Category: Experimenting

Dancer

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Over the last couple years, I’ve read several human interest stories about dancers or yoga instructors or whatnot that you might not think could excel at those skills because of their weight, or in one case because she had downs syndrome. But they do it anyway, and they do it well. So, I wanted to draw this lovely dancer who is clearly doing what she loves despite the challenge of her body size.

A fat ballerina stands in the spotlight, on pointe with one leg raised over her head.

Final Image – Giant Robot Invasion!

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And here is the final version of the piece I’ve been working on!  So much excitement going on here.   You’ve got the rockets blasting off behind, probably an emergency evacuation.  Are the searchlights searching for her, specifically?  You have the abandoned motorcycle, maybe it was hers and it ran out of gas or something?  That would explain the goggles.  Looks like she must have met with an accident on her right side at some point in the past because she’s got a prosthetic arm and leg.  They must be good tech, though, since they don’t seem to be slowing her down any.  Notice the blue light on her arm?  That’s a power indicator.  She still has a full charge.  It’ll turn orange, then red as it runs dead.  At which point she becomes a lefty.  I’m not sure what the earpiece is.  Maybe just communications equipment, maybe a hearing aid of some sort?  It is on her injured side.  What’s in her bag do you think?  Tools for maintaining her prosthetics?  Or the plans to the enemy’s base that she has to deliver into rebel hands?  It doesn’t look like she has any offensive weapons.  Just that energy shield, but I think it’s underpowered to stop that robot hand.  Maybe it will buy her a crucial second to slip out of its grip, though!

Giant Hand
Here’s an Easter egg.  You can’t tell at the resolution above, but this is in the background.  The search light washes it out, but you can see that she’s not the only one running.
Easter Egg

And here’s a behind-the-scenes from way back when I first started this piece.  This little mannequin helped me work out her pose.
model

This piece was a personal project, not one meant for any particular client.  I wanted to add a detailed sci-fi piece in my portfolio, one with a lot of action.  So, that’s the reason for it.  I’ll get it up on the portfolio in a couple of days here. [Edit: It’s up now.]

I had not really intended it to be as involved as it ended up, but the concept demanded certain elements and complex lighting.  Luckily, since I had no real deadline, I was free to take as long as I liked.  It was fun and I really like how it turned out.  :)

Robots in a Bookshop Cafe

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Here’s a silly picture of robots reading in a bookshop cafe.  I liked the idea of something so digital-age as a robot doing something so analog as reading from a paper book.

It was fun to design all the different kinds of robots.  I almost drew it with all sorts of movie/TV robots instead.  You know, brainbots, cybermen,  C-3PO, Wall-E, etc.  But I think I had more fun making up my own.

Not sure if you can tell at this resolution, but this cafe serves oil, batteries, memory sticks, CD’s, and the odd bit of hardware as robot snacks.

Robot Bookshop

Here’s a close-up of the counter.

Robot Coffee Shop - Detail

Dune: Mock-up Cover

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I just finished re-reading Dune by Frank Herbert.  I hadn’t read it since high school and had forgotten just about the entire story.  Afterwards, I felt like drawing something Dune-related.  So, here’s a mock-up book cover.   I haven’t seen the movie and so intentionally didn’t use it as visual reference.

dune-600

The image and layout is mine.  The font is Atilla-Condensed by Bay Animation Inc.  Dune and everything else belongs to Frank Herbert.

Jump Rope Animation

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It’s just a simple little stick figure jumping rope, but it’s my first ever animation.  I made the frames in Illustrator and animated them in Photoshop.  It consists of ten frames at .05 seconds each, so a rate of 20 frames a second.  I figured out the timing by singing “Miss Mary Mac” at the tempo that goes with jumping rope and set the speed to match that. (Though it still might be just a bit too fast, I’m not sure.) It’s not very fancy, but I’m proud of it.  smiley 15

Jumprope-Animation

I may have overdone her bouncy hair a bit, though.