The World of 5173 A.D.

While I'm still juggling my character turn arounds for the secondary Time Machine characters, I'm working on some backgrounds. They say an artist should drawing what they aren't good at or what they rarely draw to get better. So I guess I'm doing what I should be since I so rarely deal with any drawing that doesn't involve the human figure.

This first round of pencil roughs are for the future world of 5173 A.D. It is a world that begins the split of humanity that will lead to the Morlocks and the Eloi. In it, we have a city of London, now just called Lon, that has grown to engulf the entire British Isle. The working class work underground while the more comfortable class live in the high rise buildings. Above is an open room in one of those high rises called Skyminster Terrace.

I had fun tweaking the names of famous London landmarks as the names will evolve over the centuries. Canaby Street is now Carn A & B, two streets.

Hopefully people can understand my scribbles for thumbnails but above is an overhead shot of the main centre: Lon Central, Alph Grid.

The Thames still runs through the center of the city. Keeping with the trend of abbreviating words, Rivers are now Rivs and Bridges are Spans. So these are the Thames Riv Spans.

The Tube is still around but some of the usual stops have been tweaked. Instead of Russell Square, this is Rus Square Stop with the Square now being a symbol instead of a word. Blame abbreviating and texting for that one.

The Tate Stop.

Thames Riv.

Queen Eloise's center of power, Throne Room Essex.

Huge machinery under the city to keep things powered and moving. Think Metropolis!

But above the city scape, on the roof tops, are wind turbines to power the city. This region is called Wind's Soar.

More background roughs soon.

Return of the Tiki

The last of the Tiki and Polynesian-themed cards due this week. I still need to color them. Above, an Elvis Blue Hawaii card. I had trouble nailing the likeness so I added the Elvis trademarks of the long sideburns and the popped collar which he didn't have in 1960/61 during his Blue Hawaii days.

Oh my! Tiki's go blue!! I'm not against nudity on this blog but this one was a little more graphic than I usually get so I did some black bars to tone it down.

The "Hang Loose, Bro!" card came out well.

Besides fertility, there are also tikis for luck. Here is an older one playing the slots. And then a Commando Tiki, which is probably my least favorite of the bunch. If you want to see the uncensored Fertility Tiki card, click to enlarge the image below. All the cards together do look kind of cool. Next, time to mess them all up with some color.

More Old Sketchbooks

I found some more old sketchbooks in a box. I thought some of these small thumbnail-like drawings were interesting. Circa about 1998-1999.

More TV Sketching

More sketching from the TV. Above is Shatner in his prime in STAR TREK.

Below, Anne Francis in HONEY WEST, a surprisingly good early Aaron Spelling show that only lasted one season. It is tough to capture the actress' beauty. Nailing a likeness is a whole other level of artistry.

And then they keep running this commercial for Medical Alert (yeah, ME TV is targeting an older demographic. lol). The commercial has this lovely 40-50-ish blonde that was worth a sketch or two.

Car 54, Where Are You?

Huh? Whaa? What does an old sitcom from 50 years ago that half of America hasn't even heard of have to do with art? Nothing, really, other than during my late night sketching frenzy, I started to hit the freeze button on the TV remote and sketch the image for 5 minutes or so. It isn't as good as live figure drawing but, after drawing people out of my head and getting some good cartooning out of it, it is good to do some quick studies to add an extra element of realism and perhaps pick up on a few things that I'll remember when creating my images without any reference.

After seeing this old show a few times, it is a funny program. And, to get that "old New Yorker" look, they used some good character actors. No GQ or Playboy models. Just some interesting looking people. Depending on the show, there is some great old black and white programs that utilize shadows and light in an interesting way like the old COMBAT! show which frequently had Robert Altman directing or THE OUTER LIMITS which had future Oscar winner Conrad Hall doing the lighting and cinematography.

Random Sketching

More pencil sketches to be cleaned up later and maybe inked during some free time.

Late Night Sketching

My sleep schedule has been messed up for years. It doesn't help when I start to sketch late at night as that just energizes me to want to stay up longer and be creative. But many artists work late at night. It isn't always a procrastination thing that turns us into nocturnal creatures but that the world is quiet. During the day, the world is noisy, people are interrupting your work flow, and there are errands and other life stuff to contend with. But during the night....that's our time! The cares of the day are put aside as we create. While the world dreams, we dream of worlds and put them on paper. Or Canvas. Or computer.

In truth, I might be one of those types who would be up late even if I wasn't an artist. An old boss once said that my perfect day would be 30 hours long as I was burning my candle on both ends back in those days when I would work and go to school. I was young then and could get away with only 6 hours of sleep. But in my later years, I can't push like that.

I've heard that people without a regular schedule or those that work nights don't live as long. Maybe it is the lack of sunshine or whatever. It is a painfully adjustment when, after working nights, you suddenly have to shift to a day schedule on your days off to get your errands done or meet up with friends that are not on the nocturnal shift. But I've run into a couple of benefits too like having no problem to the time difference when I first travelled to England and Australia (my theory is I've always been living on Australian time).

Sometimes I'm not on a night schedule. Real life forces me to adjust my round peg to the world's square hole from time to time but, with what seems like a 30 hour day for me, left to my own devices, I'll stay up a little longer each day to, eventually, I've shifted to more of a day schedule.

But late night is prime sketching time for me. I'll let the ideas flow or, if the television is on, maybe I'll be inspired by a person I saw on a commercial or and old show I never saw as a kid as the above sketches were influenced by.

Third Level Characters

Back to the on-going TIME MACHINE project. This semester will be spent working up the secondary characters but I do have some third level characters. No real names on these characters other than me working up character designs for the workers and Queen's Maiden (helper) in the year 5173 A.D.

The Time Machine: Pencil Test Turns Pt. 1

Above: Pencil test character turn for the Doyle character from the 1666 AD era in my Time Machine project.

Above: Pencil test character turn for a Worker character from the 5173 AD era in my Time Machine project.

Beneath the Planet of the Tiki

No color mock up on this one but our intrepid Tiki gettin' down with a Hula Girl. Go Tiki!! Get yo' FREAK on, brah!!!

The Tales of the Tiki Strike Back!

Not all the cards have Tiki's. I've got a few Polynesian girls in there too. This one has a Hula Girl with a Hula Hoop. Another computer color mock up above with the original size black and white below.

More Tales of the Tiki

And the Tiki cards continue! Since these cards are small and many, I'm using them like glorified thumbnails only with a hell of a lot more time put into them. I'm using them to explore my many ideas on one subject plus to let my humor out.

Here is "Tiki P.I." since I'm a fan of the old TV shows "Magnum p.i." and "Hawaii Five-0". These look better at the original card size rather than enlarged but my intro art after the headline looks better with a large piece of art. So I did a computer color mock up above and below in what the original looks like.

Tales of the Tiki

Time for another round of Artist Trading Cards! December's theme was Krampus. The group took a break in January to recover from the holidays but February's theme is Tiki and Polynesian. So I'm bustin' out the hula girls, the grass skirts, and the Mai Tai's. Surf's up, Brah!

I'd probably feel more comfortable with coloring the cards with gray tones but how can you not use bright colors with this theme? We'll see. I'll need about 8 or 9 cards in all, due at the end of the month. I've got half of those inked, all sketched out, but they'll need some color or gray tones. I did play with some Photoshop color on a couple of them. Here's the black and white of the first card above: "Tiki-Say-Go!"