Concept Sketches

Afer gaining some inspiration from looking at those four old Drifter drawings, I pulled out my sketchpad and went to work. That in itself is a relatively big departure for me because I really don't do any sketching. I typically keep the designs in my head and drop them on the page when I start working on a drawing. And since almost all of my drawings are taken to completion (you'll only find a handful of unfinished drawings in my possession), I tend to work stuff out on paper rather than in a sketchpad. Maybe not the best method but it's worked for me (can't say the same for the number of erasers I've killed along the way). It makes me feel like I'm being efficient with my time and energy.

But lately, I've been questioning whether I've just gotten lucky on the page or if I'm settling for what works when a little doodling in a sketchbook might make for a better drawing. I don't want toss out the "Everyone else does it" line and make it sound like I'm jumping on the band wagon...cause I'm not. Just wondering if I might be able to develop my skills by simply doing some more sketching before jumping to the final drawing.

Alright, enough thinking aloud (or rather, in type). Where was I?

So...after gaining some inspiration from looking at those four old Drifter drawings...blah, blah, blah...sketchpad. Got it. So here's what I came up with.


I was trying to push the Western theme out of the picture by giving the character more of a post-apocalyptic feel by way of the goggles and the hood. That would explain the disappearance of the cowboy hat. However, the scarf was a keeper. It was an element that seemed to work from the Drifter drawings so I decided to keep it. Plus, flowing scarfs are cool. Remember Shinobi? There you go.

As I was playing with the post-apocalyptic idea, I thought about pushing it a little further. Here are the results:


I know, I know. Is that a robot? Yup. Not sure how he got on the page but maybe there is some magic in sketching. The hat came back, albeit briefly. But the robot idea got me thinking.

Bernie