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TRDL Commission – Glue Junkie

TRDL thom — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:11:56 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 67 – Glue Junkie Commission

Note: Hi-Rez version here!

OK, this one requires some ‘splainin. This was a commission done for Nicholas Frank, who has an Etsy shop called Glue Junkie. He has produced all of our TRDL and Team Lope vinyl, many of them on very short notice turnaround before events. Awesome guy. So, I did this piece to thank him for all of his work. I was given a very broad set of parameters and the opportunity to ignore them if I wanted. He had the idea of his girlfriend as the 50-foot-tall woman fighting a giant mecha. They have two dogs, and he gave me a bunch of interests and details for each of them to inspire me. From there, I cooked up a TRDL Cryptohistorical Redesign, one of these long format old-timey poster prints I have been doing when I do illustrations of friends. Here, it’s an ad for tickets to an oratory by survivors of the REAL reason London burned: Evil Doctor Lola, a mutated terrier, kidnapped our hapless engineer’s dame, supersized her and by controlling her mind with his remote, sent her on a rampage through London, forcing Nick to build a giant steam automaton to pilot in an attempt to stop her and free her from Lola’s clutches. And such.

Process notes below, including some of the easter eggs in this piece.

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

PROCESS:

So I don’t really do likenesses when I draw friends and real people, but I take their look to heart when building the illustrated version of them. Her’s Nick and his girlfriend before a jump.

Here’s Lola, one of their pups. Not evil.

I had the mental image pretty clearly, once I decided to set this in the Industrial Age, so it was just a matter of laying down pencils to help organize the composition, since much of this would be digitally constructed on the Cintiq.

[img][img]http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com/rimages5/2gluei.jpg[/img][/img]
After pencils, I scanned them all in, composited them roughly how I wanted the close-ups of the adversaries (Lola and Nick) and then set it to blueline to print out for inking. It was hand inked from there as you see here.

The inks were fun. So much so that my toddler, Wee Z, got up IN there when I was getting her some milk, and adorned the piece with her own embellishments. This is the first time she’s gotten to one of my commission pieces. Not to worry, that’s what digital ink correction is for!

For Lola it was about building up the layers of color in the hair. Man, animal hair is tough. At least the terrier hair’s bristly looking fibers made it somewhat easier to render. I had to play around with the color of the outfit in order to make it play nice with the rest of the composition as planned. The steampunk remote with the transistor on top just cracks me up.
Note the hat has an owl pin. That was one of the easter eggs.

Nick was fun because I wanted to capture some of his contemporary look, ie. the short hair and the under-lip stud, but I wanted him to have that young science hero thing going on. I love all the steam filling up his cockpit from the broken valve.

So, here’s our main adversaries, ready to go. The frames that contain them as border elements were fun too, and each is slightly different. Nick’s had an angel halo in the top little embellishment, though you can’t see it now, and Lola’s is a skull. Good vs. Evil! Huzzah!

I knew that the contrast color was going to be key on this piece, because the city and the coal smoke and the darkness of the mecha would be very heavy. I decided on playing with shades of violent and indigo. So laying out the colors for Nick’s girlfriend’s clothes was pretty fun, using different variations on those colors. Usually for pin-ups the goal is to get a cheesecake vibe going on, which can be challenging when you do Victorian era clothes. You have to get randy with a lifted skirt or what not (as with my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen piece). Here, though, the goal wasn’t cheesecake. I wanted her to look proper and elegant for the day, jut under someone else’s control. And huge. Originally, I envisioned her dress in tatters, barefoot (in homage to the B-movie film) and smudged with coal. But I decided to present this as a first moment of the encounter thing, so she would be easier to read as someone that may be an adversary, but not evil. Kind of an interesting aspect to it: she is in these violets and such, clean, fresh looking, really a focal point, yet she’s the crisis point character. And Nick’s steampunk automaton is dark, sooty, rusty, alien looking and would seem to be the bad guy, right? But of course, looks are deceiving.

Her scarf is an easter egg, by the way. Nick’s girlfriend loves an orange scarf she wears all the time, so i gave her one here too, just muted in color to match up closer to the bronze in the mecha and to avoid clashing with the purples.

Three flowers on the hat, you’ll notice.

I wasn’t sure what color the automaton was going to be, though I wanted it to have a great steampunk vibe to it. But originally I had been visualizing painted metal and gold or bronze, like a sweet period locomotive (well, like a PAINTED locomotive; all the really cool images I see from the victorian era have jet black giant monstrosities) but with the prominence of the purples in this piece, I knew it was either going to have to be a complimentary color or be bare metal, and the tone of the piece, and my own general aesthetic, went for the latter. But here, I hadn’t chosen the color yet so I had a gray placeholder.

Here’s the final color selected for the bot. I had so much fun with this design. You know I love cephalopods, so I gave it tentacle legs, but not flexy ribbed ones, but segmented, curved metal sheaths. The symbol on the head is a little bugaboo, and represented both a connection to the octopus look to the legs of the bot, but also a nod to all the awesome vinyl Nick creates and sells through Glue Junkie, including the robot that guards Zoe’s seat in our MINI. Nick had originally proposed the Etsy logo somewhere, and while I had sketched it in intending to just weather and distort it enough to not violate copyright, in the end it just wasn’t appropriate for the piece. Three smokestacks! And that torn of arm? I like it’s hand, I don’t know about you.

I started layering rus on all the major armor plates and then pooling it to the edges. I absolutely love doing this look. At one point I was playing with having most of the lower half be rusted, as if he’d been going in and out of the harbor, but then I thought this was a bot built on short notice (somehow) specifically to battle control of his kidnapped love. So the rust I’ve used is just surface rust from exposure during fabrication and use.

I started with bronze but as i worked on it, I felt it wanted something shinier. Brass, gold, some alloy? I don’t know. Something steampunky. HA.
I LOVE the crown plate above the bot’s head. I’ve used the crown motif elsewhere to represent finery: the Team Lope logo uses it thanks to Lung’s steady hand, and one of my tattoos, a TRDL crest and shield, has it as well.

The rust and weathering on the gears and other pieces of the armor that had a brownish tinge to them ended up looking really vibrant, which I liked. I toyed with having shiny scrape edges on the cog teeth, but when I tested it, it was the focal point of the whole piece, so I dropped that layer off.

Here’s the final version of the colored giants… next up was compositing into the poster format, and then about I don’t know 10 hours or so of fiddling over a week and a half of nights: getting all the text, in content and format, the way i wanted it. Drawing in burning London in that curved perspective. The fire, the smoke. Anyway, when all was said and done, I was pretty stoked!

And thankfully, so was my Client, as it was all done sight unseen!
Lots of easter eggs in the text that will have meaning for them, so I’ll let them find them themselves. Anyway, rad project!

Thanks for reading!

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TRDL 2011 Series No. 64 – Captain America [Film Version]

TRDL thom — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:00:48 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 64 – Captain America [Film Version]

This piece was done for the Captain America jam on the TRDL R3 Forum and TRDL-R3-WeeklyJam group on dA, and specifically as a birthday card for my buddy, as we were attending the film on his big day.

I’ve watched the evolution of the film costume design pretty closely, and really like the choices made. After drawing this, I saw the film, and noticed a few details in the construction of this suit that are different than I had interpreted from stills, but overall, pretty close match. I drew Steve Rogers taller as well as buff because, in my view, you can’t just supersize the muscles beyond the range of normal human capability without increasing the bone mass and surface area for connective tissue. So here, like all of my own TRDL characters as a rule, he’s bigger than your average bear.

Here’s the version I gave my buddy as a card: a USO promo photo sent to a few select lucky fans during wartime.

Artists, come join us on R3 and submit to the jams! The R3 Illustration Jam offers new characters weekly, but all jams remain open so you can contribute to any that you like, here:
http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com/forum … m.php?f=27
or in the TRDL-R3-WeeklyJam group on DA, here:
http://trdl-r3-weeklyjam.deviantart.com/

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

PROCESS:

Here’s a pretty good shot of the costume in the film. I love the straps for the parachute pack integrated into the tunic.

Here’s a pic of a Cap statue, which I’ve had in my queue for a long time as a reminder for the kind of muscular massing I like for the character.

Here’s a shot of the scrumptious Haylee Atwell as Peggy Carter. Note they didn’t retcon her uniform to include bustiers or slip skirts or high heels or whatever. Great period costuming.

I did this one in a series of separate pieces composited together. With a toddler trying to draw on the page the whole time. Here’s the pencils for Cap. I knew Peggy would be to his left side so I left that blank so i could digitally resolve it.

Peggy,in a pose that’s part classic B-movie femme fatale and part IN-CHARGE.

Inks for Cap…

And inks for Peggy…

Here’s the final ink comp, including a ton of digital inking and tweaking. Ready to go!

When a costume or uniform has both visual complexity AND layering, I like to start with the shade/shadow to get a sense of it before coloring. Then I turn that off while I color.

Skin tones for each.

Colors for everyone, my versions, which are either darker and richer than the film versions, or not, depending on the photos you see.

Shade reintroduced, modified here and there…

Highlights added…

I created the A on the helmet as a text element, rasterized and rendered. Beats my handwriting! Side note: I LOVE the wing motif on the sides of the helmet.

Here’s a color version of the card that would then be distressed to look old for the final version.

When I brought the work into the final template for the site, I added the shield and a few other details. I know it’s odd to not show the front of the shield in these kinds of views, but you really shouldn’t see it, as it’s strapped to his back when not in use. I suppose an argument could be made that for a promo photo he’d be waving it around, but I felt with Peggy blocking one half of him, the shield would either be blocking him, or her… so I left it on his back.

Thanks for reading!

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Third Rail Thrills 59 – Quorra [Tron Legacy]

TRDL thom — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 05:45:54 +0000

Third Rail Thrills No. 59 – Quorra [Tron Legacy]
TRDL 2011 Series, No. 34

This was based on a sketch done by Mahasiddha for the#DailySketchChallenge, on DA. His was a page of loose sketches but this pose really struck me so I did a homage to it using the same character. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m all about Olivia Wilde in a black bob with glowy bits, so yay me.

You can read more about the process on this pic after the jump…

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Background:

OK here’s that original sketch. Man I love the exaggerated, loose, sexy form here.

These are the three pics I used for costume reference. It’s deceptively challenging to get right…

Process:

Here’s my original pencils. They were pretty close to my vision for the complete piece, except I was too stylized in the face and her eyes are too far apart.

Inks. I knew the face would have changes, so I figured I’d wait for the render to play with it. After this point, I abandoned the LEVEL UP reference…

I started with skin and hair. On this one her hair and the suit would be very close in tone, though neither are black in my case.

Here’s the body suit basic colors. Very closely matched. But not the same!

Here’s a shot of the highlights on the suit. I love an ink black, featureless silhouette form in comic art, such as the original black costume Spider-Man… but I don’t do it often.

The hand was an error. I noticed it while inking, hence the note to myself about it. Here, I cut and flipped it just to see, but no. It would need to to be redrawn with the thumb forward.

Here we have the digital hand, clutching that ring weapon. I’ve also done all the white striping and glows.

Finally, some detail work on her smokey eyeliner and some facial proportion correction.

Hope you enjoyed it!

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Third Rail Thrills 49- Velma Pin-Up

TRDL thom — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 18:16:32 +0000

Third Rail Thrills 49 – Velma Pin-Up
TRDL 2011 Illustration Series No. 11

This illustration was done for the R3 Jam on TRDL’s R3 Forum. Artists can participate in any open jams by heading here. The subject this time: Scooby-Doo

For this week’s Scooby-Doo jam, I HAD to do Velma. I’ve drawn Daphne twice now, on account of her mod style, but never Velma, who was always my favorite. What can i say, the smart brunette in glasses? That tools my leather right there. This is the 11th pic in my 2011 series, and number 49 in the Third Rail Thrills series, which are contemporary characters in poses inspired by vintage pin-up art.

Please enjoy, hell yes!

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You can find a larger version here.

You can also see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

References:

Of course, here’s the classic cartoon Velma, complete with bowl cut and blue saucer-lenses.

However, I’m a fan of Linda Cardellini, and her thankless portrayal of Velma in the Scooby-Doo films was my primary inspiration, including the longer hair and smooth skirt.

Process:

This time, instead of late-night pencils, I had early morning pencils. I posted the topic to the jam, and then was hit with my concept quickly and just took advantage of distracted toddlers and sleeping mothers and hit the sketchbook.

The digital tweaks to these inks aren’t immediately noticable, but I brought her face into a more cute, rounder proportion, I moved the right leg higher and more tucked under her left and extended the knee (this is a mistake I continue to make for some reason) and a few small corrections.

Here are the flats. I did the entire piece flatted right away instead of doing fleshtones first, because the tenuous balance between skin, orange and red needed to be just right.

Now, the sack of Scooby-Snacks was intended to be full, but sagging a bit under the weight of the meal and her body, not so much that she left a dent, but enough that it wasn’t a balloon. I didn’t want to get into rendering the deformation of a loose sack of little kibbles or whatever, and wanted it to have more of that rounded, cartoonish appearance. But this meant the same amount of work as if I had just piled it full of granola clusters or weed or whatever a scooby-snack is.

Here’s the completed sack.

This is the original color for the burlap. I actually initially wanted to go blue, but that it was an unnatural color for it to be despite working harmoniously with her outfit. But when I brought it into the Third Rail Thrills sepia background format, I saw I needed to punch it up, so i ended up going back to the blue tones after all…

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TRDL 2011 No. 9 – HAM: Spy Chimp

TRDL thom — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 19:19:23 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 9: HAM: Spy Chimp

This week’s TRDL R3 Jam was ‘Historical Figures’
I was inspired by one in particular, in no small part to my love of simian silliness…
HAM [Holloman Aerospace Medical Center], our first chimp in space… I drew this pic in honor of the 50th anniversary of his flight. Of course, in my version, HAM wasn’t just our first chimp in space, but also a super-cool 60′s spy! Read below for notes on the process and what some of the details mean…

Please enjoy…

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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Illustration Jam, which can be found here.

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Background:

So HAM went 160 miles into orbit on 31 January 1961, suffering greater Gs than they trained him for, all on a stomach full of cereal, and when they recovered the Mercury capsule, he was basically giving them the thumbs-up from the cockpit, so I say he’s a hero to us all. In my piece, I was inspired by the notion that he’s not only a space chimp, but a SPY chimp, sent into orbit to thwart the efforts of those dang commies. Never mind the fact that there weren’t any dang commies in orbit, unless you count dogs. But hey.

Some reference material:

HAM training!

HAM boarding!

Here’s a general chimp "Sir, General Chimp, Sir!" for color reference.

Here’s the Elvis record I wanted to use. He’s BACK! Ha. It’s been so long.

The Mercury capsule…

This is the suit I used for HAM’s model. Interesting tidbit: in 2005, archivists at NASA discovered a few of these MOL [Manned Observation Laboratory] suits in deep storage and in great condition… these were a mothballed attempt at a ‘space spy’ suit during the cold war when such business was deemed imperative. So, you see, HAM has the right get-up!

Here’s a pretty good shot of a Soviet-era cosmonaut suit. We were once ‘doomed cosmonauts’ for Halloween.

Process:

So this would be a composite from the get-go. I knew they’d all be swirled up under HAM in a composition built around the jet blasts of the Mercury rocket, so i just visualized how they’d be organized, and then drew them all individually.

Here’s a composite of all the penciled scans.

The inks, with more detail. I wanted to get that retro composite vibe from paste-up, but not really emulate a book or movie cover… so i could get away with stuff like the counter the scientist is leaning on being a line edge, or the repetition of bananas. Oh those phallic bananas…

Capsule in final inks and ready for render… I love lil’ HAM up in there…

Scientist and Spy ready for render. I thought the cosmonaut spy/assassin came out great.

HAM ready for render. Chimps are hard to draw.

Finally, below, a very long composite of how I built up the background. I’m not very painterly when it comes to Photoshop, but I experiment. I built up the jet blasts with some layers of low-opacity work, then brought the record in, as it was supposed to be billowing around back there, then another set of layers over it, swirling around the figures a bit, and blurred up a hair. Then final comp.

Had a great time with this one!

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TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 04 Annotations [BONUS]

TRDL thom — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 05:01:00 +0000

Annotations for Finit-e: Scene 04

Scene 04 was a weird one: it took the longest, not for lack of trying, and certainly that helped and hurt the production of the pages, and the story told within them. The pages started out, as with previous chapters, as large storyboard thumbs drawn up when the story was developed over the first few years of the new millennium, from notes and concepts gathered in the late 90s. At one point, and Lung can attest to this having lived next door, I had some 178 pages taped up along a long wall of my loft, which was quite impressive looking but daunting, thinking about the work that would go into getting the project done. And this was just Book ONE of a three book series plotted out. Over time, as you may have read, I began to systematically scale the project back, condensing the events that comprised Book One, and bringing in more of the events from Books Two and Three, in the hopes of just having a chance to complete the project in my lifetime. A lot of the concepts remained, while much of the detail would necessarily be edited out from the original story. While the book Finit-e was originally conceived as swinging back and forth between the action in the field and the messy bureaucracy behind the curtains, it was planned to be doing so in very wide swaths, so Book One was almost entirely talky-talky until the final act, setting up an action filled middle volume. This was due, in part, by my love of procedurals, from law & Order to films like Bourne Identity that dared to show agency types fumbling around, watching their asses as things got messier in the field. But really, the more I condensed it, the more I realized I wanted to have fun drawing action too. I wanted to bring more of the field operations into the book earlier, and this would allow me to set up the big picture wolrdbuilding that Finit-e tries to establish.

Unfortunately, that’s all fine and good, but it doesn’t happen in this chapter. As you have read, it’s more talking heads, and it won’t be the last of it. This story focuses AT LEAST as much on this side of things as the more exciting field operations. It’s one of the themes of the book as we go, that the system we’ve set up in government nominally for our benefit, and the machine we create to protect us, can eat itself if allowed to unravel unchecked. It leads to many of the events that will follow. I described it to another writer at Wondercon once as watching a slow-motion train wreck, but with suits.

Anyway, in the time that has passed since the last chapter was released, I’ve had a few life changes: I moved out of San Francisco and into Marin, I had a wonderful child, and I’ve ridden some bikes. The majority of this chapter was completed in the year that preceded my Wee Z’s birth, as I was chasing that due date with both this project and the next set of TRDL Sourcebooks. I’m not kidding when I say that each of those projects was at about 80% when i had to abruptly pull the plug a few weeks before the baby was born. I got to spend several of what we called ‘Fini-days’, Sundays where i worked all day on the book and got a lot done, and these were wonderful times. Unfortunately for the book, but happily for my personal life, the arrival of Zoe meant a severely reduced schedule for drawing, and what time I’ve had has been prioritizing commission art and other commitments. So, even though this book was nearly there, it’s taken another what, 18 months, to get this chapter complete. As a result, I’m thoroughly sick of it. But I’m also pleased with what happened as a result of those delays. When you’re up all night with an infant, you’ve got time to think, and being sleep deprived, it lets you go in different cognitive directions you might have otherwise. As a result of that delay, I gradually rewrote the framework of Finit-e in my mind, long before I finally got the changes down on paper. I figured out a way to tell the Finit-e story I had originally intended, to set up this world that I was playing with, but also to get to some exciting stuff in the future, much sooner, and in fact, in a time frame that will allow me some years to actually draw fun stuff I really never thought I’d get to. SOme of the Finit-e story has been radically cut out, some relationships and events have been combined with others, and the detail is less finely-grained. Fortunately, though, the narrative framework of Finit-e was always jumping from time to time and place to place, so the scale of that pattern has changed, but not in a way that you, as a reader, would know. I’m extremely excited for what’s coming, and it made finishing up this Scene even more enjoyable.

The last 4 pages were drawn in the past year, and all of the bottom panels as well, with the inking in early 2010 for the most part, and rendering through the rest of the year. Through the holidays and into 2011, I was just cleaning up the script and building the production of the finished pages. So, it was really done some weeks back, but it takes a lot of moving parts to get to publication, so here we are.

On to the notes!

The above three pages are samples from the original treatment from 2000 or so. I’m going to show you a few iterations of the same thumbnailing to show how it evolved. A few things I find interesting: contextually, much of this story reads like a post-911 terror story, but in fact, all of these details pre-date 911. Which is unsettling, frankly. In the time between the layout of the story, which was influenced more by general current events in covert affairs as I read about them studying history in college and keeping up with my big-book reading later, as well as the techno-terrorists in Appleseed and other Shirow works, a lot of what I plotted out has come to pass. Finit-e talks about a world after major terrorist events have happened domestically, and major military operations have occurred internationally, that didn’t end well for the US. In real life, we’ve had 911, several other incidents around the world, and have been stuck in two occupations overseas at great risk to our national reputation. In Finit-e, the military is gradually becoming privatized, and national security is getting messy. Sounds familiar. In Finit-e, the role of Sarah Graves, introduced in this chapter, and it’s creation as a part of post-terror policy reviews, eerily mirrors the real-world creation of the DNI position and an attempt to cat-wrangle the various, uncooperative agencies, also a product of post-terror policy changes. While much of the detail has inevitably been influenced by the real-world events of the day, the broad strokes pre-dated it, and it creeps me OUT.Let’s just say I hope things don’t go in reality the way they’re going in Finit-e, and leave it at that for now.

In these first pages, this was a 7 page chapter. Some panels are still as you see them above.

The next draft, as I’ve done with each chapter, attempts to get a little more detailed with the individual panels as I wrote the dialog in outline form. The yellow sheet diagrams were drawn from a story treatment, and basically me recited in my mind the broad strokes of what I thought would be talked about or occur in the chapter. So the next phase tries to dial it in as more of the detail gets put to paper.

Here some of the panels are starting to be moved around to change the reading flow of the pages.

In the second draft of the scripted pages, there was a dark and urgent tone to this meeting. Sarah didn’t know who was meeting her. In fact, I believe I was intending this scene to be her arriving at her own residence in these iconic buildings, with the old spy-emerging-from-the-shadows thing with Bryant toughing her shoulder and wigging her out. Part of what convinced me to change my direction was the fact that I realized, as I dialed it in, that if Sarah had been tapped for her government position in a post-terror America of this design, she’d have the entanglements associated with that: personal security, her movements documented, layers of red tape on everything. So I decided to tweak it that she was en route to take her position, but got a call from her past from an intimate friend, to meet along the way, so she took a detour, stopped off in Chicago, and made the meet clandestinely.

Later, I saw The Dark Knight, and this awesome sequence where Scarecrow is in a botched deal in a parking garage with all the Bat-vigilante guys etc attacking. It was realllllly cool, like everything about the film, but the sad reality of working on your own project that takes FOREVER is that as you see stuff in film and print that reminds you of what you were planning, it can take some of the fun out of it. You don’t want to have that been-there done-that feeling, and you get creeped out at the idea that everything you’re drawing could be pointed at and accused of being lifted from material we’ve all seen since. Anyway, I decided, Chicago, parking garage, night? Too close to home. So I changed it to a non-scary, daytime meet, with less initial urgency, or so Sarah thinks at the start of the chapter, when she is still assuming this is a sexytime hook-up for old-times- sake.

In the third layout draft, I thought it was amusing that ole Three-Eye from Scene 01 was doodled into the bottom panel. I don’t know why. He was never supposed to be here.

Fourth draft. All the main panels used in the final product were included, as well as several others that were axed. You can see more carefully laid out word balloon structure here, as the script is done and I’m trying to stuff 10 pounds of words into 5 pounds of pages. The script was cut by about a third, in the end, which is actually a good thing. Also, there’s a page of panels here of a spy watching them with binoculars. While you can draw your own conclusions about what is happening in this Scene as published, we never see such a thing in the Scene officially.

Here’s a sample script page, written in what I tend to think of as the DC method. I’ve said before I write and draw in the Marvel method, pretty much (work out the story and loosely assign the back and forth of the exchange, then draw it, then go in and script the drawn panels, except as done by one guy) but here I actually sit down and write full script to work out the layout and beat of the dialog. As you can see in the book, I try to capture some balance of both natural speaking rhythm, and complex info-heavy data-dumping. Ain’t easy. But if you’ve ever heard me talk? You’ll understand.

Also, funny that there’s a coffee ring. Look at the published dossiers for some of the characters in the book and you’ll find same.

Some references:

It’s a 2008 Range Rover. I told you I was working on these pages years ago. This was hot off the assembly line at the time…

Two shots of Marina City, to date one of my favorite structures in Chicago. But let me tell you, I’ll never draw them again. GUH.

Construction:

After Scene 01, I moved away from full-page drawing and into smaller panels drawn on 12×14 Bristol and then composited following a thumbnail of the page layout. There’s always going to be hitches working in this way, if I got the line-weight estimate wrong (some scaling in compositing, so I have to digitally ink to compensate) or most often, lots of drawn information cropped out of frame, or things adjusted digitally to fit around word balloons in that old dance. Anyway, above, this is the loose pencils for one of the bottom panels as Webb and Klein approach Kittering Tower and are crossing the street towards the agent standing guard. Lots more detail planned here than was ultimately employed. Also, that SUV became a bus. HA. Here, you can see I work in drawn layers just like I render digitally: I draw and ink the foreground, then I draw and ink the background, and then digitally composite, all from a cohesive rough.

Character Notes:

Many of these characters were drawn years ago and have evolved as I approached sequentially drawing them in the book.

Bryant was originally conceived as being much older and more exaggerated in features. I pulled him back in age to allow for the intimate relationship he and Graves seem to have shared, as a mutual thing, not an older guy/younger woman thing. Also, I so heavily exaggerated General Darville last chapter, I didn’t want it to seem like I thought everyone that wasn’t Caucasian was some sort of cartoon. Anyway…

In his original dossier piece (which made it into the book in fact) he was much more angular, and very long and lean. I pictured him like a former Olympian with a freakish torso to shoulder ratio. Maybe a swimmer. Subsequently revised.

Graves was originally conceived in more of a youthful, ambitious, sexy attorney mode, with the ponytail and a real in your face attitude (which is still alluded to in the comments in the script about her private practice reputation)…but as I approached the Scene in 2008, I decided I liked the idea of some of the characters in Finit-e being more balanced in their vulnerability and assertiveness. I was sensitive to her becoming a stereotype for the female executive that plagues so many women in business and politics. So I really softened her up in appearance and in dialog. Then it became a matter of HARDENING her up once in her role as DDoIA. I needed to get to a balance point, as this character is a Washington outsider, but is also NOT supposed to be a steamroller. She is smarter, and more calculating and wise about what she says and does than she lets on. Note that at the start of this Scene she’s presented with some pretty outrageous information with no physical back-up, but by a trusted ally, and by the end, she’s sharing responsibility in dealing with the problem she inherited.

When I drew her for her dossier, I misfired in the inks and made her too stern. I wanted to show her in her dossier as she’ll look later int he book, not as she did on her way in, so the hair is different, her glasses are different, she’s more assured. The final dossier pic gives her a bit of a knowing smile. I like the balance I finally got…

Always intended to be a British-American educated overseas with a bit of an outsider’s view, Mitchell Klein was originally drawn in such a way that he looks like the immaculate Tim Gunn having just been blown off by one of the overconfident contestants on Project Runway, much to their loss. I redrew his head and softened the details of his suit for his dossier pic. He may be well dressed, representing a European taste in some ways, but he’s still an Agency guy.

Webb is as he was drawn from the get-go. He’s supposed to look like one of those ex-football meathead law enforcement types. But he’s very smart, and seasoned. His demeanor plays up that bruiser vibe, by strategy. Anyway, this was a side view study. His jaw was subsequently changed. Originally I wanted that ex-boxer, ex-football puffed up look, but I dialed it back.

Pages:

A few points:

- As of this publication, the entire book, in online and print form, now has an upgraded trade dress to reflect the site’s new branding to follow, and has individual Scene/ Chapter breaks. This was intended to allow for a bit more separation between Scenes other than the date stamp that starts each one, but also, because I like how it looks and sets the tone.

Pg. 33,
-Never drawing these towers ever, ever again. And SO much more detail than you see now, as the establishing shot covers the full page,with new panels over it.
-Also, that’s a good parking level.
-Also, my parents have a Prius, and I HAD a Karmann Ghia, and so these are the two vehicles on either side of Sarah’s Range Rover when she parks.
-In the bottom panel, there is significance to the government license plate but I’m not going to reveal it. The SF MUNI bus is driven by one of my best buds, Karl Rocha. He drove a smaller shuttle bus in college.
-The news report she’s listening to is informative. There’s a reference to an earlier chapter, too.

Pg. 34
- Man, I don’t envy women in professional attire business… if you’re reasonably young and attractive, finding the desired balance between looking hot and looking soberly professional seems daunting. You see some women totally vamping it up with microskirts and 4 inch heels and blazers in downtown SF, and others that look dressed like men twice their age. I tried to target the middle ground with Sarah. Actually, she’ll dress a little more daring in her new position, just to put people a bit on edge and underestimate her.
-You’ll recognize Kieran Bryant’s dossier pic here.
-The backstory alluded to between Graves and Bryant is relevant, but there won’t be flashbacks. You’ll have to rely on your late night soap opera medical shows for that sort of hot and racy business.
-First shot of Klein and Webb in the car. I like that Klein looks concerned by what he’s seeing, and Webb isn’t fazed. I was looking at it like Klein has seen paramilitary activity in Europe and is more accustomed to it than Webb; this sort of thing is fairly new in the US in this story, and Webb, being a veteran CIA guy, rolls with it, but Klein doesn’t like what he’s seeing, even as he works for this government. Also, I like the idea that these CIA operatives, who absolutely should NOT be running any sort of operation on US soil, and here’s Webb with a proud US flag pin. HA.

Pg. 35
-You know how I like to pepper the story with tech like this transmission shell generator (ie. a Cone of Silence) just to remind you that this is a story of the ‘nearly-now’ where things look much the same, but technology is farther along.
-Klein doesn’t know much about Webb’s previous assignments, not just because he’s younger but because Webb himself has a redacted and secret background among his own peers at the Agency. This is not related to the largely theatrical actions of Chief Stephenson as described int heir dossiers.

Pg. 36
- As you’ve read in previous chapters, I may have a lot of dialog here and there, but I’m still not laying it all out for you. You will have to interpret what’s going on from what you see and read. Many of the references in the dialog note important details in the story that we may see in the future first-hand, and others that set up things we’ll see later but never see ourselves. But virtually nothing is there for conversational padding.

Pg. 37
-One drawback to having had this Scene in production for almost 2 2/2 years is that my drawing style and sense of what was on-model changed, because I wasn’t always able to look at the same things from week to week, and drawing in a vacuum details would mutate over the months and frankly years. The last several months I’ve been going back in and normalizing each character to be more consistently on-model. I don’t honestly think they are as tight as they should be but I wasn’t about to redraw the whole effing thing. Future chapters will hopeful y have more immediate continuity in their production and therefore less off-model art. That shot of Bryant up top was the most on-model panel, and many others were tweaked to match it later. Also, many other details hopped around that I caught in my QA/QC editing passes, of which there were about 6. While I got most of the details in the clothes and backgrounds almost completely consistent, which i was proud about, I did have a short list of corrections: her Range Rover in that first panel originally sprouted a roof rack that was later removed. Sarah’s pony tail and hair ‘bun’ lowered and loosened some after I was working on it awhile, as if to make it more comfortable for a trip across the country. Her necklace, in one page, sun angles, a few other things…
-This was the hardest bottom panel, and it took a few days of work. Technically the car in the background at panel left is too large for that perspective. Anyway. Nice advertising on that MUNI bus, right?

Pg. 38
-There’s lots of worldbuilding contextual content in this dialog, and it’s the most word-heavy page int he book. No real way around it. I wanted to keep the page count down on this chapter but get certain stuff across, so here we are.
-Bottom panel: that hot dog vendor’s company name is ‘Dennis’ Dogs’, a reference to The Unit/ Heat’s Dennis Haysbert.
- Webb uses an alias of Detective Dunham. Fringe fans, hello! He’s sort of mockingly referring to the top level administrative changes that have brought people like Sarah Graves into Washington, showing that while politically there’s all this talk about ‘inter-agency cooperation’ the field guys don’t expect, or care for, any real changes.

Pg. 39
-You remember Blackbear, yes?
-If it hasn’t been obvious to date, the bottom panels are continuous across these chapters. So in the distance, we see that helicopter from earlier on.

Pg. 40
-There’s fancy reasons for the names being thrown around with these projects like ‘Project Cabinet’ or ‘Chrysalis’ or ‘Draco’… and it always amuses me when you hear the names given to these operations in movies. Anyway, I liked the fact that on Pg. 37, Graves misunderstood the term ‘cabinet’ to refer to her boss’ boss’ cabinet level position in the Hannah Administration. Anyway, as we go, the name will be more clear.
- It may feel like a maguffin that after all this, Bryant says he doesn’t KNOW what Project Cabinet even is. I wanted to establish for the reader, just like Graves, that there’s a certain anxiety from knowing something is out there but not knowing what it is or how to find it. It’s like invisible gas or monsters in the closet. It sounds worse tan it probably is. Or is it?
-Bottom panel, references to both some of Klein’s training overseas, and Webb’s love of a certain Red’s Java House standard fare… an SF detail.

Pg. 41
-It should be obvious I’m a sucker for conspiracy theory stories where people are told not to trust anyone. Why trust who tells you not to trust in the first place/ Regardless of relationship? It’s an interesting problem. I wanted to convey here that Graves is taking on some serious info about a big problem, with very little specific detail, and the reality is, Bryant’s already too exposed reaching out to her, and is going to be fading back into the woodwork in his curiously undefined role at the NSA, and she’s going to be on her own. When you establish that there may be secret government shenanigans, and possibly surveillance and who knows what, it’s a fun problem because how does Sarah communicate with Bryant? Does she? Who does she trust with this info, and what’s going to come of it? Well, stay tuned.
-Bottom panel: I’m finally addressing those giant combat knives on the backs of these paramilitary agents. Also, that is a real military expo Webb’s talking about. It’s overseas, obviously, so he’s not the hayseed he may appear. He knows his tech, which was an important detail: he’s old school, but he keeps up.
-It’s hard to keep the backgrounds consistent as players move through a changing environment, but here they’ve passed behind the guard they were talking to and over to a barricade at the opposite corner. A few chapters back we had an aerial view of the Kittering courtyard, and this is all near an intersection; they’re crossing from one side around the corner of the building towards where that unmarked white surveillance van is camped out.
-Note the old timey SF MUNI logo!

Final note, and random: As I was preparing these comments, I came across some of my reference material from earlier Scenes, and realized that this pic, which was one of three different individuals on which Lupe Garcia in Scene 03 is loosely based… is a recognizable adult entertainment vixen.

Oopsy.

End of Scene 04

If you followed this link from the button in the Finit-e comic reader, then please do post your thoughts on what you’ve seen in Scene 04. I know it’s sure to be frustrating, to get into a string of sequential pages and then have it end… that’s the downside to publishing by scene or chapter instead of single pages… but understand that each Scene will be published in it’s entirety. Some are longer than others, and as you go, you may, I hope, be compelled to go back and re-read earlier Scenes. There’s straightforward storytelling and then there’s Finit-e. Hopefully, you enjoy the book and find the journey worth taking, as it’s definitely a journey book more than anything.

If, on the other hand, you HAVEN’T read the comic yet, and came here looking for it? Visit Third Rail Design Lab and click away!

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TRDL 2011 No. 4 – Fett Boba [TRDL Blank Slate Redesign]

TRDL thom — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:26:11 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 4: Fett Boba [TRDL Redesign]

This is a TRDL Redesign project. The subject: Boba Fett.
Please enjoy.

An explanation of the project and process notes below…

:::

This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Illustration Jam, which can be found here.

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Background:

The inspiration for this project was two-fold:
One, regular readers will know I’m always into redesigns, both on-model updates of recognizable characters, and wholesale redesigns from original source material description. I recently did a redesign of The Joker, which was done with the intent of taking a fresh look at the simple concept of a grinning, clown-themed villain. But I didn’t have any text description of Joker to design from in a raw sense. My redesign was necessarily responding to the original material, rather than from a blank canvas.
Two, I recently posted a look at various designers attempting to redesign Darth Vader based on script description. Here, I felt like the designs, while awesome, were still reactions to his film imagery, and understandably so.

My challenge this time was to design from a Star Wars script reference for Boba Fett, but to do everything I could to divorce the description from the familiar character design we know and love.

Unfortunately, unlike Vader, Fett wasn’t really clearly described in the script, but rather referenced and then dependent upon the design team to be fleshed out. As I was trying to avoid being influenced wherever possible by the original design work, I avoided the behind-the-scenes descriptions of how McQuarrie and Johnson came to the familiar look we have etched in our brains. I looked at the brief script reference, and then hopped over to Wiki for a little more description to work from.

"Boba Fett stems from initial concepts for Darth Vader, who was originally conceived as a rogue bounty hunter..While Vader became less a mercenary and more of a dark knight, the bounty hunter concept remained, and Fett became "an equally villainous" but "less conspicuous" character. … Fett’s armor was originally designed for "super troopers", and was adapted for Fett as the script developed…Screen-tested in all-white, Fett’s armor eventually garnered a subdued color scheme intended to visually place him between white-armored "rank-and-file" Imperial stormtroopers and Vader, who wears black. The character’s armor was designed to appear to have been scavenged from multiple sources, and it is adorned with trophies.]"

I chose to include the reference to the screen test in white (A design I’ve actually already drawn, here) because I wanted to take into consideration that he should look somewhere between the absolute black of Vader and the absolute white of the Stormtroopers. However, I ignored actual design cues from those designs. In other words, no familiar Stormtrooper details in the armor. I basically had to de-McQuarry the character, which is admittedly hard to do.

The description was boiled down to this:

1. bounty hunter.
2. less conspicuous ie. less iconic in design than feature characters would be
3. super trooper armor framework, ie. non-vacuum militarized infantry armor of some type
4. scavenged from multiple sources
5. adorned with trophies

Process:

So here’s how I approached it:
I felt that even though the armor is scavenged, it need not be piecemeal. Unlike traditional apparel type uniforms and armor that don’t interact with each other, powered armor or integrated and interlocking armor plate would have limitations in it’s interchangeability with components from other systems. So I looked at the armor components from the perspective of what systems would work independently and what wouldn’t: I decided that individual component groups would be: torso, arms, bracers/gloves, mounted equipment, and legs/boots. So, my design includes a consistently designed armor system from the waist down, with a different design for torso and integrated jetpack, and then a different helm. Each arm has different shoulder pads or plates (I imagined one to be the shoulder armor from the torso system, and one to be another, separate system under the torso armor’s underlayment) and then different bracers, one a wrist armor glove with fabric fingers and the other a mechanized armor glove. I questioned the use of a jetpack, because I didn’t want to be influenced by Boba Fett’s design in the films in this manner, but decided that individually-acting supertroopers designed to be employed in various downworld environments would have power assist for mobility anyway.

As far as color, I went with a drab greytone look. I liked the idea of him being hard to spot at night, easily camouflaged in urban environments or whatever, and frankly, just not emblazoned with color. In my interpretation, this is a norm among designs, partly because I’m taking a cue from real-world modern infantry, where the colors and patterns may differ slightly across different national militaries and private army equipment, it still follows general design principles that are influenced by a common playing field. Also, though, while I understand they made Boba Fett’s armor all patchwork in design and color to give it that scavenged quality, if you take away the concept of different armors having different painted color schemes, and instead look at paramilitary design (many different manufacturers producing different designs of black tactical gear)… it seemed consistent that there would be a largely uniform colorway employed by operatives within the same region of conflict. I show some variations in greys, however.

I gave him some details that reflect the bounty hunter/scavenger thing, though, such as some damage to the faceplate and shoulder from a chemical attack, a streak of someone else’s blood off the eye opening in the helmet, and some ballistic damage to the left thigh plate. I gave him trophies and medals from various sources, as if he’d pinned them on culled from his bounties. I also gave him a tattered flag as a cloak, with the idea that he might have taken down a high-profile leader and took that person’s national insignia AS his trophy. It’s been tattered and such to give it that torn-off-the-flagpole look.

I struggled with the question about soft goods. I didn’t want to be influenced by the film, but then again, I didn’t want to NOT be, either, in other words, react to the design in the opposite manner. I asked myself, leather/fabric straps and satchels and holsters, or hardshell accessories? I decided that this character, who operates not as an infantryman with a general functionset but as a bounty hunter in different operative environments, would need flexibility in his use of accessories, especially using equipment from different sources. As a result, I made his holsters and belts soft goods.

Here’s the progress pics:

Here’s the original pencils. Time of pic: 11pm. i had a general vision, but worked out the details of the individual components as I went. I hadn’t yet decided if his weaponry would be lasers or ballistic, and decided on ballistic. While the Star Wars world is all lasers all the time, I noted that this wasn’t described in the design criteria, and since the power requirements of lasers and pulse rifles in the SW universe aren’t really addressed, It seemed reasonable to stay with ballistic weapons for the time being, imagining that he doesn’t have a support/supply infrastructure, and may be in country for long periods of time in pursuit of his targets…

The original inks

Cleaned up and ready for render. At this point I still had one leg pivoted back from the other, in this upwards angle, Over the course of the render I decided it didn’t work because the torso didn’t pivot accordingly, so i changed it to a front view.

Here’s the matte grays used for the armor, I looked at several tones before settling on this, a much colder gray than I generally use.

Here’s some trophy work. It’s hard to make trophies and medals not look clownish when illustrated, I’ve found, so i tried to keep them metallic where possible and minimize the fabric elements that might have more color to them.

For the shading, I wanted to have some uplighting in this piece, rather than my usual above and to one side technique. Even though the strongest light source would be his jetpack, i wanted to suggest that he’s coming down into a lit environment. I started this by shading int he opposite direction, but I struggled with instinct a bit. Then I remembered, gosh, TOOLS are for USIN’ so I employed the rotate-canvas-view function in Photoshop, flipped my guy, and rendered away. A cheat, but it worked. I could have done it the normal way, but this was more productive.

For the cast lighting I rendered him upright, added touches here and there, some glinting on the medals and such but no shine on the armor or weapons, as they are matte and non-reflective by design.

The national flag being used, as you can probably tell, is using the TRDL crest logo. For science.

Here’s a look at some of the damage. Usually I don’t have ink edges to stains and mottling but I liked the effect. It had sort of a European illustrated flavor so I kept it rather than removing it. I wanted an effect that wasn’t blood or rest, but more erosion or damage from acid or other chemical infiltration.

Anyway, there’s my guy, Fett Boba from Clan Fett.

I leave you with this: if you want to read about the original genesis of the design for this character, here’s a great summary of information I’ve seen around in various less-abridged forms: http://www.starwars.com/movies/episode- … index.html

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TRDL Tribute: Dazzler

TRDL thom — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:16:39 +0000

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being the late-70′s superfad KISS-tie-in character Dazzler, formerly notKnown as Disco Queen, in the hands of Casablanca.

I never, never, NEVER liked Dazzler. I was born in the early 70s, but I wasn’t old enough to disco or what have you, and so this sort of music had supplanted Cream, the Beatles, the Doors and the Stones as the annoying music piped out of the fraternities across the street from my childhood home near UCLA. Granted, I don’t remember disliking the psychedelic rock particularly, it just made for awkward background music for my action figure action. But the disco? Hated it, even as a kid. So when Marvel was shoe-horning Dazzler into continuity to take advantage of the KISS promo books, I wasn’t having it. Over time the character kept coming back, and was a small component of the greater problem in the X-books when I left comics for awhile in the Siege Perilous years. MEH! Of course, 33,000 hours of studying my Marvel Handbooks, followed by a good run of a Marvel RPG campaign in which I believe she was strangled by Doctor Octopus, helped me at least see the character as part of the Marvel Universe, not just a bad superfad angle. And as an adult reader, I look back on pretty much everything from those days with the same level of wonder and nostalgia, and it doesn’t even bother me anymore. She’s just another attempt to sell books, and who can fault that.

Anyway, OK. This TRDL pin-up was envisioned as a fictitious movie poster. You’ll note I’m not a great caricaturist, but that’s supposed to be Isla Fisher as Dazzler, in full 70s regalia. Probably should have feathered the hair out, but hey. You’ll I’m sure wonder about Peter Weller as Galactus, there. True continuity! She had the power cosmic at one point. Yeesh.

Anyway, please enjoy!

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Process Notes:

So I was all over the place on this jam project. I wanted to redesign the character, first of all, but then I started thinking about how much I hated this character as a kid, and realized this was an opportunity to draw a formerly disliked character and try to find a way to like them. Thinking about the costume, which I thought I’d be the only one to do, and was wrong, as you’ve seen in the jam thread, I started seeing the look as a real costume (since it really WAS just a disco stretch leisure suit, after all) and thinking about the hair and the attitude I started visualizing this as a weird R3 Fantasy Casting exercise. This was very late at night, with a sick baby waking up a lot. Anyway, thinking about the 70s hair sent me in the Amy Smart direction, but then I fell into Isla Fisher and it was a go.

Here’s Isla Fisher, for those that aren’t familiar. Shame on you.

As is often the case, I had a concept for the pose but was working some options out on paper, relying on Photoshop to merge the selected choices later. I wanted a casual, flopped on the dance floor, putting on her roller skates kind of feel, that same sort of vibe you’d get if you kicked the disco stage left and brought in a bachelor pad set and put a bearskin rug under her and a fondue pot somewhere.

After bluelines and inks, I decided on the skate facing away from the viewer, as it was more natural than straight out in profile view, which would have been more of a dancer pose. Because the costume is a one piece stretch suit, I wanted to emphasize the curves and smoothness of her body shape, so I kept the colors soft.

Once I was putting the poster together and naming the actors involved, I started cracking up at the idea of Galactus being in this film, based on reading her absurd bio on wikipedia. But that led me to the dorktastic exercise of trying to cast Galactus. I think Peter Weller is a fine choice. That thespian!

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TRDL Tribute: Mulan

TRDL thom — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:37:39 +0000

This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being Mulan. Not just the Disney version, but any interpretation of the classic Chinese lore. I haven’t seen the cartoon, but I liked the design work I saw of it, so I picked a version of her costuming from movie stills, and went with that. Granted, I armed her in one of her casual non-combat costumes, but whatever. It’s hard to include a cartoony, zany sidekick creature when I work in my usual style, but I gave it a shot.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Process notes:

This was my original sketch rough. But Torsten put up something similar and very cool, so i went back to the drawing board…

Inks:

I was laying around quite a bit with the face. Lots of photoshop edits.

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TRDL Thanksgiving 08 – The Silk Spectre

TRDL thom — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:26:00 +0000

This piece was stuffed down the barrel of a TRDL shotgun, aimin’ to kill two illustration birds with one metaphorical stone. The beautiful femme fatale Silk Spectre, as re-imagined int he Watchmen movie, is all sorts of awesome: part Bettie Page, part superheroine, and all Carla Gugino. So I took inspiration from the vintage pin-up illustration done for the film, and made this little Thanksgiving card, serving as our holiday release and also as the entry in the Watchmen R3 Jam… see, economy is the name of the game in these troubled times!

Wishing you a great Thanksgiving, my R3 Army!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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