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Spaceships and things (not rendered)

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 5:57 pm
by Pandora
I just went through my old stuff and found some old things I have drawn. The images were originally intended for a comic project that never happened. They were then reworked as illustrations for a pen-and-paper RPG that also never happened. Here's the first one. I'll try to post a few more in the next days.

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Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:11 pm
by Pandora
I really like how this one came out.

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Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:21 pm
by Pandora
never finished this one, but its obvious that I like Bladerunner :)

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Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 6:24 pm
by Isaac
Oh man this is the kind of work I really like.
It reminds me of the concept artists work for the original starwars movies.

Please post more!

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:12 am
by Pandora
thanks, Isaac!. I love the Star wars concept art. It was one of the inspirations for these drawings.

I'll post more this evening when I am back at my computer.

Re:

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 9:27 am
by Gekko71
Pandora wrote:thanks, Isaac!. I love the Star wars concept art. It was one of the inspirations for these drawings.

I'll post more this evening when I am back at my computer.
Please do - they're excellent! Love the second one! :)

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:27 pm
by Pandora
thanks, Gekko :)

here's another one. I tried to experiment a bit with less generic forms, but too bad I messed up the perspective on the front bit. (also ignore a few blurry bits, I wasn't completely done with the reworking in Photoshop).

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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 3:48 pm
by Pandora
this one took a direct cue from Star Wars art design by moving away from symmetrical ships. That's the original drawing.

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When I look at a few of these lines now, I think I must have had a coffee too many that day. [edit: oh yeah, and I remember hating myself for picking the brownish tint to draw the shadowed areas!]

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:02 pm
by Floyd
amazing. this could sell :)

Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:04 pm
by Pandora
playing with anime speed lines.

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Posted: Wed Nov 18, 2009 4:05 pm
by Isaac
All of it is amazing work!!!

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 4:55 pm
by Aggressor
I agree! This is amazing.

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:30 pm
by Cyclone
Nice perspective on the last one. :)

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 10:30 pm
by Gekko71
DO you have any more Pandora? Keep 'em coming! :D

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 5:58 pm
by Pandora
thanks for the nice words, everybody! :)
I'll post a few more tomorrow.

Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:24 pm
by Pandora
Here is a cityscape:

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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:26 pm
by Pandora
and another one:

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Posted: Sun Nov 22, 2009 8:39 pm
by Spidey
Look out for falling rocks… :P

Nice work.

Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 1:00 am
by Cyclone
I really like the landscapes/cityscapes. Have you ever thought about doing a series of some sort? These also could look very interesting colored over in photoshop.

Edit
oops. I should have read your first post lol. No wonder I was thinking comics when I saw these. 8)

Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 6:12 am
by Gekko71
I think you missed your calling Pandora - the composition and framing on these are absolutely top notch.

What was the story behind these images? You said you had a comic planned. What was the premise? Give us some background so we can put these images in the context of a time and place. 8)

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 11:12 pm
by Spaceboy
You did these?

O_o

That's amazing.

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 10:41 am
by Pandora
sorry for not posting for about a week, got really sidetracked by work and other things. Hope to find some time this evening.

Thanks Gekko & spaceboy

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 11:16 am
by Isaac
I hope you haven't stopped drawing completely. It seems like your skill matured very well.

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 2:39 pm
by Duper
Very nice stuff there Pan. Reminds me a bit of old school heavy metal magazine.

Re:

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 4:20 pm
by Pandora
Spidey wrote:Look out for falling rocks… :P
Heh --- never thought of that. Well, this must be were the city's poor people live, then :P

Re:

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 4:31 pm
by Pandora
Gekko71 wrote:What was the story behind these images? You said you had a comic planned. What was the premise? Give us some background so we can put these images in the context of a time and place. 8)
To be honest, I don't remember much of the comic (it was 20 years ago). I was the guy for the technical things, whereas the other one was brilliant with drawing people. He also did the stories.

For the RPG, we had one of these humanity in exile setups. Earth devastated, humanity moves outwards and establishes colonies. Technology was similar to Alien/Aliens, Moon44 and so on, if a bit advanced, so that we could big battleships in there :P The political landscape was based a bit on historic Britain's 'balance of power' doctrine. Earth has given colonies out to corporations that in the long runs have become own cultures/nations themselves. For a long while earth could keep them in check, but now the balance is slowly shifting; the corporations are yearning for independence, and the universe is at a brink of a war.

The city scapes depict a colony called NewLondon, the tower in the first image is the New Big Ben. It is a more or less independent and run down colony, which suddenly finds itself in the centre of the massing forces.

Re:

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 5:07 pm
by Pandora
Duper wrote:Very nice stuff there Pan. Reminds me a bit of old school heavy metal magazine.
thanks a lot, Duper. Yes, i was very much inspired by Juan Gimenez who was features in HM once (if I recall correctly). Very hard nowadays to find picture of his, but here are two that I remember:
http://www.juangimenez.com/novedades/pag16_17.jpg
http://www.juangimenez.com/novedades/pag24_25.jpg

Re:

Posted: Mon Nov 30, 2009 6:03 pm
by Pandora
Isaac wrote:I hope you haven't stopped drawing completely. It seems like your skill matured very well.
sadly enough, I have more or less stopped completely. The last thing was an effort to get the old sketches into photoshop and reworked. But then I got a new job and a baby and that was that :(

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 3:02 am
by Gekko71
I would keep working on the art/concept in your spare time. The premise you list for your RPG is strong enough to support both a comic and an RPG. While I'm not advocating that you try to create both at once (especially with a career & family to consider) I would strongly advise that you develop the concept into a story bible and style guide for your universe, as the concept art I see here is just about strong enough to support a commercial product (naturally there has to be a lot of concept and character development, but the central kernel of the concept is there.)

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:49 am
by Pandora
Gekko, this is what I am planning. I think there is not much hope of ever getting the comic off the ground. The style of the character artist I knew fitted perfectly into my style, but I live in a different country now, and haven't seen him for 15 years. But we ARE planning on getting back to the RPG as soon as career/family is on solid ground. There are quite a few more pictures (not scanned yet), and we had written about 150 pages or so of text --- detailing the background, dice system, and did some extensive playtesting.

I would love to post some of that here. The problem is that everything is written in German. That's also a major hurdle for continuing working on it. After living in the UK for the last 6 years my German is incredibly rusty, and we might have more luck by translating it to English.

Re:

Posted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:59 am
by Gekko71
Pandora wrote:Gekko, this is what I am planning. I think there is not much hope of ever getting the comic off the ground. The style of the character artist I knew fitted perfectly into my style, but I live in a different country now, and haven't seen him for 15 years. But we ARE planning on getting back to the RPG as soon as career/family is on solid ground. There are quite a few more pictures (not scanned yet), and we had written about 150 pages or so of text --- detailing the background, dice system, and did some extensive playtesting.

I would love to post some of that here. The problem is that everything is written in German. That's also a major hurdle for continuing working on it. After living in the UK for the last 6 years my German is incredibly rusty, and we might have more luck by translating it to English.
Translating it into English is a far better idea in that it is a lingua franca for the Licensing/merchandising industry worldwide (thanks to the predominantly US focus the industry has).

I think you will find it far easier to get your property off the ground commercially with a good style guide, bible and episode/story slate in English.

That being said, Germany is a massive market for licensed goods/merchandise/brand extensions, so don;t write it off either :-)

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 6:08 am
by Pandora
Hey Isaac, Gekko and all --- just wanted to thank you for all the positive responses. We (me and my gf) have become really motived and actually started working on the RPG project again after reading them.

I'll probably post a few more images in the coming weeks, and hopefully a few parts of the written works when they are done (but will take time, baby steps at the moment).

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 3:04 pm
by Isaac
That's wonderful news! :D
I hope you continue posting your great artwork.

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 7:54 pm
by Gekko71
You're welcome - keep the updates coming! :)

If I may be permitted one creative suggestion, in your concept development, be sure to give your universe some internal coherance. You've built a city in a canyon for example - so be sure to create a reason *why* the city was built there - extremely high winds? Hiding from raiders? hiding from the radiation from dual suns? Then take it a step further - what is on this planet that would make it worth staying there *despite* the high winds, UV radiation, rading parties etc. Let one insight build upon another until the whole thing holds together with an obvious and faultless logic - then you're really hitting your straps. :D

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 4:23 pm
by Pandora
quick post. Top panel shows Space Port One, a massive colonization ship that now serves as impromptu space station in orbit over New London. Was a bit lazy with this one, would have needed a few more details to show the scale. Lower panel is another sketch for the canyon chase scene.

Image

Re:

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 4:28 pm
by Pandora
Gekko71 wrote:If I may be permitted one creative suggestion, in your concept development, be sure to give your universe some internal coherance. You've built a city in a canyon for example - so be sure to create a reason *why* the city was built there - extremely high winds? Hiding from raiders? hiding from the radiation from dual suns? Then take it a step further - what is on this planet that would make it worth staying there *despite* the high winds, UV radiation, rading parties etc. Let one insight build upon another until the whole thing holds together with an obvious and faultless logic - then you're really hitting your straps. :D
Thanks, Gekko. There is actually quite a detailed back story to New London. City was built in the canyon for a natural boundary of the recycled atmosphere; the city actually consists of three parts, each connected via tunnels/smaller canyons through which artificial winds distribute the athmosphere and generate the climate. the planet has a few moons, with a lot of mining materials. The mines are now mostly depleted, but the City is still important, because it serves as the last connecting port between the core earth worlds, and one of the big corporations. Think Berlin in the Cold War times --- that's the type of athmosphere we were going for there: lots of secret agents, double dealing, smuggling etc.

Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 4:46 pm
by Pandora
Two versions of the same leight freighter, drawn, I don't know, two years apart. I think they show nicely how my drawing style has progressed. In the end, I decided to keep them both, as different series of the same ship. Heavily inspired by sea turtles (which are awesome!), even though the head is too much tucked in in the 2nd one.

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Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2009 8:31 pm
by Duper
Very cool Pandora. Love the feel of the design. Are the windows for the Bridge kind of narrow? I'm used to seeing portals like that in a large bay-ish window application, but judging from the door ports, that isn't the case.

really innovative design! (2 thumbs up!) :D

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:47 pm
by Pandora
thanks a lot, Duper, and sorry for responding so late, completely missed your post. These global warming discussion really seem to capture my attention :P

good point with regard to bridge windows of the bridge. I think I mentally switched scales between bridge and doors. I definately need to adjust this (make the doors/locks smaller).

Posted: Thu Jan 14, 2010 7:44 pm
by Duper
you know. I appreciate you posting these and mentioning your insperation. While I've known from my childhood that artists have used things in the world to draw from and spring board, I'd for some reason, neer considered using it myself. Reading your post kinda dislodged something in my head!

Thank you!