The spectacle of an aerospace engineer attempting art!

[staylor]

Hidy Ho!
Just a quick little introduction before the sketches, my name is Sarah and I'm an Aerospace Major at college. Alas, engineering schools lack any sort of applied art courses so I'm stuck teaching myself. I don't intend to go into art for a career (I honestly would have more fun fiddling with instruments in a wind tunnel than drawing all day because I'm weird like that) but I really enjoy it as a hobby and it does come in terribly handy at times.

And now the sketches!
Here's a happy monster, you'll see him quite a bit.

And a recent space shuttle speedpaint.

An ink sketch of a demon thingy.

Another sketch of the happy monster, also called chimera.

A quick sketch done with sharpies.

And a really bad speedpainting.


I'll try to update as often as I can, but since school is beginning I don't know how much time I'll have.

[endercoskun]

liked the monstrosities. esp the 4th one. the shuttle painting is pretty nice too. the weakest is the last as you already said.

one crit, the legs of your monsters seems a bit small, as if they can't support the upper body.

keep it up the nice work.

[~Lover~]

Awww cute monster, tho i'm sure he would bite my head off if he got the chance. The sketch of Chimera was done really well because you can see every aspect of him. Post some more of him!
~Lover~

[staylor]

Thanks for the comments!
Ender- it probably is true that the legs are smaller than they ought to be. I have a bad habit of starting the torso in the middle of the page and running out of room when I have to do the legs. Like in the sketch below!
Lover- Thanks! I'll be posting more of Chimera soon.

And here's another creature from the Chimera universe. Since the 1970's people have known how to reanimate the dead. Problem is nobody can reanimate them well. The "zombies" are incapable of making goals and have to be told what to do. Naturally the government exploited this and started enhancing the bodies of the dead and giving injections of stem cells in the brain to enhance what little cognitive function they had. The zombies then made excellent soldiers and warriors. They feel no pain, have no mercy, and don't care if they die. This particular one was made for spying, Chimera gets to fight them.

[staylor]

Another cyborg-zombie. Once again I ran out of room for the feets. So I drew one next to him as proof I can draw feets. And he has no lower jaw.

[staylor]

Here's a slightly refined sketch. Done in gel pens. It's a biological spacecraft of sorts escaping from a black hole in a nebula. Or it's a demonic crow quill pen in a whirlpool. Depends on how you look at it. Mostly I was just fiddling around with inking techniques.

[staylor]

I've always been under the impression that raptors would make excellent mob enforcers. Just a sketch to practice "cartoony" characters.

And here's a sneak peak at something I'm working on, it will be shaded with marker and given a background eventually. I suppose it's some sort of demon with a jet engine for a head.

[blackswordsman28]

really nice stuff....

the spiral spaceship and Jethead spark my interest in particular....

I have a suggestion on the spiral demon thingy...I would suggest adding more weight to the spaceships outline and more weight at the nose...it would help seperate it from the chaotic background...and make it "pop out"

[staylor]

Blackswordsman: Thanks, I like your idea of the darker outlines, next piece I do like that I'll try it.

Here's a few more sketches. All were done completely in pen without reference. For reasons I don't understand I'm more creative with a pen. Hopefully I'll put in a photoshop speedpaint soon, I'm still really bad at drawing with a tablet.

Here's the ambassador, a character from another story of mine. Essentially he's the "eyes and hands" of a massively powerful and advanced spaceship. He serves to communicate with other beings and ships, and occaisionally perform a repair. He can also project holograms, seen here. He's lopsided too, but that's the drawback of using pens...


Here's just some random WWII-ish sketch. I've been on a warbird kick recently and I wanted to see if I could sketch some. They're not based on any actual planes. And looky! A girl! Staylor drew a girl!


And finally here's a random sketch. Most of my sketchbook is filled with stuff like this and I'm reluctant to show it because it's really sketchy. Anyways here's a few monsters and poses. The jumping creature isn't mine though, it belongs to Allison Theus.

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

Wow the turbofanatic drawing looks years ahead of the rest of your drawings...you really put a lof detail into it and it came out very well.


You were born on the 27th, 28th for me, how old will you be?

[staylor]

Semaj: Do you mean the Jethead? I spent a couple days fiddling with it, while most of these sketches take about half an hour. On the 27th of September I will be 20 years old. It's a rather dull birthday because I still can't drink and gamble, at least not legally. Hopefully we'll both have happy birthdays in a few weeks!

And here's an older DSG, I feel bad posting without a picture!

[Pixeldragoon]

=D I cant believe you dont want to do art... You should at least attempt freelance or something! I mean, comissions and stuff, on the side. Good luck in your career! Nice stuff!

[staylor]

Pixeldragoon: I do some freelance stuff, mostly murals and the occaisional gift picture. Much as I love concept art, I love engineering more. Besides, why would I want to draw airplanes all day when I can make real ones? Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for the people who are in the concept art business, but I'd seriously rather spend my day fiddling with manometers and studying pressure drops over an airfoil.
Plus engineers make more money

And here's a speed painting I did today. I spent ten minutes trying to think of something pretty and artsy to do. But I finally ended up with a monster head.

[staylor]

Aha! More sketches!

A truck inspired by WWII armored trucks. I just love the style of WWII vehicles.


I usually draw chimera when I'm bored.

[staylor]

A couple more things, these are all about a month old. The only sketching I've been doing recently is in the margins of class notes!

An attempt to refine a sketch, unfortunately I did it without reference and his body came out too long.


A purty Chevy Malibu done at a car show. It's rather obvious that I messed up the perspective, but it's the first real car I've drawn in years so I'm fairly proud of it.


Please critique my stuff! I can't get any decent critiques at school, people here will tell me what's wrong with the structural integrity, not anatomy.
Here are some things I know i have to work on:
-Clothing design
-Perspective
-Color
-Texture
-Faces
-Lighting
-Environments
I'd be grateful to anyone who can offer any advice. I love tech school, but I haven't had an art class in five years (and those were just high school classes!) and sometimes it shows.

[staylor]

Here's some sort of a winged exosuit. He's giving a thumb's up because a stretched out hand would go off the page .


Could someone please critique my stuff? I need to know if I'm doing anything consistantly wrong. This is the only place I can get decent critiques.

[MikeDunbarr]

You have a great grasp on anatomy... and your perspective work is fantastic!

[staylor]

That Fat Kid: Thanks for the critiques! I never realized there was any noticable problems with my hands, I'll start sketching them from life now. And I'lll start experimenting with real pencils, the mechanical ones I use don't shade too deeply.

Mike: That's odd, I thought perspective was one of my weaker points...
Anyways I'll keep working at it. I'm glad you like the anatomy!

Here's a speedpainting for the DSG, more experimenting with abstract backgrounds. The lighting was rather hard and I'm not entirely happy with it.


A sketch made during class. With jet-griffen creatures, a frankenstein dude, and a distorted face (blasted pen!).

[staylor]

Some new stuff...
A rather refined picture, still a sketch though. I was just having fun with letting myself go without having to worry about feasibility. Sometimes I have a tendency of overthinking my designs (but I guess that's why I'd make a better engineer than artist). Sharpie and gel pen over a quick pencil sketch. Also an attempt at making my pen work "clearer" as blackswordsman suggested.


Why does he have a gun? A really stupid looking gun. Which doesn't make sense because he's supposed to be able to fire energy beams without a gun. I guess I just wanted him to hold something. I fiddled with the levels in photoshop because I've noticed that my scanner dulls the contrast.

[staylor]

Anatomy!!! Every once in a while I try to refine my anatomy. I think I have the basics down, but there's alot of details I don't know.


And a suit of armor with an ancient fish, the name of which I can neither spell nor pronounce.

[staylor]

I really don't know what this guy is. Seems like some sort of organic robot to me.


And after reading up on the interesting device known as the supersonic propeller (which was ignored in favor of the jet engine despite excellent performance) I decided to create a supersonic Korean war era turboprop.

[solorpower]

Staylor, nice concept work here. The only thing I can say is to work on your poses, or use online images like models or a stock photo web site for free images to study. Great work on your costumes, and your fictional figures are very interesting!

[staylor]

Solorpower: Thanks, I'll be sure to start sketching poses from magazines soon.

ThatFatKid: Wow, not long after you made that post I found a mechanical pencil with a softer lead. I've been playing around with it a bit recently. It's rather helpful.

For my birthday I got "Barlowe's Inferno" such an awesome book. Anyways though he depicts plenty of demons, the angels are only hinted at. I wanted to make one of my own that not only could fight with a demon, but could open up a can of whup-ass on one. Not one of those prissy babies with wings. He was partly inspired by Aztec stories of wise feathered serpents

[Azeira]

wow, i really enjoy your concepts and your creatures. a good cross of right, solid angles of machines with the rounder, organic possibilityes of biology. keep up the good work.

Woodruff

[staylor]

Azeira: Thanks, I do like techno-organic designs.

Here's another for the DSG. "Child is best friends with killbot." She kinda reminds me of myself. Done in 50 minutes.


And today is my bithday!

[staylor]

Here's another sketch. More fun with a .2mm pen. I'm really fond of the atmosphere in this one.

[staylor]

Decided to revisit the angel dude from before. I also wanted to try out another method of shading. Someone mentioned that after each pencil stroke the pencil should be lifted up, so it isn't just dragged back and forth. It seems to be helping me.

Critiques, as usual, are very appreciated!

[staylor]

OHMIGAWD HUNDREDTH POST!!!

Ahem.
Thatfatkid: Thanks, I guess I was trying for a more snakelike anatomy on that guy and it just didn't work out too well. I'm glad you like the princess picture. I may try to do more stuff like that.
Here's a kitty with wings. The character's creator can be seen here
More experimenting with color.

[staylor]

ThatFatKid: Yeah, colors are tricky. I tried out some new stuff with this one, and I'll have to experiment more with it.

Here's some more fun with micron pens. I love them so much.


And here's another picture done in the same vein as the princess picture. I really like this style, makes me think of children's books with fantastic stories. It's a lot smoother in reality, I don't know why it's so grainy here.

[staylor]

^^^ Thanks! It feels good to hear that I'm actually improving. Hopefully it will continue.

Soccer Practice is the funniest music video ever, and if it were sung by raptors I think it would look like this.


And an unfinished monster thingy.


I have been doing some sketches of skateboarders, but I haven't scanned those in. I'll do it later.