Radio Boat

Alphaville Revisited

Ended up drawing something anyway…which, the final version, it’s not actually an anaglyph, obviously. I mean, you can try it if you’ve got 3D glasses, but it’ll probably give you a headache (at least). Mostly it just sort of has the look of an anaglyph, ’cause I like the look whether it works optically or not. Anyway, for no particular reason, here are the sketches and the provisional final art…until I decide to change half of it tomorrow or whenever. Mostly the main point of this thing was to draw it as fast as possible…although it still took about two hours, I guess.

Fiasco 2

Fiasco

A sketch for a new paperback cover for Stanislaw Lem’s 1987 novel, Fiasco. Although, of course, I love the cover it already has on it. Anyway, this is just for practice, I guess. Meanwhile, I have another, different idea for this one, so maybe I’ll work on that tomorrow, if there’s time.

Space Opera

A sketch for the cover of a new edition of Litorina’s sprawling interstellar adventure, A Marriage of Convenience (which, by the way, somebody oughta CGI the heck outta this book…it’s a wild, wild ride).

Walk

I forgot, this is the new front page for the website thing I have to finish by next week. I got rid of my old website ’cause of how it was a boring and embarrassing mess, but maybe this one’ll work slightly better. Maybe. I do know I eventually wanna start drawing in some completely different way, since I’m pretty worn out looking at my own old work, but we’ll see if I can figure out how to change how I make pictures. At least the bird isn’t a butterfly…and there isn’t a crescent moon doing compositional stuff in the night sky, so that’s progress, of a sort.

Secret Robot Man

So, this is like a four-million-year-old piece of animation, from back when I barely knew how to even turn on a computer, not that I’m all that much farther along now. The timing’s all off and the ideas, such as they are, aren’t really resolved. I think mostly I was trying to do an opening sequence for a really, really bad cartoon, since bad cartoons were always my favorite kind. About all I like now is the jumpy title card, ’cause of the triangular border. Anyway, I guess this is kind of a sketchblog, and although I wanna draw new stuff pretty bad, time’s just not cooperating at the moment, so I’m throwing out old stuff as I run across it while doing Other Work. I figure that, even if it’s not that great, maybe it’ll give me an idea for something in the future, which is usually how it works. Building sort of acceptable work out of the wreckage of old failed projects, that is. Many, many old failed projects.

done

Not Lino

On account of how time’s scrambled up my brain, I couldn’t remember how I drew that thing from a couple of weeks ago, and so here’s a screenshot for reminding myself whenever I need reminding. Basically, I tend to do these things in Flash, just ’cause I’m used to the environment and for whatever reason don’t enjoy working in Illustrator as much. Plus, this way, if and when I ever get around to animating this junk, which is probably my number one dream (this week), then I’ll have a bunch of images ready to go. I mean, yeah, I know, you can import vector stuff from other programs, but, I’m 104% self-taught, so I probably have a lot of other bad techno habits besides just that one. Such as, just now, looking at the layers, there are probably too many of ‘em, and the name “textures” isn’t right for what I ended up doing. Anyway, the figure, of course, is drawn as a mask, which is simply easier for me than drawing it with an eraser and letting the background show through that way. Otherwise, the main reason for the mask is that I like to see marks from underneath go in pretty random directions, and especially like it when they cross over from one figure to another. So I start with a ground layer of scribbles, regardless of whatever the composition’s gonna be, then refine the scribbles from there, and then hope to see some unpredictable results when the mask gets laid on top (this one’s actually less like that than I’d like) . The colors ended up being too muddy on this thing, so I need to work on that, but the idea is supposed to be sort of vaguely like what happens when you print a woodcut on top of a monoprint. In any case, I need about 90 more years of practice, and also a ton more patience, if I ever plan to get to the faraway place I’m trying to go with all this type of work.

Memory Hole

This is mostly a pretty crummy drawing of nothing in particular. Or, at least, it sort of is of something, but it ended up coming out all wrong, as usual. Good thing my so-called aesthetic’s all built around wrongness. Anyway…at least I’ll be ready to spot-illustrate a story someplace when they get around to reimagining 1984, which I’m sure they’ll do soon enough. Like, they’ll give it the Michael Bay treatment, which means the Thought Police’ll be souped-up Robocops, and Julia will be a Swedish supermodel, and Winston (I’m guessing Mark Wahlberg) will kick O’Brien’s ass hard and will then free all the sexcriminals from the Ministry of Love and also overthrow the Oligarchy with the help of a cute CGI mutant named Mouse (which is just her nickname from the space orphanage – she’s actually half kangaroo, with Tina Turner hair). Or, you know, something like that. And, of course, it’ll be called 2084, ’cause that’s more futuristic. And Winston’s job won’t be in censorship…it’ll be…oh, let’s say he’s a bounty hunter, employed by the leaders of Airstrip One (which’ll instead be named Neo York, or perhaps Victory Dome) to hunt down dissidents, but who has a giant change of heart when he sees Julia in a shirt emblazoned with a catchy slogan. A shirt that’s for some reason wet all the time.

Illustration Friday – Foggy

So, I drew the original of this thing in Flash, although it doesn’t move. Force of habit, I guess. Anyway, when we went to London, there wasn’t a single scrap or tendril of fog anywhere, and instead it was always brilliantly warm and bright and shiny. I mean, I know London still has air trouble, just like every big place, but our neighborhood, which was a neighborhood Dickens lived and worked in, was never once afflicted with even the hint of a pall of Dickensian chimney-smoke. All of which I’m glad about, of course, ’cause I much prefer busy, rushing, futuristic London to some embalmed touristy version. Or, I prefer it if I don’t have to negotiate London traffic except once a week every few years or so.

Um, anyhow, before I end up freewriting about fog for an hour, which would be a waste of all our time, here’s the picture. I think maybe this couple have had a breakdown out in the country or something. Or maybe they’re hunting truffles at night. Or who knows.