Kaiju Ode to Tom Perkins IV

...As well as to QPop Gallery - went there a few weeks ago and got the hankering to draw the above. Will eventually clean up the bottom framed image and color it so as to keep pace with the namesake of this post.

Anyhow, Mr Perkins has an artbook. Reasonably priced and full of polished work (as well as developmental sketches). Highly recommend picking it up if you enjoy unusual creature designs and the occasional Cyrillic comicbook title.

More random sketches

Dropped the colerase color and punched the levels on the foreground characters to try to make it clearer - the operative word being "try".

-And some further soldier designs, taking several pages out of Star Wars and Half Life. Many more of these in the sketchbooks. Is challenging coming up with side-scroller designs without defaulting to the side view pose first.

Random Character Design pages

 Still trying to cut down on the construction lines.

Included Nix from Band of Brothers as a graphic motif in the upper lefthand corner, complete with Vat 69 seal (a dog licking a wheat sheaf apparently). The amazonae on the right is running mid stride on an upshot, which would explain the leg being as truncated as it is (foreshortened). I think technically it's correct, even though it looks awkward in the final render - thus the battle and balance between "correct" and "appealing shape" continues.

Manticorius

 Larger 2nd pass on one of the previous sketches. Manticore in the background's probably taking up too much of the negative space.

Side scroller development sketches

Naked amazons and Spetsnaz mechs. More to follow.

~ UFOs and Storyboards ~

Full storyboard PFD can be found here. The thumbnailing and tying-down process to how I usually do boards, or flesh out scenes and short sequences. Panels read from left to right, with additional poses plugging inbetween at various points.

An additional page featuring the opening shot; another can be found here. The rest of the boards and story are in the PDF.

There are more development pages than here, but these are the most presentable. Anyone who takes a look at the full version can also see where I added some Photoshop finesse (relatively speaking) in terms of grey tones, additional poses, or camera work.

Probably not the most efficient time-wise to work in traditional means (Colerase and Moleskine), but I like the end result better, in linework, composition, and generally being able to see outside the frame, or further forward or behind several scenes. There's something to be said about being able to compare shot-for-shot at a single glance on an actual physical page sitting in front of you. There's also something to be said about not being rushed with a stylus on a canvas the equivalent of waxed ice.

Plenty of Close Encounters, ET, Super 8, and general UFO folklore fueling the above.

~ Gulag Intermission... ~

And, we're back to the chimera ladies for now.

Some elephant/SLON logo designs, as well as a work up sketch for the lady in the former pic. As you can see, played with the positioning of her leg being more tucked in. In the end, it needed to be flared outwards more.

For those of you in the free world, SLON was the acronym for the Northern Special Purpose Camps - the Karelian/Siberian wing of Gulag during its formative years in the 1920's and 30's, if I remember correctly - as well as the Russian word for "elephant". The mascot was apparently used on most anything identified with the camp, including internal-camp monies or coupons issued to the zeks.

I'm not sure how the chimera lady fits into all of this, other than she's as elusive as an elephant in the tundra.

~ Novy Mirlag... ~ 

"Someday the Russian stage will yet see this sight! And the Russian cinema screen! The pea jackets one color and their sleeves another. Or so many patches on the pea jacket that its original cloth is totally invisible. Or a flaming pea jacket - with tatters on it like tongues of flame. Or patches on britches made from the wrappings of someone's food parcel from home, and for a long while to come one can still read the address written in the corner with an indelible pencil. And on their feet the tried and true Russian "lapti" - bast sandals - except that they had no decent "onuchi" - footcloths - to go with them. Or else they might have a piece of old automobile tire, tied right on the bare foot with a wire, an electric cord. (Grief has its own inventiveness...)

 "And then, in addition, bronze-gray camp faces will appear on the screen. Eyes oozing with tears, red eyelids. White cracked lips, covered with sores. Skewbald, unshaven bristles on the faces. In winter... a summer cap with earflaps sewn on.

I recognize you! It is you, the inhabitants of my Archipelago!"

-Solzhenitsyn; Gulag Archipelago, Vol 2


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