Or the Tin Man according to the film. In the books, the Tin Woodman was originally a human called Nick Chopper. He was turned to tin by the Wicked Witch of the East to stop him from marrying his true love.
This is my take on the character from the 1939 film, I wanted to keep the face the same as Jack Haley’s, but give the rest a bit of a twist.
The Tin Woodman
I’m 239 days into my project to draw one robot every day for a year. Naively, I thought that by now I’d have transformed into a capable illustrator. The truth is a long way from that.
I’m really no better than when I started. Looking back at my last week or so’s drawings – there’s nothing I couldn’t have done eight months ago. In fact I’m not even sure I’m doing much that I couldn’t have done 20 years ago. It’s pretty tough realising that I’m such a long way from where I want to be, but… I think I just expected way too much.
I started the Droid A Day project to make sure I drew every day, and to try to become a better artist, or illustrator. For the previous 20 years I’d barely drawn anything, I don’t know why not, somehow I’d just stopped drawing. I’d gone from a kid who drew all the time, to a bloke who never picked up a pencil. If people had asked me during those 20 years what my hobbies were, I’d still have said drawing. It was like a blind spot. Now I’m here, trying to become an illustrator, hoping at some point to be good enough to be doing this for a living – and those 20 years weigh so heavily on my shoulders. 20 years of missed opportunity. 7,300 days of missed practice.
I think that 7,300 number is important. It’s a big number, and it’s an awful lot of drawing missed. It puts in perspective the 239 days I am into this project. I’m kidding myself if I think that doing a robot drawing every day for a few months is going to turn me into an illustrator. It’s definitely better than doing nothing, but it’s not the panacea I thought, and hoped, it might be.
What I need, I think, is more structure to my drawing. I think I need, in effect, to educate myself – to teach myself to draw. The difficulty will be in critiquing my own work, deciding where I need to change or improve, deciding when I’m deserving of a gold star, and when I need a detention.
There are a lot of resources out there for someone who wants to improve their drawing skills – YouTube videos, Tumblr feeds, art technique books, anatomy references… So I just need to make a start, decide what needs fixing first.
Perhaps there are bad habits I need to unlearn, maybe I don’t look closely enough, maybe I’m too impatient when I draw…
The Droid a Day project will continue. I’m not prepared to throw that away, so there’ll definitely be 126 more robots, but I’m going to have to supplement that with some other drawing. Exercises, life drawing, sketching, perspective work…
I made a mistake of thinking that because I was good at drawing as a kid, that I’d get really good again if I put a bit of effort in. Actually, I need to put a huge amount of effort in (and not just for 365 days) to make up for those lost 20 years.
I want to be an illustrator. Starting from now.
I draw too tightly. Always have. Way too much consideration to making something that looks nice, rather than trying to capture a great idea. That’s why I’ve started drawing these little pen and pencil doodles lately, and it’s why I gave the Copic Markers another go.
Copic Marker Mechs
Copic Marker Mechs II
Throwing in a really broad shape with the markers makes you forget about trying to create something beautiful, it’s about creating a cool shape, or an interesting form. Picking up a pigment liner and then trying to discover the shapes is great fun, and it’s a pretty quick way to work. Each mech takes between five and ten minutes.
Tools of the trade
The photo above shows my mugs full of pens. Copic markers, and a few Sharpies in the first mug – along with a white gel pen, and a Pentel Pocket Brush. Sakura Pigma Microns, Staedtler Pigment Liners and a few Faber Castells in the second mug, and a bunch of pencils in the last – along with a brush for removing erasing bits, and a scalpel for sharpening. There are a few ellipse and circle guides behind, with a metal ruler and a few coloured pencils.
Weapons of Mass Creation
And that last picture? Well my OCD just shines through… Those are some of my most used bits and pieces.
Rotring Mechanical Pencil
Staedtler Classic Pencils (HB)
Swann Morton scalpel (with 10A blade)
Staedtler Pigment Liners – 0.05, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5
Selwyn watercolour brush
Moleskine Sketchbook – A5
Moleskine Plain Journals – A6
Copic Markers – 100, C-7, C-5, C-3 and C-1
Staedtler Mars Plastic erasers
Staedtler Rasoplast eraser
A big ball of rubber bands
12″ Steel Ruler
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A pencil sketch of ‘Andrew Martin’, the robot hero of Isaac Asimov’s story “The Bicentennial Man”.
This was based on a small thumbnail I drew yesterday that I thought had an element of humanity about it.
Drawn with Faber Castell HB and 2B pencils on layout paper.
Bicentennial Man
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.
The title of this post will mean next to nothing for almost everyone, unless you happen to be a fan of Japanese Manga/Anime.
As part of my Droid a Day project I’ve asked people to suggest a droid or robot from film or TV, my latest illustration – number 201 – is one of those.
This is Tachikoma…
Tachikoma – Ghost in the Shell
He is a character from the Japanese series Ghost in the Shell, and was suggested by Michelle Aguilar – she’s quite a fan apparently.
He was fun, but hard work, to draw, and now I feel I need to watch some of the show.
If you have a droid you’d like to see me draw, feel free to comment.
Sometimes, not very often, a doodle becomes something surprising and cool. I started sketching the other day, with no particular aim in mind, and quickly roughed out the shape of a skull. A few minutes later, again with very little thought, a city began to grow…
I’m really pleased with what this little doodle became…
Skull City
I don’t know why, but these big, black stripes have found their way into my work recently…
I’ve found myself doodling fishy things again. This time, it’s not just fish illustrations, but flying fishing boats too. Definitely inspired by the work of Ian McQue, I’m utterly obsessed by the thought of these floating ships – where do they live, who skippers them, what do they catch…?
There will definitely be more to come.
I had to include the latest fish illustration here too, one of my favourites so far.
I’m now 145 days into my project to draw one robot every day for a year. It’s much more of a commitment than I ever anticipated. I’m pretty happy, generally, with my progress. Still a little inconsistent as I mentioned in my last blog post, but there’s definitely some improvement.
Here are some of my favourites so far…
Thanks for looking and for all the support here, on Instagram, Facebook and on Tumblr.
this northern boy 