ROCKETFICTION

Forgotten Man Graphic Novel – Page 65

Paul — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 20:09:59 +0000

I’ve been working on a large project, drawing the art for the graphic novel adaptation of Amity Shlaes’ New York Times bestselling book, “The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression”. The book is a wide-ranging re-examination of the Great Depression/New Deal era. It has a large cast of characters, and here we see President Herbert Hoover & assistant getting ready to play–Hoover Ball! (he really did invent this game)
(A note: this page is a slapstick/comedic one; many of the others are more serious…please stay tuned for more updates as work progresses)

X-Men BGs

Paul — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 17:06:40 +0000

More animation background art for the X-Men tv cartoon, from an enjoyable stint designing backgrounds for Film Roman a few years ago. These were done in ink line (pilot marker) which was then photocopied onto paper. The tonality was added via Pantone markers and black Prismacolor pencil… I then colorized these in Photoshop for posting here.

Brochure Illustration

Paul — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 22:05:36 +0000

Here’s an illustration which I did a while ago for Serbin Communications, which was just printed as part of Serbin Communications’ advertising for their Directory of Illustration site.

Animation BGs – Crystal forms

Paul — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 00:37:30 +0000

Been a long while since I posted, so time to put up some animation background drawings, from a few years ago. These ones are from an episode of the Warner Brothers series “Legion of Super-Heroes”. In one sequence, the show had the action taking place in a crystalline planet’s tunnels, and these were a few shots I drew the finals BGs for, following the storyboard. Sometimes it is more challenging to design BGs which are completely organic, such as these, because there is no conventional perspective and cubic shapes to anchor everything, only pure form and design.

Gully Foyle

Paul — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 01:12:01 +0000

This image is of Gully Foyle, the main character in Alfred Bester’s classic SF book “The Stars My Destination”. It’s pretty much my favourite SF book ever, and still stands the test of time as being a stunning, intricate yet fast-paced SF action thriller—not dated at all though, despite being written in 1956. I was commissioned to draw this by Steven Gettis, who runs the site Hey Oscar Wilde.

The image shows a moment at the start of the book, when Gully Foyle is marooned aboard a drifting, wrecked spaceship named “Nomad”…desperately struggling to survive by hauling air tanks (one is shown, he’s towing it with a rope which is not strictly accurate to Bester’s description, but what the hell) back to a small airtight storage locker which is his ‘home’. He spots a passing ship named Vorga which, although he signals it with rescue flares, disdains to stop and pick him up…he is ignored although clearly spotted by the ship.

Foyle goes into such a fury at being abandoned this way, he is stirred to extremes to find the way forward, to survive and wreak vengeance on those who ‘wrote him off’….and the plot goes into high gear!

This book burned a small beautiful hole in my brain when I read it as a teen, and so I am glad to have had reason to draw an image from it. If you are not familiar with it you can learn more at Wikipedia.

Superboy vs. Robot

Paul — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:44:39 +0000

This is a recent drawing I did, inspired by Nick Cardy’s cover for Superboy 206 (You can see the line art for that cover at: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2160/2450413254_7c3ed4824e_o.jpg ). I used the basic design of the robot and then tried to imagine an alternate moment or version of the encounter between Superboy & Giant Space Robot…

Book Cover Art

Paul — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 18:36:45 +0000

This was an airbrush & Pelikan ink cover painting from 1988, for a book titled “Booze Boats & Billions”, about Prohibition-era alcohol smugglers and their operations. It was art directed/commissioned by Gord Pronk, of Pronk & Associates.

Animation BG Designs

Paul — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 23:40:30 +0000

Here are a few animation background designs done for the Nelvana show “Tales from the Cryptkeeper”–I am sure many remember this show with a warm tingly fond feeling, from their childhood days! These drawings were done for the storyboard artists, as a beginning guide for use in setting up the board sequences. The expectation was that the final designs would come later, taking into account any changes the board artists had made as they blocked out the shots.

Batman: Brave and the Bold Bgs

Paul — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 00:38:26 +0000

This episode of Batman: Brave and the Bold is airing tonight; below are some designs which I created for some of the settings. As ever, the final settings evolve out of consultation with the director and script, and in conjunction with supplied reference (which in this case was the old, fun comic book story which the script was based on).

New Frontier Designs

Paul — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 04:02:18 +0000

Here is a sampling of line design drawings which I made from the storyboard, for various scenes in the DVD “The New Frontier” by Darwyn Cooke & friends. A lot of them were fairly technical/industrial in nature, involving secret bases, control rooms, machinery, and the like…