science fiction | this northern boy

April 18, 2015

Return of the Robots

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, or following me on Twitter, Tumblr or Instagram, you’ll know that between August 2013 and August 2014, I drew a robot a day for a whole year. It was quite daunting committing to a daily project of that length, but it was something I felt I had to do to get me in to the routine of drawing every day – a skill or habit that I’d need if I wanted to become an illustrator for a living. I think it achieved its purpose – I now get pretty restless if I don’t draw at all for a day, and I’m currently work on my first book illustration project.

I haven’t really drawn robots since I finished the Droid a Day adventure though, and to be honest, I’ve missed them.

Today I’ve given myself the day off from paying work to rustle up another droid, and I’m pretty pleased with the way he came out.

Droid V.366.0

Initial sketch.

Final inks.

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February 10, 2015

Orange Fleet

As I’ve written before, I do love drawing spaceships. Here’s a whole double page spread from my Moleskine, full of little orange spaceships.

Drawn with Staedtler Pigment Liners and coloured with Copic Ciao Markers.

The Orange Fleet

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January 9, 2015

Draw it, Post-It…

Post-It notes have to be my most used medium for doodling, often while I’m at my day job, waiting for my Mac to finish doing something. They’re great because they are so disposable. Sketching in a Moleskine, or on a fresh sheet of beautiful Bristol Board can sometimes be inhibiting. Scrawling ideas and shapes on a Post-It or a scrap of paper can be liberating.

Draw-it, Post-It.

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November 24, 2014

A lone spaceship…

It’s been a while since I drew a spaceship, so it was fun to create this little one-man flyer. I think it’ll get some colour in the next few days – probably orange.

One-man flyer.

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August 24, 2014

Tentacles

One of the recurring themes of my droids has to be tentacles. I don’t know why but I do love drawing a nice set of tentacles (no sniggering at the back). I quite like drawing octopus and squid too, so it’s not just droids.

There’s definitely a weird hybrid of jellyfish and octopus going on in most of these, with hints of The Matrix and The Empire Strikes Back.

: Robot 2

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August 10, 2014

The home straight…

I’m 355 days into my Droid A Day project. Further than, at times, I thought I’d ever get. Close enough to the finish that I’m thinking constantly about what I do when it’s over. Definitely not another daily drawing project that’s for sure (not straight away).

With just a few more droids to go I thought I’d post some of my recent favourite. Warning: there may be colour.

: Comet Capture.

: Land of Confusion.

: From the Deep.

: Asteroid Survey Mech.

: Silver Linings.

: Surrender.

: Robot 1

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June 15, 2014

The Mechs of Mars

Sometimes, when I post my droid pictures on my Tumblr blog, I write a little accompanying text. Sometimes this is just a quick one line description of the droid, or how I’ve drawn it, but sometimes I write a description that hints at a future history of these droids.

Air Defence Drone

Air Defence Drone.
Designed and built in ‘74 by Kinetic Energy Systems Inc., the A.D.D. first saw use in the defence of the Olbers way station on Ceres. Shipping with both an Atlas-class Railgun and a Sigma-rated Plasma Cannon, the A.D.D. is a very capable weapon. With an onboard A.I. of .08 Human Analog, the drones can be deployed and then forgotten on the battlefield as they calculate the best way to achieve their orders. Currently the onboard A.I.s have recorded only one psychotic failure [see History of Belt-Mars Conflict: Vol VI: Ch 8.1 Brodsky].

Or…

Heavy Compliance Unit.
Built by Hurricane Industries for Law Enforcement, Riot Control, Crowd Suppression and Compliance. Strong and agile, with a high category A.I., the H.C.U. is equipped with both lethal and non-lethal tactical weapons, including: Low Velocity Kinetics, Tasers, Sonic Cannon, Microwave Lasers and standard MKIV mobile Rail Gun.

And…

Martian Eddie.
Eddie was built as a general purpose droid in late ‘78 and was shipped to Mars that same year to work for the Terraforming Committee. After 8 years of hard work, Eddie was sold to the owner of an algae farm in the new northern ocean. The algae farmer didn’t see robot rights as important and didn’t treat Eddie with much care or attention. In early ‘90 tax officials visiting the farm found no trace of its original owner, discovering Eddie in charge of operations. The ensuing legal case saw Eddie evicted and from that point on his antipathy to human kind was fixed. During the next decade Eddie could be found at most of the major flare-ups between humans and robots. The last anyone saw of Eddie was during the Tharsis Rebellion of ‘08 where he was seen at the heart of the robot offensive, brandishing his favoured plasma cannon as the Phobos Space Elevator came crashing down.
Rumours of Eddie’s survival have persisted, even though it’s now nearly 30 years seen he was seen. These rumours have been strenuously denied by the Human government of Mars.

I love the vague, hinted at history of far future conflicts hinted at in these descriptions. I don’t think I’ll ever write all the connecting information, better to allow people to fill in the gaps themselves. I do have a rough framework of a timeline in my head, although I’m scared to write it down in case it ties me down to a particular set of events.

I like to draw the droid, and then just see what suggests itself. That way I can be surprised too.

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May 3, 2014

The Inspirational Art of Ian McQue

I don’t often write blog posts about the work that inspires me, I may occasionally mention an artist, book or film, but rarely more than that. Ian McQue‘s work deserves a post all of its own.

I’ve been drawing again, after that inexplicable 20 year hiatus, for about 18 months now, and my Droid a Day project is now into its eighth month. Throughout all of that time I can safely say that Ian’s work has been the art I keep coming back to.

Ian is a concept designer by trade, working at Rockstar North – home of Grand Theft Auto, but it’s the work he does in his spare time that really gets my attention.

Ian has crafted a world, or worlds of stunning detail and variety, populated by flying ships, floating dockyards, weary looking soldiers and by ramshackle robots. I’ve no idea if all these creations have a place in a single narrative that Ian has conjured up, if they do, he’s keeping that close to his chest, or if they just exist alone. Regardless, they are stunning illustrations, beautifully drawn, intricately detailed, and despite their obvious fantasy or science fiction foundations, they all seem utterly believable.

Have a look at some of Ian’s work below, look at the worker in ‘Lunch Break’, could just be a guy working in a Glasgow ship yard. Look at the tangled mess of cables and rigs on ‘Jetty 15, Port Royal Docks’. Look at the battered heavy machinery of ‘Workhorse’. All utterly fantastic, but completely believable.

I know I’m not alone in wanting to know more about this world of Ian McQue’s, and if you’re reading this Ian – a graphic novel please, or a series of them!

I said at the beginning of this post how Ian’s work inspires me, and I’m sure if you check back through previous posts you’ll find echoes of his creations there, and I’m sure some of the robots at A Droid A Day owe more than a little something to his work.

Huge thanks to Ian for letting me feature some of his work here. If you’d like to see more then follow Ian on Twitter, and check out his site. If you’d like to have a little piece of McQueWorld in your life, I can definitely recommend his sketchbook ‘Robots, Space Dudes, Flying Ships etc.’ – it’s absolutely chock full of fantastic drawings.

Jetty 15

Workhorse

: Sketchbook

All work featured here copyright Ian McQue.

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March 10, 2014

Size Matters

Bigger is better. Or so they say. Particularly in Texas I believe.

When it comes to my work, I’ve never been into ‘big’. My work tends to be small, tightly controlled, detailed – rather than expressive and sprawling. I’ve recently begun working much smaller though, as way of getting more ideas down on paper – rather than worrying too much about the finished product. Some of these little doodles will stay just that, but a few of them may become something else at a later date. Redrawn at a larger scale, details added, lines refined – all the while trying to keep the essence of what it was I liked about the doodle in the first place.

All the following drawings were done in pen, so no pencil or rubbing out, and were begun with almost no thought in mind as to what the aim was. In terms of scale, the largest of these little doodles is about 25mm high.

Mechs, probes, flyers…

Flyers, skiffs, speeders…

Low altitude flyers

Multi-legged mechs

Some kind of hovering probe

Three-legged mech and pilot

Heavy transport flyer

Stubby little speeder

One-man flyer

These were all drawn using a 0.1 or 0.2 Staedtler Pigment Liner, on bristol board.

It’s good fun drawing at this scale. There’s no room for obsessing over details, you just have to get in there and create some forms and hint at structure. They have bags of character at this scale too – the challenge will be to capture that if I work these up into full-scale illustrations.

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Category: science fiction