Sketchblog!: May 2011

Thursday, May 26, 2011

New project - a realistic take on the Thoat, the goofy-cool mount for the four-armed green tribal warriors of Barsoom, naturally...

...described (by John Carter) in the books as:

And his mount! How can earthly words describe it! It towered ten feet at the shoulder; had four legs on either side; a broad flat tail, larger at the tip than at the root, and which it held straight out behind while running; a gaping mouth which split its head from its snout to its long, massive neck. Like its master, it was entirely devoid of hair, but was of a dark slate color and exceeding smooth and glossy. Its belly was white, and its legs shaded from the slate of its shoulders and hips to a vivid yellow at the feet. The feet themselves were heavily padded and nailless, which fact had also contributed to the noiselessness of their approach, and, in common with a multiplicity of legs, is a characteristic feature of the fauna of Mars. The highest type of man and one other animal, the only mammal existing on Mars, alone have well-formed nails, and there are absolutely no hoofed animals in existence there.

...The first few stages are combined here, silhouettes, feedback from a buddy acting as art director, combination and refinement, and some detours to explore variations...I want to get the feel of the creature from the book, a wild, dangerous, barely-controlled mount ridden into battle by tribal warriors. The green Martians don't really tame the beasts so much as beat them into submission. I want them to feel like they're fast and powerful, but still as odd and alien as anything with 8 legs should.
There is an odd design challenge with these books (the John Carter of Mars series), in that the worlds they describe come from the golden age of science fiction, an era which required almost no adherence to scientific fact, and more of a shiny gloss over fantasy stories. This makes the stories fun, funny, and charming to read - but difficult to approach in a visual format - I mean, how do you draw a 15 foot tall, four armed green man with bug eyes and tusks, and not have him look as cartoony as he sounds? So - one can just run with it, and cartoon out, or try to play it straight. I love cartoony stuff, so, to make it a little harder on myself, I decided to play it straight with this guy. The next stage is to take this profile, make an orthographic turnaround, and then place it in an environment...