I got a nice surprise when I came into work today. Fellow OOP and Blue Sky artist, Mike Knapp, had brought in the advance copies of Out of Picture 2 for all of us who worked on it. Flipping through the pages I was amazed to see that somehow through the printing process Random House made the artwork look better than when we originally created it. The book came together nicely and I feel it’s on par with the first Out of Picture book. Here’s some photos:

Links: Out of Picture
Mike Knapp
Random House

Poor fella…

Previous post:  Missile Mouse – Fighter Design 01

Early on in my Missile Mouse story for Flight Explorer, MM’s ship gets badly damaged and he has to bring it down. Normally he would have been able to land the thing without any extra damage to the ship. However, the ship’s hydraulics were blown out and he couldn’t switch to atmospheric mode. The resulting drag on the ship made nearly impossible to make a smooth landing.

atmospheric mode

In space mode the craft is open to allow ventilation and cooling for various high performance components.

space mode

Links: Missile Mouse – Fighter Design 01
Flight Explorer

I was invited to give a demonstration at Kids’ Comic Con down in the Bronx next weekend. Unfortunately, I have a scheduling conflict and I can’t make it. However, I offered to do a Missile Mouse pin up for them to give to one of the kids. They accepted and this is what I drew:

If you’re in town and you have a kid, Kids’ Comic Con is the perfect place to expose them to comics in a friendly age appropriate environment. With comics professionals in attendance, workshops, exhibits, panels and more I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday with your kid.

Link: Kids’ Comic Con

The Cephalodians are an aggressive and competitive race in the Missile Mouse universe. 90% of their planet is covered with shallow warm oceans. This resulted in a large amount of biodiversity, and consequently extreme survival instincts developed in it’s inhabitants. Being the most evolved life form on the planet the Cephalodians have a high degree of intelligence. They were one of the earliest races in the galaxy to explore space. Towards the end of my Missile Mouse story in Flight Explorer we meet one such Cephalodian: Gorgo.

Gorgo has an ax to grind with the Galactic Security Agency and would love to knock off one it’s agents. Specifically Missile Mouse, who, more than once, has foiled his diabolical plans.

Below is a Cephalodian Commando Droid. Gorgo got his hands on the latest model, the C-12. At nearly twice the size and 4 times the blast power the C-12 is the most powerful CCD Missile Mouse has ever encountered. However, bigger, does not mean better, and Missile Mouse realizes that he is able to exploit one of the CCD’s engineering flaws. A small exhaust valve in the back of its head leads directly to the central fuel cells. A perfect shot could easily bring this otherwise formidable warrior down.

In designing the Cephalodians I found that I wanted a unifying shape that made them and their technology easy to identify. I find that when designing anything, using bold, recognizable shapes can go a long way. Block those in and then add the details on top, aways making sure the little stuff doesn’t over power the core shape of the design. Can you guess what shape I chose to help identify the Cephalodians?

Below are a couple of pages from my sketchbook with my initial thoughts about where these designs should go. At first I thought it would be cool if the robot that attacks MM transformed from a box. A nice idea, but didn’t seem alien enough. (I might still use that idea later though.)

Here’s the sketches for Gorgo. Since I design the CCD first and gave it one big eye, I thought it would be cool to apply that to the design of the species that designed the CCD.

Link: Flight Explorer