Not sci-fi per se but kind of fun, thought you might appreciate. Inspired by this funky lining pattern in an 80s-early 90s leather jacket my friend Leah found. I thought I'd try to replicate the style and try and create more icons inspired by tech and stuff from after the era. Feels like it fits with my other retrofuturistic/nostalgic pieces on here. The issue with that is a lot of that is just slabs, so... I gotta figure out what to do about that.
Yeah, I'm gonna keep my eyes open for things that might suit this design. Thinking my next approach (since this was just to ape the style) will be heavy pencils and more concepting for things before I put them in this style.
I think an issue I might have is I don't have a lot of ephemera lying around to turn into stylish icons.
Okay, wound up having an evening with nothing to do, SO here are some of my sketches in the vein of the previous one.
I'm surprised how well the Dyson suits this 90s art style... the Talkboy also feels like a natural, but I'm not sure how I feel about that big thick stripe. I want to try another crack at that Bose since those were everywhere, but I haven't cracked it yet.
So I figured out what's missing in those drawings: there's a lack of activity lines, a second of action. They should loo like they're doing their things. BUt I didn't draw that, instead I drew these...
I'm liking that Romulan Racer... but that plane-like ship that I wind up constantly drawing, it finally dawned on me that this should be the design for my Earthfleet ships, which would be like Enterprise/Babylon 5 sci-fi war adventure. I figure the bottom looks like a plane, the top looks like a battleship. Now I just gotta draw the top.
Two more spaceship/plane looking thingies. Also this is the most sketchbook-y sketchbook page that I've ever done, I think. The Hummingbird I figure has a hard shell around it, so the cockpit has a wrap-around holographic display for the pilot. I need to figure out a cool tail for it.
Also like the C-wing bomber, maybe it and the Racer can have a common lineage, I dunno. The shrimp-tail boosters feel like an after-market modification to keep it running.
And this one I like a lot, a high-speed plane that uses Fluid Geometry instead of fixed wings. Basically, the whole back of the plane can shape-shift to whatever shape it needs to be, so it moves more like a squid in the air.
If this little battle arena looks familiar, you might be right! It's a plastic take-out container.
And more over-exaggerated planes and jet engines, I don't know why but every time I take a flight I have to draw these things and make them cartoonishly over the top. I really should try to design some futuristic engine/turbine designs to swap these out with.
More 90s-Y2K-y icons and interface designs. For a computer book called "The Almanac," imagining a computer that feels like and works like an electronic Moleskin notebook or something.
So, if I had to guess what these icons are ("guess?" *I* made them up), I'd say Almanac would be all the stuff THEY put on the computer, and Mollskin would be all the things you put on. Mail is self-explanatory. internet would be your browser and compatible apps, Network would be local (presumably with a different customizable interface, a bit like Appletalk. This would let you connect to your local devices without exposing them to the internet, perhaps?) Files is your file browser... Bugger was one that was throwing me (I just thought it'd be fun to have an insect logo) but now I'm thinking maybe it's a Federated social media app, so all your Twitter, Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook etc going into one feed.
A lush forest inside the massive Longonot volcano crater in Kenya (found a picture of it and it totally captured my imagination, had to draw it). Totally reminds me of the classic idea of Krakatoa or the Lost World, a mini-ecoscape seemingly hidden from the world.
Drew this the morning before my flight, otherwise I feel like I might have done a second or third where I really exaggerate and stylize it into a possible setting. Want it to be a proper mini-world in there, water supply and so on (and I think that little crater to the side could almost be like a secret entrance or the "guest house." The issue I have with the idea of running water is that it'd have to get out and that means a way out for anyone in there, while the idea would be there isn't a clear way out.
Realizing I have two projects that could use monsters/kaiju, and despite having a BUNCH already drawn and ready to go, I'm like "now, they gotta be custom!"
Hey, there's nothing wrong with drawing more Kaiju. They're always welcome. I say this as a person who owns every Godzilla movie except for Minus One, and that's only because it's not available to buy in the US yet. I also own all of the Gamera films and some other Kaiju films.
I love kaiju and toku in general (you can clearly see inspiration in this thread). The one in my head's gotta be like a leading man villain, y'know? Thinking Big Guy and Rusty The Boy Robot level of insanely overpowered kaiju (the comic, not the cartoon which I haven't seen in forever).
Was digging how weird the muscles on this Bruce Lee figure looked, felt like they would mesh with my love of crab/insect parts and it was very much what I was thinking of for the chassis of one of my robots. It doesn't quite mesh with my other concepts for the character, so I'll get to play around with the shape some more. I also gotta design good legs (and hips) and add in a few more surprises.
One thing that wound up happening that I like is that the pectorals wound up being smaller than I'd normally draw then, I feel like I can do something with that.
In another thread, we were talking about file backups and how we organize, I had thought I might dedicate a half-inch binder to this guy but it turns out I only have a few pages of useful material for him anyway so there's no point yet. I did decide to dedicate one to all my "houseboat interiors as spaceship interiors," and I might do one for my concept cars, I've not decided yet.
So it happened again where I tried to open Photoshop and it wouldn't open, saying it was damaged (or rather "Don't open it this way, open it this way" (which also doesn't work). And I know I figured this out before, and I'm sure I did it without re-downloading it from the app store (which I don't think would work) ... but I don't remember HOW. I thought perhaps I restored it from a backup, but I just checked the external and those programs aren't in there (I need to do a new backup of all my computers, actually... on a new hard drive). I know I mentioned it, I don't know if I ever wrote down what the fix actually was and this is just gonna bug me now (because it always has to happen at one in the damn morning)
edit:
AND JUST LIKE THAT I FIXED IT
for future reference sake, b/c I will absolutely double-check this thread next time that happens, I just opened it with the internet connected and it worked. Wary to do that because it's old Photoshop and I didn't want it to demand an update or force a new "we get to spy on you and steal your content" EULA on me. Gonna back all that up tomorrow (and maybe try to mount a new external to be on the safe side).
That sounds like a terrible experience, I'm glad to know you were able to find a fix. Personally, I've never messed with Photoshop, and a story like that makes me glad I don't.
I got Elements, so no subscription or anything like that. Tried Gimp and it was okay, but I'm so used to Photoshop b/c I'd been using it for so long it's hard to switch. Plus since I'm on older hardware I'm wary of trying to get Affinity or whatever.
Concept for a starship bunk, going for a mix of utilitarian and cozy. I like the idea of the padding all around, feels a little cozier, lets you sit up in bed or use it as a proper seat.
Squared off jet engine/vent thingies I sketched while watching videos about the next generation of fighter jets, thinking these might fit some of my designs... the Single Rider for sure, maybe the Earthfleet ships, I'm not sure.
A few more flat vents... I think the Earthfleet ships might not be the right fit for these (despite both those ships and these vents being inspired by real contemporary aircraft). Maybe the EYSC superships, but I don't have a clear idea of what those will look like yet. Maybe the Framework ships from Iron Star...
The turquoise light I'm thinking might be glow from the reactor, a bit like the dome on the top of the impulse engines in the TMP Enterprise, or they could be lights or warning markers.
Posts
You could always just say they're alien hieroglyphics. Nobody can refute that because they're alien and it makes it Sci-Fi.
I think an issue I might have is I don't have a lot of ephemera lying around to turn into stylish icons.
I'm surprised how well the Dyson suits this 90s art style... the Talkboy also feels like a natural, but I'm not sure how I feel about that big thick stripe. I want to try another crack at that Bose since those were everywhere, but I haven't cracked it yet.
I'm liking that Romulan Racer... but that plane-like ship that I wind up constantly drawing, it finally dawned on me that this should be the design for my Earthfleet ships, which would be like Enterprise/Babylon 5 sci-fi war adventure. I figure the bottom looks like a plane, the top looks like a battleship. Now I just gotta draw the top.
Two more spaceship/plane looking thingies. Also this is the most sketchbook-y sketchbook page that I've ever done, I think. The Hummingbird I figure has a hard shell around it, so the cockpit has a wrap-around holographic display for the pilot. I need to figure out a cool tail for it.
Also like the C-wing bomber, maybe it and the Racer can have a common lineage, I dunno. The shrimp-tail boosters feel like an after-market modification to keep it running.
And this one I like a lot, a high-speed plane that uses Fluid Geometry instead of fixed wings. Basically, the whole back of the plane can shape-shift to whatever shape it needs to be, so it moves more like a squid in the air.
If this little battle arena looks familiar, you might be right! It's a plastic take-out container.
And more over-exaggerated planes and jet engines, I don't know why but every time I take a flight I have to draw these things and make them cartoonishly over the top. I really should try to design some futuristic engine/turbine designs to swap these out with.
More 90s-Y2K-y icons and interface designs. For a computer book called "The Almanac," imagining a computer that feels like and works like an electronic Moleskin notebook or something.
So, if I had to guess what these icons are ("guess?" *I* made them up), I'd say Almanac would be all the stuff THEY put on the computer, and Mollskin would be all the things you put on. Mail is self-explanatory. internet would be your browser and compatible apps, Network would be local (presumably with a different customizable interface, a bit like Appletalk. This would let you connect to your local devices without exposing them to the internet, perhaps?) Files is your file browser... Bugger was one that was throwing me (I just thought it'd be fun to have an insect logo) but now I'm thinking maybe it's a Federated social media app, so all your Twitter, Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook etc going into one feed.
A lush forest inside the massive Longonot volcano crater in Kenya (found a picture of it and it totally captured my imagination, had to draw it). Totally reminds me of the classic idea of Krakatoa or the Lost World, a mini-ecoscape seemingly hidden from the world.
Drew this the morning before my flight, otherwise I feel like I might have done a second or third where I really exaggerate and stylize it into a possible setting. Want it to be a proper mini-world in there, water supply and so on (and I think that little crater to the side could almost be like a secret entrance or the "guest house." The issue I have with the idea of running water is that it'd have to get out and that means a way out for anyone in there, while the idea would be there isn't a clear way out.
Was digging how weird the muscles on this Bruce Lee figure looked, felt like they would mesh with my love of crab/insect parts and it was very much what I was thinking of for the chassis of one of my robots. It doesn't quite mesh with my other concepts for the character, so I'll get to play around with the shape some more. I also gotta design good legs (and hips) and add in a few more surprises.
One thing that wound up happening that I like is that the pectorals wound up being smaller than I'd normally draw then, I feel like I can do something with that.
In another thread, we were talking about file backups and how we organize, I had thought I might dedicate a half-inch binder to this guy but it turns out I only have a few pages of useful material for him anyway so there's no point yet. I did decide to dedicate one to all my "houseboat interiors as spaceship interiors," and I might do one for my concept cars, I've not decided yet.
edit:
AND JUST LIKE THAT I FIXED IT
for future reference sake, b/c I will absolutely double-check this thread next time that happens, I just opened it with the internet connected and it worked. Wary to do that because it's old Photoshop and I didn't want it to demand an update or force a new "we get to spy on you and steal your content" EULA on me. Gonna back all that up tomorrow (and maybe try to mount a new external to be on the safe side).
I got Elements, so no subscription or anything like that. Tried Gimp and it was okay, but I'm so used to Photoshop b/c I'd been using it for so long it's hard to switch. Plus since I'm on older hardware I'm wary of trying to get Affinity or whatever.
Concept for a starship bunk, going for a mix of utilitarian and cozy. I like the idea of the padding all around, feels a little cozier, lets you sit up in bed or use it as a proper seat.
Squared off jet engine/vent thingies I sketched while watching videos about the next generation of fighter jets, thinking these might fit some of my designs... the Single Rider for sure, maybe the Earthfleet ships, I'm not sure.
The turquoise light I'm thinking might be glow from the reactor, a bit like the dome on the top of the impulse engines in the TMP Enterprise, or they could be lights or warning markers.
Isn't it funny that I can't seem to draw fries? "They're sticks, you can't draw sticks?"