I just made these two posters of Aegeus and Umex- the principle leaders of the LORDS OF THE COSMOS and THE DISCIPLES OF UMEX. Enjoy, I wanted to make them monochromatic and bold to get that 80’s action figure fun vibe to the final artwork!
Disciples of Umex- VTOL Transport
This photo just came in from Planet Aiden on the Jade Plateau, A Disciples of Umex transport gunship has been offloading missle platforms to a hidden base to strike at civilian cities and shipping lanes!
It is without a doubt- this is why we need THE LORDS OF THE COSMOS! —
Part Command and Conquer (1996 or so) and art David Lynch Harkonnens from Dune (1984), I had to give the bad guys their own aggressive looking transport, and yet another background featuring a menacing base with some radar. More characters and locations from Lords of the Cosmos are coming soon!
LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #7 – Final Pencils
So more Lords of the Cosmos- the final set of heroes as I wind down all the character design/intro pages. This has their two pilots- a Mantis and a flame thrower equipped sparrow with a helmet, and finally, our local hero “Greenman” who passed away in September of 2013. I had met Greenman at Sci-Fi Valley Con in Altoona,PA that year and he was absolutely crazy and a great person to talk to. I found out after he passed away that he had been doing hundreds and hundreds of hours of charity appearances for children all over the place- his motto was “it never hurts to help” and then I realized that he was indeed a true hero.
So the uninitiated can see what Greenman looked like in person- here is a photo of Greenman and I from 2013 when I did a sketch card of him..
When we started working on the writing end of Lords of the Cosmos one of my scribbled notes actually was “need to shoehorn Greenman into story somehow” that writing process has been chugging along with Jason P. and Dennis for about a year now, and the Greenman “shoehorning” has taken a few twists and turns. Originally we had him as some kind of nature communicator talking to birds and mice, this morphed into flying the Lords of the Cosmos transport plane around as an ace pilot, and then we finally settled on a story arc that we love for his character that places him in a role where he is always helping out- the technician/mechanic for all of the Lords of the Cosmos’s various gadgets, vehicles and automated base fortress- Dragonspine Mountain. I wont reveal more than that, but there is an awesome story arc for Greenman’s character as this project unfolds. I kept his outfit about 99% the same, except I took his logo off the hat, and added his Lords of the Cosmos logo to his chest area for his team “branding”. And to show his mechanic skills, he is of course holding a wrench with his two cohorts and ace pilots – Mr. Mantis, and Senior Sparrow (no we didn’t come up with killer names for those two yet). Anyway, I can imagine if Greenman was here with us, he would totally pose with a wrench with me to act out the scene in this artwork, I can also imagine that he would ask dozens of questions about his two co-stars and why he got stuck with them and not the girl on the dinosaur- which is a fair question. Anyway, Enjoy, and stay green folks!
Lords of the Cosmos- VTOL Transport
Well the heroes of LORDS OF THE COSMOS have to get around, so I was inspired by the US Marines OSPREY and the Air Force’s C-17 Transport to make this VTOL transport vehicle for the good guys to get around on Planet Aiden with as they battle the Disciples of Umex- there will be characters in front of this, but I really loved the vehicle design.
I drew inspiration from the 1984 film “Dune” for style. The classic Battletech Technical Readout manuals from FASA that I had as a kid in the 1980’s which had some great 2 pt perspective line art of robots and various vehicles gave me a direction for a final look on the page. Clean and simple, and I really loved the final image, it was fun to draw a some planes for a change!
LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #6 – Final Pencils
As we wind down the character designs- The LORDS OF THE COSMOS get another female character AMAZONICA, and her Dino Steed, as well as the Cyborg Samurai (as yet, no name chosen!)
The composition on this was simple, yet effective, and I really feel that I am hitting a stride on drawing accurate and attractive women, so I was really pleased with how AMAZONICA turned out. Full disclosure she was inspired by the old 1980 Flash Gordon Filmation “Princess Aura” character who I loved as a young lad! You can see a production still from that show here to see what I was getting inspiration from. Does the tiara on Amazonica’s head look similar?
Anyway- This art really sums up what I like in a nutshell… “Girls, Monsters, Robots” … so It was a pleasure to put pencil to paper for this particular page. Below are the final pencils and my Samurai artwork segregated on tracing paper.
Final Pencils
Samurai layout on tracing paper
LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Disciples of Umex Pinup #6 – Pencils
“From the ranks of the Disciples of Umex… The Savage Flesh Eating Cani-Bull, The Mindless Sonic devastation of the Sound Golem Groanus, and the sworn enemy of Ironshell, the Giant Turtle of the Lords of the Cosmos, the Gigantic Cybernetic Dragon- Ragewing…”
So the latest round of villains- Canibull has been in my head for a long time with Ragewing, Groanus was always a blank slate. I used a friend who is a body builder for muscle reference on Canibull for a shifty crouched pose. He was my alternate take on Beast Man from M.O.T.U. and a Minotaur- the idea is he eats humans and controls Ragewing telepathically as a creature leader of sorts.
Ragewing really was an extension of how much my fans love my dragons and monsters- to do a technological/fantasy version of a “Lenox Dragon”. I used a Crocodile as the basis for the head and really struggled to get a pose in the composition that worked, I was pleased with what came out of my sketchbook here. This character is also my evil giant monster which is the antagonist to the good giant monster, Ironshell the Turtle, seen here. The basic concept of this entire project was that the Lords of the Cosmos are a set of toys from the 1980’s so if there is a good giant creature, there has to be a bad giant creature, Ragewing fills that mandate.
Groanus was the REAL challenge from the writers…
Description: “A twisted giant created by the diabolical DOCTOR SMOG, this tall and spindly beast is a slow moving monster of destruction created as a front line shock trooper to cause retreat in the battle of good versus evil. Stupid and slow, the beast is nonetheless lethal if not destroyed early. The sound emanates from his nuclear lungs and passes over his teeth of diamonds, causing a whistling sound that can rip ear drums and crack a man’s teeth.”
I kept drawing a tall muscular guy with a big mouth with a filter inside it, and it was so flat, I knew where I wanted him from a composition point of view in the middle top left, and it just kept failing on me. Anyway, I had to tune out, and then stop thinking inside the box, and get out- if a big guy wasn’t working, then why a human at all? So I used a dust mite, and a virus diagram both from online textbooks to make a non human unique character, and I couldn’t have been happier with the weird totem pole of tentacles, spindly legs and bizarre flower like face… a touch of H.P. Lovecraft perhaps influenced me here as well.
Anyway, below are my original thumbnail and final pencils- Enjoy!
Final Pencils
Thumbnail
LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #5 – Final Pencils
Another showcase pinup of the Heroes from the Lords of the Cosmos Team!
Tiedemies the Scientist, The Mighty Man-Tank, & Tenta-Kill the Blackwater Butcher in action on the Planet Aiden!
Notes on this page- I really went for reference on the cloak for Tiedmeies to get the folds as close to accurate as I could make them. I also used a photo of an old person to get some of the facial wrinkles looking lifelike.
Tenta-Kill was like Belchor, simple and easy to come up with- no idea why, but his entire character came to me in a flash and it looked great. Basically a “Fightin’ Robo Squid”
Man-Tank- wow. He has been a main character in my mind’s eye for months, but getting his scale and bulk down correctly has been hard- I had him in a prior pinup (Mechaspring’s page) and then closed him out, I couldn’t get it together. But using tons of tank reference, and a ruler to keep my lines and proportions correct, I pulled him together- and realized that just like the two headed guy from the last “Disciples of Umex” page- this was in the Transformers art camp again. Man Tank was hard to do, but I am very happy with his final product- a defensive unit that shoots nets, ropes and has defensive shield generators that is part man, part tank.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it!
LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Disciples of Umex Pinup #5 – Pencils
“Golut the Tek Dwarf and two of his monstrous creations lurch across Planet Aiden in search of wanton destruction as they hope to eliminate the LORDS OF THE COSMOS once and for all!”
Thoughts and Notes-
So I managed to get a robotic snake head with needles for teeth injections in next to a butcher knife head on the larger monster- I had a fetish going with snakes after my recent “Gorgon Medusa” Project. Additionally, I had a pile of reference from my prior snake-centric project, as well as some templates I had made from my own work with tracing paper to make rattlesnake heads- so it was a natural move to use one here. The twist was to make it not a true snake like my last project, thus the robotic snake look.
…………The two headed brute ended up channeling that blocky G1-G2 Transformer toy look- esp. with the howitzer/gun on the back- Onslaught the Combaticon comes to mind if you know what that is check him out here. And I would have never realized how HARD those blocky Transformer type characters are to draw- much respect to anyone working in that world drawing these kinds of characters all the time! Since our goal from day one was to base this whole project on an 80’s toy line that never existed, this keeps the project in line visually with what we wanted.
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A very vague character write up came with the slime character, so I made it slime in a powered suit that gives it a human like shape- in addition to the wires on the suit it has wires coming out of the Umex team logo on his head- communication and control system. One issue that came up-I had to fight hard to keep him looking like a minion- originally I had one big eye, and I was like “oh sh!t- it’s a minion!” so he got a face full of smaller eyes to break it up. Totally unintentional, glad I caught it before fellow artist Chris Flick who is always drawing minion mash-ups called me on it!
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We are still working on names for the two monster/creatures, so we’ll get back to you on that one.
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Golut has a World War two era flamethrower and his nuclear backpack- go violent hate dwarf! I used the basic template from Warhammer 40K and that genre of metal miniature dwarves to get the “look” for Golut down.
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..These three characters have been hard to get on paper, this was actually the third attempt to get them down, and it finally worked- some of my below sketches are from aborted attempts to work out these odd characters in design and composition- an evil dwarf and his evil machinations proved to be a larger challenge than I could have imagined. Anyway, it made the finished work much sweeter to finally get completed and out of my head and sketchbooks!
……………………………………………………………………………… Below are sketches, the minion look in progress piece that I caught in time , and final pencils
My Minion Realization scan…
Behind the scenes progress, sketchbook notes on some of the characters and composition study
LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #3 – Final Inks
In their full inked glory….Zacateco, Shar-Dor the Ice Assassin, Aviteus the Winged Warrior and Mechaspring.
Notes
– Mechaspring’s face changed to a real face from a machine face to show emotion better
– The feather pattern on Aviteus and shading was difficult, I used a stippled “dark shadow area to avoid more solid blacks
– Shar-Dor’s jagged ice skin was a pain to do
– Zacateco was based on a fan who is now in the book (pre kickstarter reward) so that turned out very close to his actual appearance.
LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Disciples of Umex Pinup #4 – Final Pencils
TERRORIST DEATH CULT LEADER- UMEX!
The matching bookend page of the main villain, Umex the Defiler in a solo appearance to signify his importance to the story and his place as a leader of the forces of Evil in the world of Aiden. You can see the main hero, Aegeus, in his solo page here.
While Aegeus was straight up and down and stoic- symbolic of his straight forward approach to law and order- Umex is on an angle, and is moving, the slanted angle (dutching or the “dutch angle” read about that visual concept here) hints at his twisted nature. Small details of note- nuclear fallout ash is in the air, and an ominous dual black tower on a 3 pt. perspective dominates the background with a bridge going to a single door that connects the evil looking structures.
Other challenges were to show another angle (right side v. left side) with Umex, which is important to me as a creator to not repeat poses (unless I have to!) and to make a scary and dynamic composition for this character in his spotlight page. On a technical note- getting all of Umex’s odd shapes and body armor correct on the angle he is standing at was difficult- you can see many of my erased lines as I struggled at times with the anatomy, proportions and perspective.
Below are the final pencils, in process pencils and a small poster I made with the artwork as a promo piece on Manga Studio 5.
Enjoy the leader of the DISCIPLES OF UMEX!
Promo Poster of Umex
In Progress Sketch of Umex
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