Category Archives: Science Fiction

SF pictures from my sketchbook.

Happy New Year! Some Dregs Dragoons

January 2, 2017 Will Beck Leave a comment

Happy New Year everyone! My final concept designs for the beast-riding Beastkin.

I decided the beastmen wouldn’t ride actual horses but a future horse-like beast and I wanted to add an element of a bovine or caprine animal to it. Now, I had a photo on my computer of a strange (to me) animal which I found was called a Takin and its larger, more convex snout seemed perfect. Takin animal
Incidentally the beastman balancing on a horse to shoot is based on a photo of a WW1 german cavalryman.

Microworld Games

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Concept art, Science Fiction

Dregs Tank Hunter and Mobile Artillery

December 29, 2016 Will Beck Leave a comment

These are the final concept designs for the Tank Hunter tank and the Mobile Artillery tank (both based on the same chassis, vaguely WW2-inspired). I gave the tank hunter metal tusk-shapes to give it a brutal look and the artillery tank a load of spikes on the ‘dozer blade so they would look different at a glance on the tabletop whilst still retaining the spiky, ramshackle nature throughout the range.

Microworld Games

Dregs Armoured Transport and more sketchbook pages

December 22, 2016 Will Beck Leave a comment

Some more of my work for Microworld Games, this time the Dregs’ armoured troop carrier. I imagined the Dregs would be like a tribe of warriors and this could be their mobile long-hut. This one was partly based on the AAV-7 amphibious APC which has a jutting front like a jaw (for travelling in water).

These next two pages are of my initial ideas for the Dregs’ Mobile Artillery Tank and Tank Hunter with lots of little beast-men riders as I thought they’d add to the noisy, boisterous nature of the army. On the opposite page are some early ideas for the Beastkin Dragoons, beastmen riding on horse-like beasts to war.

Again these haven’t gone into production yet, but if you’re interested do go and have a look at what has:
Microworld Games

Dregs tanks sketches and Main Battle Tank

December 19, 2016 Will Beck 1 Comment

This is another Miniatures Concept project that I was commissioned for earlier this year. It’s for a range of Science Fiction 6mm miniatures produced by Microworld Games for epic scale fights. I was to produce some concept drawings for the various units for the Dregs, the mutant beast-men. I was given a brief description and some images to start with so I based my initial sketches on these to get a flavour of the units.

This first image was of the Dreg’s Main Battle Tank. It had to look functional but also brutal so I had a look at British Chieftan tanks as they have a distinctive silhouette along with some other directions from the brief (including a G.I. Joe tank!). The spikes, trophies and extra armour were all added by the Beastkin Raiders themselves. I imagined them riding the tanks to battle, eager to leap off into the melee.

They’re not available yet, hopefully will be soon, here’s a link to the website:
Microworld Games
More images tomorrow.

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

Science Fiction Xeno archaeologist ideas

July 17, 2016 Will Beck Leave a comment

Currently I’m having a bit of trouble uploading images to my website but I managed to get this one; a page from last year’s sketchbook showing some ideas I had for a Xeno-archeologist exploring dead alien civilisations in a gothic SF world.

I imagined her to be a cross between Indiana Jones and Adèle Blanc-Sec (Adèle Blanc-Sec) more than Lara Croft. To help her she has hired a psyker to detect psychic traces of lost civilisations or artifacts, an ogre-like breed of human as a bodyguard and porter. She has also hired a mercenary human and an extra-terrestrial guide and carries her treasured finds in a stasis-vault with suspensors and a pop-up auto-turret laser.

Colony 87 Returns!

March 15, 2016 Will Beck Leave a comment

Colony 87 returns! The kickstarter here:
(Return to Colony 87 – 28mm sci-fi civilians)
This was funded within hours and the miniatures have been sculpted by the excellent miniature sculptor Mike Anderson.
These are concept drawings for the second wave of Science Fiction civilians for Colony 87 miniatures:

These are some of my initial sketchbook pages for this commission.
The first was a SF Recordist, a scientific type to accompany a noble or other advisor recording everything (smells, sights, Electromagnetics, as well as sound). Jon Boyce (my client) suggested I look at a tank crew head gear and Gaff’s (Edward James Olmos) hat in Bladerunner. I also wanted him to have a different body shape, so I based his size on the movie Dune’s Piter De Vries (Brad Dourif) combined with the Hannibal Chew (James Hong) from Bladerunner’s hat. A stenographer’s typewriter provided a retro look for his personal computer.

For the mechanic I had the idea basing her on Firefly/Serenity’s Kaylee(Jewel Staite) as a starting point and the welder/junker started out based on a photo of a Japanese industrial worker.

The Advisor was meant to be a power-behind-the throne character so I examined various fantasy and SF advisors – the tall hat was a reference to Turkish historical viziers and also to the sinister fellows that follow Emperor Palpatine in The Return of The Jedi.

Jon Boyce had a very specific idea for the Priestess so essentially I recreated his small drawing and the Planetary Botanist was an idea that had been requested by several people in the first wave. The broad-brimmed hat was a nod to Moebius’s drawing of Planetologist Kyne for Alexandro Jodorowsky’s Dune project. I thought he might have had some injuries examining alien plants so a bionic hand seemed appropriate.

My previous post: Colony 87

Star Wars Sith ideas

December 15, 2015 Will Beck Leave a comment

Another image I previously posted on my Facebook page Will Beck Illustration.

Devaronian Sith Juggernaut

Here are some of my quite old sketches for SF bad guys, possibly Star Wars Sith or for some other universe. I think I drew these in 2003 while my brother and I were playing Star Wars Knights of The Old Republic on his PC.

More designs from 2004 (when we were playing the sequel!). I’ve found that Sith are easier to draw than Jedi, getting a truly evil cyborg samurai look is good fun. Though I should attempt to depict a Jedi some time soon!

And here was a quick page from late 2014. These are probably Sith from the time of the Old Republic when there seemed to be way more than two of them.

The huge Sith came from the reading about the visual inspiration for the Jedi and Sith and the Japanese-style robes they wear. So then I thought, why hasn’t a Sumo Jedi or Sith been done in the films or the Clone Wars series? (I can’t be sure of the comics or novels!)
I started by searching for photo reference and also woodblock prints by 18th/19th century Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi whose art I first saw when I was at Art College. Wikipedia entry for Utagawa Kuniyoshi
I imagined this Sumo-build warrior would be a bulky but fast moving Sith whose physical size was intimidating even before you saw his dark side powers. This got me looking at Japanese Ogre’s Wikipedia entry for Japanese Ogres and I thought a hulking Devaronian steeped in the Dark side of the force might be a cool idea.
For those of you who don’t know what the heck a Devaronian is (and why should you?) look here: Devaronian on Wookieepedia

This is all fan art, and not intended to breach Disney’s copyright.

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

Space Rat-Men Special Characters

December 1, 2015 Will Beck Leave a comment

Finishing my idea of a space hulk with warp-mutated rats on board: (See previous posts: Space Rat-men, Space Rat-men leaders and Space Rat-men characters.)

The large rat-hulk thing on the left with his midget controller (maybe they’re twins?) are kind-of like a space mutant rat-men version of Pinky and The Brain (wikipedia entry for Pinky and the Brain). The other creature is a Rat-man who has been possessed by a warp-entity and his form has mutated (Bestial face: Goat, Teleport, Cloven Hooves, Scorpion Tail,Temporal Instability, Acid Excretion, Suckers, Growth X2).

And here is the sketchbook page from over a year ago where I sketched the basic ideas:

This is fan art based on Games Workshop’s intellectual property.

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

Colony 87

April 16, 2015 Will Beck Leave a comment

A commission I had last year to draw concepts for a Science Fiction 28mm miniatures range Kickstarter has been funded within a few hours!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/62661939/colony-87-28mm-sci-fi-civilians/description

Here are some of the sketches (an amphibian-alien trader, human trader, a pair of nobles with a freakish pet and a porter with a some sort of servo-yoke). The designs were influenced by, amongst many other things, Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner (1982) costumes by Michael Kaplan and Charles Knode and the nobles costumes in the David Lynch Dune movie (1984) by Bob Ringwood. I tried a gothic-arch hat from Russian history for the female noble though we settled on a simple cowl.

These have been sculpted by the talented miniature designer Mike Anderson.

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

More Mutant Space Rat-Men

January 28, 2015 Will Beck Leave a comment

I’ve got a couple of commissions on at the moment but I found time to finish off my third page of SF Rat-Men ideas, specifically the bloated leader and a SF version of a Grey Seer.

Continuing the theme of a space hulk with warp-mutated rats on board: (See posts http://www.willbeck.com/artblog?p=1597 and http://www.willbeck.com/artblog?p=1111) The largest mutant rat-man has taken hydraulic shears and attached them to his deformed arm to make a crude combat weapon.

The Rat-man psyker inhales warp-tainted fuel pods (from areas of the space hulk exposed to the warp) to enhance his psychic powers (similar to how Skaven Grey Seers eat warpstone).

The ‘warp-rats’ are rats that have been fed the warp-tainted fuel and are herded into battle causing localised distortions in reality.

GW are souping up the Skaven for the End Times business the new Boneripper and especially the Stormfiends are quite futuristic looking.

The ‘Stormfiends’ appear to have little large-brained rats attached to their backs – I think someone at GW had been playing Planescape:Torment with its Cranium Rats and their Wererat servants – here’s a link if you’re interested: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/Torment/Walkthrough/act3-underground/underground-warrens-of-thought.php).

As always these are purely for fun and not intended to breach Games Workshop’s copyright.

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SF & Fantasy Art