design for the robots... except not. in the end, we went with something a little more 'cuddly'... if such a thing is possible with ten foot tall war-bots. probably a good thing too since this draft wouldn't look out of place in a certain film franchise that features explosions, some surprisingly unsubtle robots in disguise, explosions, s l o o o o o o o o w motion and explosions.

and yet more character designs for the comic. actually, i think this might have been the most fun character to work with since she pretty much spends all of the pages she makes an appearance in being a complete cold hearted, soulless bitch. everyone loves a good villain.

when it came to composing general bertman, i pretty much had to beat my self over the head to come up with something that wasn't alter from y the last man. that series left a ridiculously deep impression.

you should go read it.

... nice shoes.

character design for dr. crowe... and that's all. this character's probably the one i've had the most fun getting a 'performance' out of. hopefully i'll be able to put up some pages or a couple of panels some time soon. or you'll be able to buy a copy. that would be incredibly nice.

character design for robert; wanted to make him a laid back counterpart to his wife. in the end, this design got scrapped since this look was voted too old. clearly wasn't feeling too inspired when i went back to the drawing board because the final version of this guy is pretty much the above but with more hair.

so one thing i've been wanting to more of is doodle responses to stuff i've seen/watched/heard/read. could be a fun way to stretch the old visual vocabulary since i've pretty much been thinking in panels for the last god knows how long.

managed to catch 'moon' while it was on general release. before going in, a friend warned me he'd read a review that said the film blew it's wad in terms of the big reveal pretty early on. he wasn't wrong there but turns out it doesn't really matter since the film finds a bunch of other ways to keep the tension taunt through out.

sam rockwell, sam rockwell and sam rockwell give brilliant turns (powerful too. there are a number of devastating reveals in this that this guy just hammers home) as multiple versions of a miner who's at the end of his three year contract on the moon. the on board a.i played by kevin spacey injects some variation in the limited cast and is a neat take on the archetype.

this flick really is a looker. the film switches between the moon's surface and station. the latter's got this wonderful, used vibe. rather than some slick, soulless, sterile setting, it really looks like it's been lived in and there are a tone of neat details that add extra layers. oh, and the soundtrack. clint mansell is a fricking genius when it comes to putting a score together.

all in all, if your looking for a slower paced, thoughtful sci fi movie, you really can't go wrong with this.

when it came to designing rebecca, i just had the word wasp on loop in my head. she came off as a wee bit on the wrong side of neurotic. god knows if that managed to work its way into the design.

final design for turning tiger's sarah. just opened up the inbox to find an email with some examples of the lettered pages attached. on the excitement scale, i think you can rate that as a holy fucking shit.

seriously, letterists are hands down the unsung heroes of comics. god knows how the man managed to find a way to fit in the speech bubbles amongst my poorly planned panels but it's ridiculous just how well they tie the pages together.

so a while ago i was stuck bumming around wimbledon for four hours or something stupid. it could have been worse though. i could have been this guy.

incase you're curious about my profound observations but can't decipher the chicken scratch, it goes something like this:

'seriously. it's stupid degrees celsius today and they've got this poor chump riding up and down on top of a double decker bus dressed as a rubber korona bottle. sure, it's effective marketing (i would quite happily kill you and all your loved ones for a beer right now) but no one should have to suffer the indignity of spending the hottest day of the year suited up in what looks like a giant, used, neon yellow condom. it's just not right.'

and this time round, you may notice a shameless rip off of zone of the ender's jehuty. hacktastic!

mech-tennis ball's kinda fun though.

did you know that leonardo da vinchi's sketchbooks were found to contain plans for a humanoid robot? it's possible that the vitruvian man may have been research for it.

#THE MORE YOU KNOW#

initial brain storming on the subject of robots. asides from notes on weaponry and color schemes, this was pretty much open ended which lead to alot of head scratching and pencil chewing.

the only thing i knew i wanted was for these girls to have itty bitty heads to offset their bodies... which i totally failed to incorporate into these brain farts. bravo.

look closely and you may notice elements of big daddies, the iron giant and evangelion units. originality is dead.

this is old. like methuselah old. but somehow pretty decent. can't quite get my head around that conundrum. i think this was done waaaay back when i was applying for foundation. one of the universities thought it would be super fun to set you some totally bogus project before considering you. i don't think i even went to the interview for that place but hey, we got girder man out of it so it wasn't all for naught.

oh man. makes me want to do some super intense tonal stuff like nobody's business. i'm doing layouts at the moment and they couldn't be further from that. then again, just got to the point in the script where shit gets real and holy crap, is drawing stick figure robots blasting off a riot.


BLAH BLAH BLAH.

and yet more character designs for turning tiger. asides from getting to draw big o'l robots jetting all over the show, playing with the dynamic between these two has probably been the most fun thing about this gig. humanist scientist and cold hearted military commanders do not a good mix make.

more turning tiger character design fluff, this time for the central character. i've heard that kids are one of the easiest things to botch up and can often end up looking like mini adults. need to avoid that one.

and holy fucking shit. i'm pretty sure that first sketch can see into your soul.

on the topic of character design... super old stuff from the now disbanded weekly sketch jam. i think the topic for this one was to redesign a video character. i think this was a spin on devil may cry's dante since that guy's devil trigger form has as much broken continuity as a hawk man's backstory .

holy fucking shit. i need to go wash the taste of nerd out of my mouth after that.

but seriously. i would love to be able to draw more gnarly monsters.

hoy hoy campers!

so the first issue of turning tiger is done and dusted. no idea when it's going to hit shelves since i think it's still with the letterer for the time being. in the mean time though, some rough stuff. this is already up over at renegade arts but what the hell. this place needs an update that isn't from my moleskin.

charater designs for the robert and rebecca. this pair are pretty polar in terms of personality. really wanted to try and bring that...

... i'm sorry. i just flipped on divine comedy's casanova album and it's that particular brand of awesome that totally derails your brain and demands every once of your attention.

or maybe i just can't multitask.

so a couple of weeks ago a couple of us went to this music festival thing called gocstock. it was a pretty small affair but has me convinced that if you own a sizable amount of land, it's your god given duty to use it to host a music festival once a year. there was a tone of awesome people and bands, one of which was this dude going by tatterrattles. if you've got a moment, give his myspace a look -> http://www.myspace.com/tatterattlesmusic

did you know that the first music festival on record were held at the pythian games at delphi?

#THE MORE YOU KNOW!#

unused panel from the comic. there are a whole bunch of these because someone thought it would be a REALLY awesome idea to not pass the rough layouts by the editor and go straight into coloring.

there's a mistake that's not going to be repeated any time soon.

on that note, there's a page up at the renegade arts website about turning tiger! go check it out, along with all the other crazy cool stuff they've got there -> http://www.renegadeartsentertainment.com/news/?p=220