Finished up the final flooring tiles used for both of these races and did a bit more noodling on their abstract organic hulls. I'm really having fun creating these 4 unique races and now - with these foundations laid - can press on to the other ships in the set!
While final there still may be tweaks made to the floor color based on outstanding character assets!
Here are some of the better received 30 minute sketches from the past week or so. These were all done as part of Concept Art Sessions.
"Rails" + "Armor" 30 minutes with 15 more noodling around.
"Wooden" + "Tower" 30 Minutes
"Engravings" + "Village" 30 minutes with 15 more color correcting and noodling.
"Crack" + "Ladder" 30 Minutes
"Monstrous" + "Destroyer" 30 Minutes
Ok, finally had time to polish up and post the direction I am going in. Still not done and pretty rough around the edges but moving in the right direction. I am having a hell of a time with the rotating hard suit joints - The geometries involved are unlike anything I've had to draft out before so there is some drift between joints and views that I need to hammer out. It would be really fun to see animated but it is not easy to design while keeping it cool.
For the final presentation I will also be including a figure wrapped in the white micrometeorite armor mentioned in the book so I've been adding small electro magnet pads to the suits to anchor those in place.
The various waste and fuel tubes are not really well realized and I may need to just treat them as something that require a teammate to change out due to their placement.
Onward!
"Trust me, my legs and arms enjoy 2-3 degrees of movement!"
I'm going to start a little side project in between jobs to create the space suit used in the last act of "Anathem" by Neal Stephenson. The book's description essentially paints this as a diving hard suit with the limbs being comprised of rotating bulbus sections that are locked together. The pilot enters via a large back door and the hands fit within large roomy forearms with skeletal manipulators that only pop out when in use.
The biggest challenge for me will be to modernize and enhance what could easily be a pretty stupid look - I don't know if you've seen many diving hard suits but most don't look that cool in my opinion. The other thing that worries me is becoming a slave of function - something I can easily chase after, especially when the source material is 100% sound and solid.
We will see how it goes!
I've been keeping some of this stuff on the back burner but finally got to work a bit more on the design language for the last two races for SSS. These are all still work in progress and the interior art and colors will likely change quite a bit.
The "Ismer'gi" Operate as a swarm of small little bug like creatures. I wanted their ship to feel like a pollen spore or bacteria of just pure organics. The inner floor is not separated enough from the hull yet so will be focusing on that.
The "Phinzor" pilot living ships as well but are more of a bred organism with distinct parts and functions. I went with a mix of flea, tick and burr for this one.
Fell a bit behind on my 30 minute daily sketches but made it up with 3 today. This one was with the prompt of "Slimy" and "Wilderness". I wanted to subvert the "too green to be healthy" look that many swamps have with a more wooded feel surrounded by life. If i had more time I would have played that up.
Starting work on the other 3 races with the Carakats. These aquatic squid like guys live in sleek yet mechanical ships that manipulate gravity for propulsion.
I probably should have re-rolled the prompt or done something less straight forward.
Well... with the prompts "Carnivore" and "Red" this piece kinda just drew itself.
30 minutes via prompt from Concept Art Sessions.
Got the prompts "Giant" and "Artillery" which was pretty straight forward.
30 minute sketch via Concept Art Sessions
I was worried about my time on this 30 minute sketch so decided to use a photo for paintover. From now on I will probably avoid this for these quick warmups.
Here is today's 30 minute sketch - the light source wasn't great but I didn't start off with lines! Go me!
30 minutes - done with prompts from CAS