Category Archives: Sketchbook pages

Pages from my sketchbook.

Concept art, Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

Happy New Year! More Colony 87 too.

January 10, 2025 Will Beck Leave a comment

Colony 87 – Sketchbook Oct2022 Colony 87 Anti-grav rickshaw ideas

Happy New Year everyone who looks at my art and this blog! Here’s a miniature that has taken ages to get a sculpt, it’s based on various sketches of mine that go back a few years. I think it was Jon, the originator of the Colony 87 range of miniatures, who wanted an anti-gravity rickshaw, with the weight of the miniature on the beast. Above sketches are me working out how to achieve this with options for various drivers.

Sketchbook Oct2022 – Colony 87 Outland Farmers ideas

Above is some ideas for Outland farmers travelling into Vandestad to sell their produce or buy something for their farms. I’ve changed my eel-lion into a pet eel-cat for the female farmer to be looking after.

Sketchbook Oct2022 – Colony 87 Hover-rickshaw plan and Outland farmer

And here I’m refining the design, with a mini-fusion generator on the back fuelled by hydrogen-bricks powering the anti-grav generator on the underside of the cabin.

You can purchase one or just admire the sculpting and painting here:

Colony 87 range – Hover Rickshaw

Back to the Panzerfäuste past

July 12, 2024 Will Beck Leave a comment

Trow infantry ideas big fangs

Here are some more ideas for Panzerfäuste that haven’t made it into miniature form (yet!). These are Trow, their equipment is based on the Swedish army of WWII. There is some Black Metal traditional Trow facepaint too!

I gave them big fangs after I sketched the whole double page and thought they were lacking something. Then I remembered my well-thumbed copy of Heroes for Wargames and a particular Asgard miniatures troll sculpted by ace sculptor Nick Bibby which I always liked. He had downward tusks/fangs; so I added them and that completed the look.

He’s available now from Alternative Armies along with a load of Asgard miniatures: https://www.alternative-armies.com/collections/nick-bibby-asgard-miniatures/products/fm27v2-half-troll-chieftain-35mm-tall

I think he’s available for US residents from here: https://thevikingforge.net/

And here is my final pencil drawing, after I’d asked whether or not Trow had tails (they do).

It was a large drawing; two A3 pages together. There’s loads of period-specific details with a Viking/Swedish/Troll twist. And the carved stone heads (top left)depict a famous Trow bard quartet.

Colony 87 Report

June 7, 2024 Will Beck Leave a comment

Colony 87 hover rickshaw

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 – Sandtreader

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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Concept art, Sketchbook pages

More Panzerfäuste Mountain Trolls!

January 24, 2024 Will Beck Leave a comment

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)

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.

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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Fantasy, Sketchbook pages

Panzerfäuste Mountain Troll Anti-tank Team

January 8, 2024 Will Beck Leave a comment

Here are some more sketches of unsculpted Panzerfäuste Miniatures – These were Vuoritroll (based on the Finnish fighters of WWII) anti tank-team with their traditional weapons for taking out armour – logs and fuel drum molotov cocktails.

Various historo-fantasy games including Panzerfäuste can be found here:

https://orcsinthewebbe.co.uk/

And Steve Blease, Panzerfäuste mastermind, owner of Wessex Games can be found here:

http://www.wessexgames.co.uk/

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

To Colony 87 and beyond!

June 20, 2023 Will Beck Leave a comment

I’m still working on Colony 87 but much of it is top secret. Occasionally I find a sketch or concept drawing that has been sculpted (this time by the talented sculptor Andrew May) and released.

This page contains four new characters; a woman who repairs robots, often cobbling them together to sell, the itinerant lawyer helping the poor, a sinister alien artefact trader and a lone, aged colonist unable to walk but who drives around the market on his custom kart.

Colony 87 Market characters

You can purchase them here:

Colony 87 range – Bot Trader

Colony 87 range – Street Lawyer

Colony 87 range – Artefact Trader

Colony 87 range – Rolling Messiah

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Science Fiction, Sketchbook pages

Here’s some artwork!

Image February 16, 2023 Will Leave a comment

Hello everyone, I know this blog has had no new posts since last May but that doesn’t mean I’ve given up on art and illustration! Apart from my main commission from Crooked Dice Games (Colony 87) I’ve been learning the 3D program Blender which I’ll show you some examples of later.

Before that we’ll go way back to late 2020 when I was commissioned by Mad Robot Miniatures to create a special character miniature for the Necromunda Yaktribe meet up, I don’t know whether it happened or not due to COVID restrictions.

My brief from the Yaktribe community described a sump spider hunter on a ship who was a reimagining of Captain Ahab.
As it happened BBC Sounds had an audio adaptation of Herman Melville’s classic Moby Dick so I listened to that, as I’d never read it before and I made some sketches and notes.

Sumpship Captain and crew ideas

Here are my initial sketches of him and some ideas for his crew. I liked the metal eye-patch that Chang (played by Chritopher Plummer) had in Star Trek VI so that was a starting point for his head. He would need a harpoon that could break through the tough exoskeleton of a sump-spider so I designed ones with various drills/grabbers/flamethrowers. I spent some time figuring how these would work.

Sketchbook Mar2018 Sumpship crew ideas

Here’s the link to Star Trek VI on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_VI:_The_Undiscovered_Country

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Concept art, Science Fiction

Colony 87 Prospects

May 19, 2022 Will Leave a comment

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 – Prospector

And his drone is amongst these:

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

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Fan Art, Illustrations, Science Fiction

House Delaque Ganger

April 4, 2022 Will Leave a comment

Delaque Ganger

Well I haven’t updated this site for months, so here’s an image I created as part of a job application for a Games Workshop Specialist Games Digital Illustrator a couple of years ago. I didn’t get the job.

He’s a sinister Delaque ganger, from the House of Shadows, I read a bit about them online to better get a sense of their new iteration (even more sneaky and slightly psychic). As Delaques have snakes and a stiletto dagger as their logo I thought a sickly turquoise colour for his gear would be appropriate to suggest poisoned flesh.

I’ve modified the miniatures logo (based on Jes Goodwin’s original sketch from the 1995 boxed game) to a stylised snake skull. I gave him a slash tattoo to signify his preferred method of fighting and made sure his bionic eyes looked like the operation to remove them was quite brutal.

Here’s the sketchbook page where I pencilled him first:

I enjoyed creating him; I started with a pencil drawing then digitally painted over that in Photoshop with a bit of Painter to finish off, as I have more experience in using Painter.

This is all Copyright Games Workshop.

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Concept art, Science Fiction

The Wrath of Colony 87

November 12, 2021 Will Leave a comment

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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Category Archives: Sketchbook pages

Happy New Year! More Colony 87 too.

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Back to the Panzerfäuste past

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Colony 87 Report

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More Panzerfäuste Mountain Trolls!

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Panzerfäuste Mountain Troll Anti-tank Team

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To Colony 87 and beyond!

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Here’s some artwork!

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Colony 87 Prospects

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House Delaque Ganger

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The Wrath of Colony 87

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SF & Fantasy Art