I’m lucky enough to be featured in 3DTotal’s new book – Sketching from the imagination: Sci-fi. It’s 320 pages of sketches, drawings and concept art from 49 amazing artists and illustrators (and me).
I’m sharing its pages with one of my absolute favourite artists – Ian McQue – which makes me feel a little bit dizzy.
If you order it before June 8th they’ll throw in a free sketchbook.
Inspired by Linda Thompson‘s song “Nine Stone Rig”…
I’ve been drawing standing stones. Part neolithic, part Lord of the Rings.
Nine Stone Rig
The Stones
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.
There is something magical about creating a place or a world that previously only existed inside your own head. It’s impossible to draw (at least it is for me) an imaginary landscape without wondering about the people who inhabit it, or the history of it, or the flora and fauna that fill it.
Some of my landscapes are very much rooted in the real world, the lake district is never far from the tip of my pen, while some have only the loosest foundations here on earth.
Only one of my landscapes exists as is, Slater’s Bridge in Little Langdale in the Lake District. I really must get back there with a sketchbook. It’s an amazingly beautiful place.
Slater’s Bridge
People are very rare in my drawings, partly because I’m pretty terrible at drawing them, but partly because I want to be the person in the picture. I don’t want to share these places with anyone else. Extreme escapism for me would be stepping into one of my illustrations and exploring what’s beyond the edge of the page.
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
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.
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’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.
Well, it’s still droids. Working in London is leaving me with precious little time to draw, and as I committed to drawing a droid every day for a year – that’s the one thing I will squeeze in.
I’ve been asking on twitter and Instagram for suggestions for film, TV or book droids or robots to draw.
Here are three of my favourites so far…
Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet
R2-D2, surely everyone’s favourite
K-9, Doctor Who’s faithful companion
Day 40 of my droid a day project. Here’s a selection of my progress so far, along with some of today’s sketches.
Just over half of the droids so far…
Some of today’s sketches – hands and feet.
this northern boy 