Category Archives: Concept art

Colony 87 Report

It’s been ages since I put anything online (I recently moved house which is very stressful). I’m working as a freelance concept artist for Crooked Dice Games and much of what I’ve created whilst in the game development phase is secret. However the beast in this illustration has been released as a miniature (sculpted by the talented Andrew May).

Colony 87 range – Pack Animal

Colony 87 jet bikes and beast riders

This creature (called a Sand Treader in the Colony 87 game) evolved from a sketch on these sketchbook pages from 2020 I drew for the Colony 87 project. (We’ve also got some Pale alien race ideas, my two bounty hunters on their jetbikes, a nomad on his domesticated giant bird, a Colony Police person on a jetbike, a wasteland scrap merchant on her dinosauroid, a raider type on his camel-lizard, some portraits of raiders, the hover-rickshaw and the beast that Karl at Crooked Dice liked, at the base some more colony cops on their bikes!)

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More Panzerfäuste Mountain Trolls!

Mountain Troll Commander

Here’s some more colour sketches of Panzerfäuste Mountain Trolls. We have a Commander with a badge of a Iku-Turso or Tursas on his wool hat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iku-Turso_(creature)

Mountain Troll Lotta Svärd and Shaman

Next we have a Lotta Svärd (Wikipedia entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotta_Sv%C3%A4rd) and a Shaman with his ceremonial drum with a Troll rune pattern.

Mountrain Troll (Vuoritroll) Command

And here is the final miniatures concept page. The Lotta Svärd’s sword is loosely based on a famous Finnish iron age sword belonging to a noble woman. I invented all the runes at the top too! I really enjoyed drawing these three, I’d hoped to see them in 3D form some time but that wasn’t to be.

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Sump Spider Hunters artwork

Here are the finished images that I sent to Mad Robot Miniatures. The first is the Sumpship Captain.

Yaktribe – Sumpship Captain

The next are two harpooneers with their appropriate alternative heads (and weapons) to make a crew of four.

Sump-sea Harpooneers
Sump-sea Harpooneers 2

Here’s the link to Mad Robot Miniatures:

https://madrobotminiatures.com/

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Colony 87 Prospects

More of my images from the Colony 87 setting, this guy is a prospector with his survey drone.

This chap evolved from a sketch of a sauroid beast of burden with prospecting gear so I had to give the beast an owner. He has all the equipment a prospector would need in the wastelands: A new survey drone, core samples, geo-sampler and respirator. The drone re-charges on his arm, I imagined it would operate like a tame hawk in desert, though this would seek and analyse the area whilst broadcasting the information back to the prospector.

He has a power pick and trowel when he needs to get his hands dirty. I drew him to look a bit like all-round acting legend James Hong (Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Bladerunner (1982) amongst many others). His padded coat resembles the rock strata of his profession and he has a corporate logo on his backpack.

You can purchase a miniature of him here if you like:

Crooked Dice – Games Colony 87 range – Freelancers

And his drone is amongst these:

Crooked Dice – Games Colony 87 range – Sci fi loot objectives

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The Wrath of Colony 87

Here is the robot in all his (its?) industrial orange glory. I wanted to keep a few shapes from the original 1960’s series so he has tracked feet but then so does 2000AD ABC Warriors’ Hammerstein. I imagined his extra arms could pop out from his belly like R2D2 in Star Wars.

ABC Warriors on Wikipedia

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Colony 87 – A new hope

Finally, after much work, Colony 87 Wave 4 Kickstarter is here and going very well. The image above is of an idea for a more working class Space Family Robinson, I was inspired to create these after watching and enjoying the Lost In Space reboot. The father has an extra augmetic arm to help him dismantle space craft and his daughter is responsible for making the deals with customers and fixers.

Here’s a link to the Kickstarter as well as more of my art work you can see great photos of expertly painted miniatures sculpted by the talented miniature sculptors Andrew May and James Sheriff:

Colony 87 Wave 4 Kickstarter

If you’re interested then do click my Facebook link on the right to look at more of my artwork.

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Colony 87 rides again

Last year, I sent this page to Karl at Crooked Dice Games as he’d asked for ideas for jetbikes and beasts with their riders. Following this he asked me to work up the guy on the dino-bird (amongst others) at the bottom left.

Here’s the refinment of the designs. I had a good look at ostrich riders in the middle east for the position of the rider and ostriches themselves. I based the riders’ hats a little on the late John Mollo’s costume designs for the Rebels on Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back (1977) and I looked at comics genius Alex Raymond’s Frigia Lancers (from his 1930’s comic Flash Gordon) for inspiration too.

John Mollo on Wikipedia

Alex Raymond on Wikipedia

I worked it up in Manga (Clip) Studio and Painter with a bit of Photoshop as well. The outrider has an option for hands without a his laser rifle (he’s whittling a Chirroc bird from a piece of wood) and there are a few alternative heads.

A link to the post on Crooked Dice Games’ facebook page:

Crooked Dice Games on facebook

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Colony 87 Bounty Hunters

Late last year Karl from Crooked Dice asked me to draw concepts for a pair of Colony 87 Bounty Hunters that were reminiscent of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote

Above are my initial sketchbook pages; the Don Quixote character would be an aging but still tough bounty hunter and the Sancho Panza equivalent would belong to the Colony 87 squat humanoid race. (Though there’s an Insectoid Alien option here which Karl felt was a bit too monstrous!)

This page is where I refine the Don Quixote look, though I wasn’t quite sure about Sancho Panza and wanted to define the alien/human variant race more.

The pages show me inventing the high-grav worlder bounty hunter and his gear. The ‘Wheel Ships’ I imagined they travel in are built around a super-dense fragment of one of their worlds. I’m adding various high-tech elements to his gear and seeing what works.

You can see more on my Facebook page of the final images – https://www.facebook.com/Will-Beck-Illustration-911094838907212

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More News From Colony 87

OK that was a long month of May! I’ve been meaning to get more of my artwork online I’ve just been a bit too busy to do it (I’ve loads more Crooked Dice Games’ Colony 87 creations and many other images as well).

Here’s a page of rough sketches of extraterrestrial animals that I drew before the full page here:

This Colony 87 concept page shows an alien menagerie that the Alien Pet Merchant could be selling to those that can afford them. The Eel-lion, Testudo-bird and Varkdog are influenced by creatures in images created by Moebius, the other creatures are my own inventions.

Looking at it again I wasn’t sure about the Eel-lion, I think it should be thinner and slippery like an eel, I shall redraw this some time as I do like the other designs.

Crooked Dice Games – Colony 87 Alien Pets

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