t use this sketchbook much after this, it didn’t have enough texture for my liking.

SF Vampires and Inquistor Ravenor

All Warhammer 40,000 stuff copyright GW etc.

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Happy New Year!

Now while I redesign this blog a little and finish off my demon based comic strip I’m putting some previously unseen work that I recovered from my archives (mountains of paper and piles of sketchbooks).

OK some more old designs for Games Workshop’s Necrons, these are from about 2004 I think. I should date these things. Again I was a little disappointed with the un-alien nature of the C’Tan beings and was attempting to inject some more weirdness. I don’t think they quite worked so I shelved the idea.

Necron ideas 3

Necron ideas 4

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Steampunk Merlin and Nimue

Here are my digitally painted Steampunk versions of Merlin and the Lady of the Lake, Nimue. I’ve imagined them to be scientists; where in the myths they’re magicians and sorceresses. So Merlin is a time-travelling and time-viewing Dr. Tesla type and Nimue is a scientist specializing in regenerative technologies working in her submarine, like Captain Nemo in The Nautilus. Excalibur, a giant steam-sword (its blade heated by a complex steam engine) shows she’s capable of weapon-making.

Steampunk Merlin and Nimue

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Steampunk King Arthur

(I’ve finished the first panel of my demon comic but it needs to be seen as part of a whole page!)

This is one of the drawings I did for the Steampunk Myths competition as apart of my Steampunk King Arthur project.
I’ve painted over and under the original drawing to make it stand out more. Here I hadn’t yet thought of what Excalibur was going to be; you can see the final design on the drawings of Merlin and Nimue which I’ve started colouring in.

Steampunk King Arthur

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More Sunken World non-humans

Here are two bounty hunter or mercenary characters I’ve been drawing on an off for years and I decided they’d fit nicely into the Sunken World environment. On the left is a race I’m currently calling Raktos; spikey-headed people with a sinister reputation for sorcery which is sometimes justified. The other is an Yrdin; a troglodytic race whose cavernous dwellings were flooded when the world was inundated with water from the invading Thulhids.

You can see my thought process from my earlier page where I’m doodling these old characters. I don’t think I’ll use the armadillo men this time but I may get back to the red goblins.

Updated 2012 with names derived from Jeremy Unitt’s ideas!

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