Pages from my sketchbook.
Finally my first non-Christmas themed comic page (apart from my Mr. Scarecrow one which I drew at art college).
I approached this as a professional comic book artist would, from (my own)script, thumbnails, drawing and inking the panels and so on. An excellent exercise; it really made me appreciate the skill of my favourite comic-book writers, letterers, colourists and artists.
The next one will be at least two pages long!
Fonts by Blambot
Another digitally-painted page from my Steampunk King Arthur series. Here is the rebel knight Sir Mordred (bastard child of King Arthur and his sister, Morgana) and some portraits of other knights that have attached themselves to Mordred’s rebellion. On the right is Queen Morgana la Fay herself; a scientist specialising in chemical weapons (which she drops onto the enemy from her zeppelin).
I wanted the rebels to be a little darker in feel to Arthur’s forces; so I exaggerated this with an asymmetrical haircut and spiky shoulder plate for Sir Mordred. His helmet homages the film Excalibur and Queen Morgana has a deliberate Maria the robot (from Metropolis) reference and also the shiny breastplate that Helen Mirren wore in Excalibur.
A brief diversion back to my demon concepts. Here is my idea for the warlock demons; I hope the notes fairly are self-explanatory but here is a bit more description:
Demons warped through their use of dark magic are usually stunted and need creatures (slaves or other beasts) to convey them to the front line. Here I’ve designed a dog-demon for the weirdest-looking warlock to ride (controlled by a control rune linked to his master) based in part on cryptozoology’s ‘Texas Blue Dogs’.
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/fbi/6298/texas_blue_dogs.html
Next, for my ghostly-gas polluting demon I doodled some ideas for the way he could travel around (a balloon or carried by a flying demon) but the bloated soldier demon seemed to suit him (it?).
And finally for the arch-warlock, the most powerful wizard in the demon army (apart from of the Demon Lords ) he required a more high-tech magical way of moving around and fighting so I invented this automaton-cage device.
Some progression from my sketchbook (I hope) on my SF police designs and some possible portraits (with a bit of digital paints, no likenesses are intended!).
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!
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.)
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.
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.
I’m working on the new versions, with a more fixed idea of what they are, at the moment.
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!
Here is an alternative alien idea for Inquisitor or similar Science Fiction game. A kind of holy warrior with a plasma gun.
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.
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.
All Warhammer 40,000 stuff copyright GW etc.
Here’s my update from my 2007 sketchbook of the mutant pirates I designed. I thought they seemed to be adapted for fighting in the air (extra hands and suchlike).
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.
