(If you're interested, skip my whining and get to the more interesting, if still pedestrian, concepts.)
New tenative title: Jade Moon (replacing the old title: Emerald Moon).
I originally thought of titling the story Chronicles of the Jade Moon,
but I might save that for the back story (prequel, if that term makes
sense in the context of prose).
I'm slowly, ever so slowly, drawing additional concept art for
other elements of the story, viz. the ancient civilization, their
structures, a crucial component of the story that provides the
requisite antagonists, and of course, the truly fun part of this whole
story, the human vehicles. For now this includes an orbital
transporter, drop ships for the troops, drop pods for heavier vehicles
(drop ships can be retrieved, drop pods are used once and then either
abandoned or used as base stations), tanks, armored personnel carriers,
recon vehicles/jump-suits, all-terrain vehicles, research vehicles,
additional buildings for the moon base, hand-held weapons and even
clothing. I want to give everything a very distinct look and I'm
leaning towards a 40s-50s style retro-modern look for everything on the
human side, and very Aztec-style appearance for the alien civilization,
which is easier said than done, and I've been poring through tons of
references to make sure everything looks right.
And therein lies the problem.
In
my mind's eye, I can see the alien civilization, I have a pretty good
idea of what the human vehicles will look like, heck I've even (in my
mind) written about half of the story and to a certain degree, the
conclusion and even the epilogue. I've run through a couple of action
scenes, closed in on the humans' expressions when they first run into
the antagonists and mentally sketched what the scene will look like.
But somewhere between my brain and my fingers, there is a massive
disconnect, a chasm that makes it difficult to faithfully translate
what I can see so clearly in my mind's eye.
The end result
is a series of sketches that rarely look like what I imagined them to
be. On average it takes about an hour or two to draw a single concept
art. Painting them would take several hours. It's a slow process, that
can at times be very frustrating and tedious. I would have given up a
long time ago, if I wasn't passionate about the story, and the fact
that if I succeed with this story, well ... there are several other
stories that have been swimming around in my mind that I'd love to
illustrate, paint and write about (ah, the irony). Not all of them are
good, but it's the process of bringing them to life that's important to
me, not necessarily the end result.
I realize that part of
the frustration stems from the fact that, at the same time that I'm
struggling to develop concepts that look good, I'm still learning how
to use the tools effectively, while trying to improve my drawing skills
(perspective is my weakness), and hunting down references to make
everything look believable. The irony is that, my original motivation
for writing this story and illustrating it was to improve my design,
drawing, painting and writing skills, among many others ( I'm also
hoping to improve my web design skills -- HTML, JavaScript, Flash, etc.
-- in the process of trying to showcase the work).
Any who,
to cap this long, boring rant, it's been difficult, but I have no
desire to give up now. I have to admit that despite the slow progres,
I've had a blast doing the concept art, and even though the designs are
quite rough around the edges and look a bit pedestrian, I'm happy with
the way they turned out.
Now, on to the artwork. (Ah haha, artwork. art - ... yeah. Moving on ... )
First attempts to draw the habitats for the alien civ (I really need to come
up with a name for them). The first one was an attempt to use acrylic
paints instead of Prisma markers to create concept art, since the
markers are a tad expensive and dry out quickly.
Click the drawings on the left to enlarge. »
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Human orbital spaceship. Once again, evolving from "form follows
function" to a bit more interesting shapes. Although, I think I
achieved the opposite.
And some early attempts to paint in grayscale only, using acrylic
paints. Takes the pressure off trying to figure out what colors to use
to make the design look good (I'm lazy), and besides it results in a
more atmospheric feel.
Or maybe it's because the photographs I used for reference were black and white.
Um. Yeah.
From top to bottom: a Russian IL-2 (I believe, I'm not sure. Help, Internet!)
Romanian-designed and built IAR 80 (thanks to Mike Gladysz for the
correction!), Messerschmitt Komet (one of many fascinating and bizarre
concepts from Germany during WW2), and the Saab Tunen (the first
Swedish-built jet, became operational soon after WW2).
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