Cruising

Ink wash on Arches watercolor paper.

I was frustrated with this one initially, possibly because I had to go back in with a lot of white ink to try to bring out the form of the dress. But looking back at it now I think it worked out pretty well: the white ink did give a kind of shimmery quality to the dress that contrasts with the rough shadows of the rest of the scene, which are hopefully suggestive of a sort of crude structural strength, like the corridors of an old battleship or something.

And I just might consider this my most successful rendering of the pilot, who went through some unhappy transmogrifications before and after this in the story as I tried to figure out his look.

So overall this has a sort of pulp quality I like and wish I could pull off with greater regularity. And that intense black wash to the left of the pilot may be the first time I did that kind of thing intentionally.

This is art used for a page of episode 15 of my hard sci-fi webcomic, "Supermassive Black Hole A*." It can be viewed in its final cropping, subtitle, and sequence here, where you can also order signed prints and stuff.