Friday, April 29, 2016
Fighter Hanger Geomorph and Illustrations
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
Building a Better Ship's Engineer
I hate drawing people, but I'm working on a new illustration and needed a good ship's engineer. I'll usually just do a Google Image search and trace the best thing I find, but in this case I was getting mostly pictures of Montgomery Scott, Geordi LaForge, and Kaylee Frye. Nothing against any of these iconic ship's engineers, but I really wanted something a bit more unique and with more of a Traveller feel.
It's the long way around, but here's my process: I try to start with an image of an actual person in a pose something close to what I'm looking for. In this case I found a carpenter in a nice, natural pose. I then modify the image in Photoshop with whatever accessories help tell a better story. Boots, patches, and vests are a lazy, but effective, trope for quick sci fi costuming, so I went with that. I import the Photoshopped image into AutoCAD for easier vector tracing (SketchUp is terrible for complex 2D drawing). The AutoCAD drawing is imported into SketchUp for coloring.
It's the long way around, but here's my process: I try to start with an image of an actual person in a pose something close to what I'm looking for. In this case I found a carpenter in a nice, natural pose. I then modify the image in Photoshop with whatever accessories help tell a better story. Boots, patches, and vests are a lazy, but effective, trope for quick sci fi costuming, so I went with that. I import the Photoshopped image into AutoCAD for easier vector tracing (SketchUp is terrible for complex 2D drawing). The AutoCAD drawing is imported into SketchUp for coloring.