Bruce Cook's sci-fi artwork

[Bud Brewster]

I hope you guys agree that Forbidden Planet is the father of Star Trek, because I'd like to share this combination painting and photograph from the 1956 classic.

I did the painting back in the 1980s, but I've never liked the background, so recently I used MS Paint to paste the two figures from the painting onto a screen grab from the movie.

It came out pretty well, all things considered.

I also did a painting of Robby.

 

[Albertese]

Nice. Kinda reminds me of Alex Ross.

--Alex

 

[B.J.]

Niiiice! I wish I had painting skills like that!

 

[Bud Brewster]

Thanks, guys. Graphite is fun to work with, too. (Fancy talk for pencil lead.) Here's the original "Captain Kirk" with the original "space babe" --

-- and good old John J. Adams looking suitably heroic --

-- while Morbius thinks troubling thoughts, like -- "Where did those damn animals really come from?"

-- and Robby, striking his own noble poses.

 

[rocketdave]

I'm generally not crazy about using preexisting images for backgrounds (since I always insist on doing everything the hard way), but since in this case it was to replace a background you weren't happy with with, I can overlook it.

The paintings themselves are amazing and I love the subject matter- Forbidden Planet is one of my favorite films.

I also wish my painting skills were better. Maybe they would be if I practiced more instead of only taking a stab at it every other year or so.

EDIT: Oops, I started composing my response before you posted the drawings and missed seeing those at first- those are terrific as well, of course.

It's kinda funny- none of the Trek films are in my personal top ten movies list, but FP is on there, as is Galaxy Quest- one movie that heavily inspired Star Trek and the other that was heavily inspired by Star Trek.

 

[Bud Brewster]

Thanks, rocketdave. Since you encouraged me (uh-oh, now you're in trouble), I'll offer these two creatures for your delight and amusement.

I just made these up while working as an operator for JCPenney back in the 1990s, taking phone orders.

They were drawn with a simple mechanical pencil, not the art pencils I used for the drawings above, which come in a variety of lead hardness's, like 8B being very soft and dark, and 6H being hard and light gray, with a dozen grades in between.

I used a computer to increase the contrast considerably.

They were both drawn on the back of discarded computer paper (the old kind with perforated edges for dot matrix printers), and the paper has turn brown over the years.

I had to doctor up these jpegs by making them black-and-white, then turning the surrounding areas white by using Microsoft Paint! It took hours for each one.

Here's what the bottom one looked like before I did all that work on it. Big difference, huh?

 

[rocketdave]

Those are some really cool creatures. I could easily picture them staring out at me from the cover of some old sci-fi anthology.

 

[Melakon]

Good work, Bud. Now I wish I'd taken an art class 45 years ago.

 

[Bud Brewster]

Good work, Bud. Now I wish I'd taken an art class 45 years ago.

What a coincidence! That's when I took MY classes!

I'm not sure if this guy is scary or funny. You tell me.

 

[Melakon]

I like him, but the eyestalks sort of remind me of some of the weird characters Don Martin would draw in Mad magazine. Surprised that Don's name came so quickly to mind, I've not read Mad since high school.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Those could be versions of creatures from the Cthulhu mythos (I don't know which ones offhand), and really well done.

Everything looks great. Like B.J. said, only I wish I had any comparable talent.

 

[Bud Brewster]

Another crazy alien from you-know-who! I know, I know -- the pose is a bit undignified. I didn't think of that when I drew him. I should probably add a short stool for him to sit on.

 

[Bud Brewster]

For nine years I've been bothered by the fact the hand-drawn rocket in the logo of my message board didn’t really look right. It looked like this -- asymmetrical fins and a lumpy section in the lower fuselage.

But recently I fixed it, and now it looks like this . . . . leaner, meaner, and cleaner!

Here’s it is in the new improved logo.

I was so pleased with the improved rocket that I made the picture below just for fun, using MS Paint. I reversed the colors on the rocket, then I pasted in the moon from a color-reversed version of a sketch of a space attack (shown below the blue rocket).

And in case you're wondering what the whole logo looks like with the color "reversed" with MS Paint, here it is.

And of course, then I just had to add a few stars . . .

And then I couldn’t resist adding in a few nebula . . .

And that's when I suddenly screamed, "Oh, my god, I'm addicted to this!"

 

[Bud Brewster]

With this one I added a simple geometric background.

 

[Albertese]

These remind me of some RPG artwork I have seen in some circa 1990 RPG books.... nothing specific, just the style. Maybe even going to back to early 80's with Space Opera or maybe some of the Traveler stuff.

I like it. takes me back.

--Alex

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Very nice work

 

[Bud Brewster]

Thanks for the comments, folks. One of the biggest differences between Star Wars and Star Trek is the lack of robots in Star Trek. Here's one they could use if they need an original design.

Here's two slightly different versions of the head, pasted onto the same body.

 

[Bud Brewster]

The original "Bones" -- Doctor Ostrow!

 

[Albertese]

Looks like some scheming Andromedan to me!

lol

Nice drawings. I'm still digging your style.

--Alex

 

[Bud Brewster]

Looks like some scheming Andromedan to me!

lol

Nice drawings. I'm still digging your style.

--Alex

Good to hear. Here's two guys that prove robots are macho!