BB8 and RTD2

It's May 4th - which, for some reason, people have decided is when you post Star Wars stuff.  May the fourth be with you.  It's lame.  But still - here's a new Star Wars drawing I did!

Whoot!

I'm no better than everyone else - follow the crowd everybody - it'll never lead you astray.  At least for drawing a Star Wars illustration for May 4th....

I have no idea why I thought it should say Beep Boop - but there it is anyway.

What if the Death Star was a Tardis?

May the 4th be with you?  I always thought that was lame...a really ridiculous reason to talk about Star Wars...

Plus - the property is so popular, does it really need an extra day for people to celebrate it?

Sure is a lotta blue....

I was walking to work and thought R2Dalek2 and then I had to put it down on paper...or, in this case, on my cintiq screen in Photoshop.

Star Wars: R2DToot

Working on another Star Wars drawing....

Lil' Sand Person

I'm posting the Lil Sand Person (Tusken Raider) all by itself here because I redid the illustration as a square so it would fit in the instagram window.  Everything on Instagram is square, which is kind of annoying for any illustration not fitting those parameters...

Lossa Star Wars drawings

I've got a few Star Wars drawings to add to my Heebeejeebees characters.  Heebeejeebees are these cute little kid type characters based on some of my favorite entertainment icons.  Most of the original ones were from horror movies, but since starting them, back in 2008 or so, I've moved on to Marvel superheroes and Star Wars villains.

The Lil' Sand Person was first, then Lil' Vader back in 2008.  A few years later I was in a group art show and I wanted to do my version of IG88, one of my favorite bounty hunters...he's almost a 'blink and you miss it' character, but I thought his character design was so cool.  And just this last December I started thinking "Boba Fat" and finished that drawing just this last week.

Boba Fat!

The Sarlacc Pit has the best Boba (Fett)

It's finished!

I did the original sketch back in November and did several rounds of cleanup, but never really liked the Sarlacc Pit part.  I did several rounds of drawing and redrawing, but it never came out right.  Then I ran into some freelance work and left this to the side.

I picked it up again this week and redid the line work and redrew the Sarlacc Pit, and suddenly it was something I liked enough to finish.

I've been a big fan of boba since I first drank it's tasty goodness.  At one point there were two boba places within a mile of my work, so I decided I needed to visit one of them every day.

Turns out boba is filled with sugar and starch.  Probably something I should have known, but I was blinded by it's sweet tasty allure.

Years later I still drink boba - but only on occasion - probably one every couple of months?  But who cares about my boba drinking habits?  Stop prying into my personal business!

Anyway - Ever since I connected the dots between boba the drink and Boba the Fett, I've wanted to do a version for my Heebeejeebees series of illustrations.  And once I figured out Boba Fat - and how boba makes you fat, it was a match made in heaven...if heavy handed.

Boba Fat?

I'm working on a new illustration...some might say it's a public service announcement.  Boba is so delicious, but the carbs will plump you like no other.  Beware.  Or be wearing a larger size soon enough!

Star Wars post

Doctor Who says, "Timey Whimey" and it's annoying.  But thinking about that, the words, "Bookie Wookie" popped into my head, so I had to draw it.

Bookie Wookie.  Enjoy.

C3PU

I think a lot of artists, when seeing that the new Star Wars movie was coming out, suddenly  needed to draw their versions of their favorite characters.

C3PO, sadly, was one of the more annoying things to come out of the original series - overshadowed in annoyance by Jar Jar - and while he was beloved by many fans, he was broken apart for scraps and thrown away.  That's why I thought it would be funny to draw my version of the character - C3PU.  The old stinky protocol droid where he belongs...in the garbage can.  Maybe he can say hi to Oscar the Grouch for us...

Quick Sketch

We play softball on Monday nights against a variety of businesses.  Each one has a unique name that hints at what they do - ours is the Splats.

Last Monday we played against a team called, "the Force."  Turns out they were Market Force Talent - but for a little while we were hoping they were Star Wars related.  Guess the Star Wars people are too busy making money to bother playing softball...

Originally he was going to be raising an x-wing, but then I just made him floaty so I could stop drawing.

Star Wars: Darth Gonzo

Disney recently purchased Star Wars - and a lot of people immediately started photoshopping Princess Leia into pictures with the Disney princesses, or putting Mikey ears on Darth Vader.

I thought it would be awesome if another Disney property was mashed up with Star Wars.  What about a Muppets Star Wars?  Obviously Luke would be Kermit...or would he? - because Miss Piggy should be Leia, but that would mean that Kermit and Piggy would be attracted to each other AND brother and sister.

Oh well...that's for Disney to figure out.  But hopefully sooner than later!

I drew this:

Darth Maul was one of the few good things to come out of the first trilogy.  Too bad his death was such a lame end.

IF: Perspective - Lil' IG-88 takes a break

So this is the final piece.  It's called "Lil' IG-88 takes a break."  It's been about a year since I've done any of these - taking a character and drawing it from my perspective.

 

The nerdier ones of you will know who this is...and possibly what scene it's from...?  And you might even guess who's standing behind lil' IG-88.

As you can see in the original drawing (that I did in photoshop) I originally thought of having IG-88 on the upper step - where all the bounty hunters stand in the original thing...but then, as I thought about what to draw around him, I didn't want to recreate all the characters (because that's not what this drawing was about)...but give an indication as where they are...so I moved IG-88 lower and drew the legs of two of the more recognizable bounty hunters above him.

lil' IG-88 takes a rest - rough drawing

This is the original drawing for one of the illustrations I'm doing for a group show at Nickelodeon this week.  I've got a couple of other pieces, but I wanted to finish off with yet another image from my Heebeejeebees line of popular characters.  I've enjoyed trying to redraw these characters from my perspective.  From Star Wars I've already done Darth Vader and a Sand Person.

This is 'lil IG-88.  And if you don't know him, then shame on you.  He was in The Empire Strikes Back - there's a scene where Darth Vader is sending out a bunch of bounty hunters to find Han Solo...there was Boba Fett, a lizard guy (Bossk), and a guy with toilet paper wrapped around his head.  And standing out amongst them all was IG-88.

I'm half way done painting it (in photoshop) and will be posting that when it happens...

IF: Voices - lil' Tusken Raider

It's hard for me to think of the lil' sand people (tusken raider, if you prefer) without hearing Obi-wan's voice.  "The Sand People are easily startled but will return in greater numbers...."

And if you really liked the movie (and seriously, who didn't?  Well, up until the last three were released anyway) you'll probably also remember this, "These blast marks are far to accurate for Tusken Raider's ....these were made by Imperial Storm Troopers..."

Alec Guinness had an amazing voice.  Along with James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) they turned the possibly corny dialogue into something riveting and believable.

Well...enough about this star wars (sci-fi nerd talk) and back to my illustration (arty, comic book, animation nerd talk).

This is my 4th version of the Sandman.  In the very beginning I was just going to do a version of Spiderman's nemesis The Sandman:

But as I looked online for reference I found several other characters in the comic book world also with that name.  There was one from the golden age of comics:

He wore a gas mask and shot a gun that put people to sleep (much like my story here).  When I saw him I just had to do my version of him.

And the character that dominated the search engine when you typed in Sandman was this guy:

Now I don't think his name is The Sandman (so maybe drawing him was a bit of a stretch) but he's in a comic book called The Sandman...I believe his name is Morpheus.  But what's say we count him, eh?

Anyhow - As I was putting my Sandman obsession to sleep, I was suddenly struck with the thought of the Sand People from Star Wars.  If you took just one of them, you could very well say he was a Sand Man (but most people would probably call him a tusken raider).  And, of course, I had to draw him.  This should put to rest The Sandman saga.  It ends with this 4th and final illustration:

What was nice about this one (which makes it slightly different than any of the other drawings I've done in this series, and not just sandmen, but all of these illustrations) is that I drew it completely on the computer.  I did the original sketch on a cintiq, cleaned it up in Illustrator, and then painted it in photoshop.

Sand people: easily startled lil' sand kid

This is the cleaned up version of the sand kid.



I'd love to color him now - but I have work to do. I should be able to get to it by this weekend, at least.

Tusken Raiders: Lil' sand person

I can't believe I forgot to draw the sand people when I was doing my sandman series. I have three separate drawings devoted to different characters named Sandman - but didn't draw a sandman from Star Wars!

So, once I finally figured out my mistake - I went about trying to rectify it. Here's my sketch...I still need to clean it up (it's very rough...I drew it on the computer using a cintiq! All of the other drawings I've done in this series have been done in my sketchbook and scanned into the computer for cleanup), but it's a start!



Obviously I'll be posting the final illustration when I have time to work on it.

Lil' Darth Vader

This was one of the first drawings of this sort that I did. It almost got lost in a page of character drawings - but I was going back through what I had drawn and I really liked the death star behind Vader.



Last week I cleaned it up in between my real job (during any downtime)...



I tried to simplify the computerized mechanical elements of the death star by adding some lines. When I was finished with the cleanup I felt like it was missing something...sure it had Vader and a death star behind it...but I felt it needed something else. I drew one tie fighter and copied it (for the back two tie fighters)...originally it was three of the exact same tie fighters...but I changed the wing lines on the front tie fighter because Darth Vader always flew in a different vehicle from the storm troopers (and possibly it helped the audience to identify which one was his).



So I added that to the drawing, and it was ready to color. This is actually the biggest one I've worked on so far. I had to enlarge it to fit in the tie fighters. Usually these pieces are about 8 1/2 x 11 - but this one ended up at 11 x 13. The only downside to it was the slowdown the computer had when I used a bigger brushstroke or when I was applying a filter (which I did very minimally - I just added a little noise to the mechanical elements of the picture to add some texture). And that's it. Darth Vader was done.