Tag Archives: science fiction

Science Fiction sketches and drawings

Space Pirate sketches

Boy do I not use this website enough, it needs a right old tidy-up. Anywaaaayy… here’s a page of some sketches from a year or two ago. They’re some ideas I had for that classic SF trope: Space Pirates! I was considering whether to design them as costumes for a film or miniatures for a game.

I incorporated some of the feel of late 1980’s/early 1990’s Citadel Space Pirates by Bob Olley and Bob Naismith (Bob Olley’s Space Pirates Bob Naismith’s Space Pirates) with some traditional piratical gear and other influences like the mercenaries from Riddick (2013), and the Ravagers from Guardians Of The Galaxy(2014) and Vol. 2 (2017). More of these tomorrow!

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Colony 87 Awakens!

A new wave of Jon Boyce’s science fiction Colony 87 miniatures are on their way, concept drawings by me and sculpts by the excellent miniature sculptors Mike Anderson and John Pickford. Here’s a link to the Facebook page.
Colony 87 on Facebook

The brief from Jon was to draw a “female, deep space pilot wearing flight suit covered with pockets, cabling, tubing etc. Hard-seal connection at neck, calves and forearms. Helmet is removed and under arm in classic pilot pose. Mature, but attractive – think Helen Mirren. One side of head is shaved.”

My process is to created a reference sheet from all sorts of images I’ve collected from the internet and my own books; ranging from space suit designs by Fred Freeman of ex-Nazi rocket scientist Wernher Von Brown’s First Men to the Moon (1960) book, (Retro-future Space Suit) to actual space suits and movie space suits from science fiction films. Then produce a sketch of my initial ideas to send to the client (in this case Jon Boyce).

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Space Ork Kommandos

I quickly sketched these Space Ork Kommandos earlier this year as part of my idea for an improved Shadow War:Armageddon. These are based in part on Mark Bedford’s excellent Forge World Space Ork Kommando conversion kit; I liked them and thought since the Freebooter Flash Gitz have Kustom Shootas maybe the Kommandos’ could have a Kustom Snipa rifle and also a Ghillie suit for camouflage (maybe a Ghillie Squig!). (Ghillie Suit Wikipedia entry)

As always with Games Workshop this is fan art and not intended to infringe their intellectual property.

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Underhive gang portrait pencils – Part 1

For completeness (and because I still like them) here are the original A3 pencil sketches for my sequence of Necromunda house gang portraits. I always tend to draw through the borders of the images, especially action scenes so I drew all of them full length. Notice the Orlock ganger’s stripey trousers!





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Underhive Sketchbook Part Eight

Here are the last few pages of my Underhive sketchbook.
Some refinement of my human rebels logo, an idea for a Space Marine Chapter symbol and some Necromunda Outlander gang symbol thumbnails:

More Necromunda thumbnails, a Space Marine scout riding a lizard conversion idea and some Chaos Space Marine Renegade logos, avoiding the look of Toy Story’s Zurg of course:

The Redemptionists symbol is about right, still working on the Spyrers and Ratskins symbols with a dessicated Ripperjack as a gruesome option!

And here I’m working on a gladitorial Pit Slave gang symbol:

That’s all from my Underhive Sketchbook, though I have the original pencil character drawings of all the gangers to show.

As allways this is Games Workshop’s intellectual property, just ‘fan art’ and not intended to get up the noses of their legal team.

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Underhive Sketchbook Part Seven

Continuing my Underhive sketches and doodles.
An Ash Wastes Nomad portrait and a doodle of a Deathclaw conversion plan (a mutant creature from the Fallout computer game)

My process for creating the symbols for all of the Necromunda gangs are next; font and colour ideas followed by thumbnail sketches.



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Underhive Sketchbook Part Six

Over the last couple of months Games Workshop have announced and shown their new version of the classic Necromunda Underhive game (which the Necromunda online community have been keeping alive for almost 20 years!):
Bell of Lost Souls Necromunda Underhive revealed

The miniatures look to be a larger scale than before and I wonder if many of the rest of the 40K range would be compatible. From this first look the game itself seems to be just a flat board game; completely ignoring the main reason people liked the Necromunda game in the first place: A fast competitive skirmish, with each side using under a dozen gangers a side and an vertical element to the gameplay and scenery.
What GW will bring out to support this remains to be seen; the pessismist in me says they will just ask you to buy the Adeptus Mechanicus scenery they brought out for Shadow War Armageddon. What I’d like to have seen is similar to the original set, with the new de-bossed cardboard for the flatter areas (as in the original game) with new plastic bulkheads, ladders and maybe some objectives and with a game-mat for the ground, all for under £150.

On that wishful note here are some more pages from my Necromunda Underhive sketchbook.
These are my first ideas for the symbols for the various house and gangs, with a Catoblepas riding beast conversion idea for a Rogue Trader’s entourage (Catoblepas entry on Wikipedia). There’s also a Scavvy Scaly with his scattergun.

Some ideas for a border for the Underhive website, some scenery and colour options to do for the Redemptionist portrait.

Nomad image plans and Ratskin portrait and weapons designs.

More underhive banner textures and my idea for an Enforcers symbol, with an Art Deco look based on the LAPD shield design.

On these pages I was doodling symbols for the human rebel force I was converting and painting. I wanted a design for humans rebelling against the fascist Imperium which was small enough and simple enough to paint on a 28mm miniature. More of this sketchbook tomorrow!

As always with these images, they’re fan art and not intended to breach Games Workshop’s intellectual property.

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Underhive Sketchbook part five

The following page are ideas I had for the non-Imperial powered armour for the Spyrers. It had to have recording devices, various ways it could upgrade itself according to the performance of the wearer and also look both high-tech but also as if it was very old. I imagined a baroque, almost 17th Century suit of armour look with servo motors, fibre bundles, cameras and also an engraved list of notable previous users. The larger, snooty-looking chap is my version of an Orrus Spyrer. (Necromunda Spyre hunters)

Back to my Necromunda sketchbook for the next few pages:
Here I’m planning a conversion of a Mike Perry Ratskin miniature followed by some character ideas for a Pit Slave gang.

I’ve settled on the design of my Scavvy, with some more sketches for a whole bunch of them. On the opposite page are some thumbnails of the other Outlander gang portraits, a Scaly, a Nomad and another Pit Slave.

Ratskin portrait and the Redemptionists are progressing on these pages.

Here are more crazy plans for scratch-building an entire Scavvy gang and the pose I chose for the Enforcer portrait.

Though I’ve scanned the entire Underhive-themed sketchbook I may post something a bit different next time!

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