Thursday, December 27, 2007

"Veh-ick-uls"

Let's start small.
A few extremely rough concept sketches for some post-apocalyptic vehicles ("veh-hi-culs" as they might be called in certain parts of Ireland...). I quite like them and their slapped-together feel but somewhere along the way I felt they were too far gone for the story I'm trying to tell.
Blame 'Chronicles Of Riddick'. I've always felt there's as much to be learned from watching bad movies as watching good ones. A lesson in how not to do something. 'Riddick' bothered me so much because it made me realize that if you've too much going on in your story and you haven't signposted it clearly enough and then you visually overdesign every single thing, your story's not going to work. I watch quite a bit of sci-fi but found myself bored and confused within the first ten minutes. I'd actually recommend it to anyone attempting a story of this kind of scale.
I'm really enjoying the new incarnation of 'Battlestar Galactica' but what really works for me and helps ground it is use of the recognizable technology and appliances. It means you can go as fucking buckwild as you want with your otherworldly stuff as long as you have something that a reader or viewer can work from as a base.

All artwork copyright Mick Cassidy 2007

I found myself looking at tons of images of old steam locomotives. Big and bulky...


All artwork copyright Mick Cassidy 2007



All artwork copyright Mick Cassidy 2007

I tried to make them somewhat functional as well as quirky and entertaining to look at. I assumed people wandering through nuclear wastelands are going to have to sustain themselves and the elements may not lend themselves to that so they should have some sort of hydroponics or botanical facilities on hand to grow food:


All artwork copyright Mick Cassidy 2007

These last two are like futuristic pieced together helicopter stand-ins. Once again though, they're too far ahead of what I think will work.


All artwork copyright Mick Cassidy 2007



All artwork copyright Mick Cassidy 2007

I don't usually feel particularly comfortable or adept at designing any sort of vehicles but these ones don't bother me too much. They still look a little too 'organic', I guess.

6 comments:

Flint Lockjaw said...

Absolutely great f**kin' work, Mick!
Keep it going'
I've added you onto my blog links.
Hope you don't mind.

Steo!

Mick Cassidy said...

No, not at all, Stevo! Cheers! And thanks for the kind words. Bit nervous throwing some of this stuff up, to be honest. It's like letting your baby out into the world and hoping no-one thinks it's pig-ugly!

jojo said...

awesome vehicles! hope to see those on the road someday.

george hagi said...

hey mick
art looks beautiful as usual you always had a knack with vehicles.
but 100 pages dude
thats a lot .
i hated King Dong too, huge disapointment.
hope you wife and baby are well.
i am itching to draw again too must be thirtysomething vibe.
anyway keep sticking up sketches
really interested in what you create.
all the best hagi

Mick Cassidy said...

The dead arose and appeared to many! How are you, Mr. O'Shea? How's yer arse?

Anonymous said...

Anything with a steampunk edge gets my nads all sweaty with delight. Excellent work, man. (I also envy/admire your Family Guy experience).