Expanding the Visual Library

Drawing more cars and guns and guys (and gals, you can't tell which is which) for Carl Bastard in preparation for some realsy dealsy rootin' tootin' bad guy shootin'.

Mar 21, 2024

We’re back to Carl Bastard this week, as I’ve had time to do a good amount of studies for the environment, equipment, and Bad Guys. I love seeing work like this, the process of learning and practicing, and I hope you do too. ‘cos that’s all I’ve got to talk about today.

Cars & Guns yeehaw

Okay, so we’re in the 1960s for this outing! And the scene takes place in a parking garage. That means I get to draw some of the coolest American cars in history as part of the environment design. Even the ones that aren’t that cool are cool. We won’t be driving them, but they will be getting shot up and used in unexpected ways. Can’t wait, CAN NOT WAIT.

More attention to stylization while retaining the feeling that the cars are working machines. That’s the secondary goal of these drawings!

Guns, also very important. I hate it when I can tell that a writer in a comic has put “so-and-so has a gun“ and the artist just draws a vaguely glockish grey rectangle. This isn’t because I’m a gunophile or whatever, it’s because I love drawing machines and think that they deserve the proper attention.

I am definitely not a buildingophile either, which will make drawing a parking garage in detail kind of excruciating. Ah, the sacrifices we make.

Again, I’m doing these drawings for a few reasons, listed here in order of importance.

Establish a visual vocabulary

The more you draw a subject, the more familiar it becomes and the better you will be able to recall it when drawing it in practical application. After drawing that Beretta and extracting 4 additional angles from a single photo, I will be MUCH better at representing it in 3D when it appears in a scene. It’s like downloading a prop into your brain.

Get comfortable with stylization while maintaining workability

It’s just good practice!

References

Yes, you can look back at your own drawings for reference! This way the stylization I’ve established has a better chance of staying consistent. The work in this phase pays dividends!

Bad Guys

For fun, I’ve decided that all characters in Carl Bastard’s universe should be animals or have animal heads. Why? Because it makes designing characters more fun, dude. I can make a bunch of bizarre characters shoot each other. It’s basically the only thing I’ve aspired to do my entire life.

As you can see, I’ve sort of followed a metric for these guys. I rolled a bunch of random North American animals and taken a few different stabs. I think you can see here the spectrum of “cutest to uncanniest“ animal designs here. These combined with the previous spread of bad guy drawings should give me PLENTY to work with going forward. Will have to finalize the designs and outfitting, but the casting couch is full and I’ll be able to find my stars among those present. A couple I have already decided are no-brainer entries.

Yes, that guy gets the machine gun.

Readers, thank you. I can’t tell you how fun this is for me, slow going as it is. It’s a phenomenal motivation for me to work on this project, even though I have no clear path to making a living off of it. I’m just making it for the sake of making it right now, and sharing the process with you makes it way way more special. So thanks again!!