this northern boy

Illustrations for an imaginary age

Tag: scifi

August 25, 2016

August blogfest – day 25

Playlist: Summer in the city – The Lovin’ Spoonful, 99.9 Fahrenheit Degrees – Suzanne Vega, In the heat of the night – Ray Charles, Summertime – Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

It’s been hot today. Almost too hot to draw. My arm pretty much sticking to my desk, risking smudging ink or pencil or paint. Nice.

With the help of a wide open window in my office, and a fan on full blast, I did manage to get some work done though. Making progress on the illustration for Graphite magazine. I’m really happy with the way the picture’s coming along, it’s strange though – as I’m producing this for an article about my process – how cataloguing each stage of the project makes me think about doing things differently. My workflow is almost entirely analog, so it always seems a bit cumbersome and convoluted, I can’t help feeling there are lots of improvements to be made. Step one might be getting hold of a light box.

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A mess of cables

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Pencils

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August 24, 2016

August blogfest – day 24

Well, I almost forgot today, so this will be brief…

I’m working on an article for a new illustration magazine called Graphite at the moment. It’ll be a process type thing, showing how I work through a brief from initial thoughts and sketches to final, inked artwork. Today I finished the drawing stage so tomorrow it’ll be on to the inks.

Graphite magazine is published by the talented people at 3DTotal, and the first issue is out any day now.

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Scribbles on the brief

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Initial thumbnails

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Getting there with composition

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August 20, 2016

August blogfest – day 20

Tired.

Caffeine induced insomnia kept me awake until gone 3am last night, so today has been a bit of a blur. I don’t drink caffeine, but every now and again, if I need a bit of a kick when I’m busy, I’ll have a proper coffee. I always regret it later when I’m wide awake in those quiet, small hours of the night.

I did manage to draw a nice little robot today though.

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Little orange robot

Drawn in a Field Notes Brand notebook, with Copic Multiliner, Copic Ciao Marker, Kuretake No8 brush pen and a white Posca marker.

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August 16, 2016

August blogfest – day 16

Virgil Finlay

Virgil Finlay was an American illustrator, specialising in super detailed pen-and-ink drawings with astonishing stippling and cross-hatching.

In his 35 year career Finlay created more than two and a half thousand illustrations, mainly for pulp science fiction, fantasy and horror magazines.

Have a look at some of his work… I think it’s absolutely incredible.

Art by Virgil Finlay for the 1949 Memorial Edition of “The Ship of Ishtar” by A. Merritt
Art by Virgil Finlay for the 1949 Memorial Edition of “The Ship of Ishtar” by A. Merritt
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August 15, 2016

August blogfest – day 15

Halfway, almost. Blogging every day is actually tougher than I thought. Thinking up a new subject to blog about every day, tricky.

Today there’s a look at three quick little illustrations I’ve done in one of the lovely orange Field Notes notebooks I received recently. I rarely draw on coloured paper, so it’s a nice change, and also it’s cool to use a similar coloured marker to add a bit of subtle shading. A white Posca marker is great to add a few highlights or stars.

Is there anything you’d like me to blog about? Something about my work, processes, inspiration? Let me know in the comments. And thanks for sticking with me, 16 days to go.

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One-man flyer

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Little droid

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Orange freighter

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Field Notes special edition notebook

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July 27, 2016

All families need a little space.

Here is a recent commission I worked on for a friend. He wanted an illustration of him and his family as astronauts – I was delighted to help out!

Once again I used my (patent pending) coin and tracing paper masking technique. There must be a better way…

Final-Ink

Completed illustration

Initial sketching
Inks going down
Craters!
Filling in the blacks
Getting ready to splatter
Making stars
Almost finished
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July 8, 2016

A Gigantic Fleet of Tiny Orange Spaceships

I decided to draw a few little spaceships. It got a bit out of hand. When I finished there was a whole tiny fleet of them. All tiny, all orange. 150 in total. I counted.

 

Beginnings.
The JUNO probe joins the fleet.
More ships.
Perspective.
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The finished fleet. 150 strong.

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April 23, 2016

Four Flyers

Sometimes, it’s nice to just sketch very loosely, and see what happens. I had no idea what the first of these was going to be before I put pencil to paper, but very quickly it became a little one-man spaceship. I liked it so much I carried on and drew another three. I might do more, they look pretty cool as a set I think.

Drawn on cheap copy paper with a Blacking pencil. Tweaked in photoshop for contrast and levels, and a bit of paper texture added.

Four-Flyers

Four flyers, pencil sketch

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February 18, 2016

A New Dimension in Space…

This is a drawing I did in my Moleskine sketchbook a while ago, it’s the hero’s spaceship from a short story I’m writing that will be part of my Asteroid Belt Blues (ABB) universe. The spaceship is inspired by the modular design of the International Space Station, and by the look of modern submersibles. I love the idea of a big old fish tank style cockpit where the pilot can sit and look out at the stars. In my ABB future, materials science has progressed to a point where these structures can be made from a diamond/glass composite. Strong enough to withstand micrometeorite impacts and the pressures of interplanetary travel.

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I posted this picture on Instagram, where it was seen by Al William, and he kindly modelled the ship in Fusion 360 and Keyshot. I think it looks great, I love the decisions that Al had to make to complete the ship – based solely on the image above. Funnily Al thought it was a submersible – so that influence is obviously pretty strong.

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Al also sent me a 360 fly-around – it’s the first time I’ve seen one of my spaceship drawings come to life like this. I love it.

 

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October 3, 2015

Inktober so far…

Here’s a peek at the first three days of my Inktober challenge. I’ll probably post an update in a week or so. Even just a few days in I think the practice is making a difference. The brush pen is pretty tough to control, so it really does pay to use it a lot.

If you don’t know what Inktober is, have a look at my last blog post.

1. The Inkblot.

1. The Inkblot.

2. Space Dog.

2. Space Dog.

3. The Island

3. The Island

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