Firebird's Sketch of the Week Series

[Firebird]

Trying out some new techniques on my drawings in advance for this Sunday's "official" Sketch of the Week. Instead of everything being in pencil with a pen outline, all of the linework is in pen with pencils for shading.

So, anyway, here's my rendition of Evangelion's Misato Katsuragi reminding everyone that it's never a good idea to piss her off or threaten her kids:

 

[Firebird]

And here we have this week's sketch, which I got inspired to do after finally buying and binging the Cowboy Bebop complete series blu-ray set last weekend. It made me realize just how laborious drawing hair can be, especially when it's an unkempt mop like Spike Spiegel's.

 

[publiusr]

I adore Edward

 

[Firebird]

The challenge for this week's sketch was a still life integrating as many of my core interests without turning it into a nonsensical hodgepodge.

 

[publiusr]

That’s no strap…that’s The Foreigner Belt by the guitar. Hey Carl!

 

[Firebird]

That’s no strap…that’s The Foreigner Belt by the guitar. Hey Carl!

It was supposed to be a strip of 65mm film, but that works too, haha.

 

[Firebird]

Today's bonus Sketch of the Week pays tribute to the sorely missed Robin Williams:

This marks the 47th SotW installment, and the 59th piece of art I've drawn this year. At the rate I'm going, I should be on track for 100 drawings by the end of the year!

 

[Firebird]

So, it looks like I miscounted the amount of art I've done this year. The Williams drawing was actually the sixtieth I've done since January!

Moving on to the 61st artwork and the 48th Sketch of the Week now... with the release of Evangelion 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon a Time, it was bound to happen that I'd be doing yet another artwork (the 10th one, in fact) based on the series. This one went kinda meta, as befitting the franchise's approach to finales, thus we've got a scene of the director Hideaki Anno taking a moment for a script conference with his lead actors between takes:

I swore to myself that I'd never draw the characters in the plugsuits because I just don't quite feel comfortable with the form-fitting design. But this was an image that wouldn't get out of my brain, so I had to break my rule.

Funnily enough, apart from the settei references I usually use for my Eva drawings, I also had to use a Star Trek image for a reference of the pose. Who'd have thought Brent Spiner and Cosmo Genovese would be stand-ins for this?

 

[Santaman]

Really nice work on this page.

 

[Firebird]

The bonus Sketch of the Week is celebrating the 100th birthday of the Great Bird of the Galaxy with an anime-style portrait of Gene Roddenberry himself:

 

[Cyfa]

That's a great drawing of Gene Roddenberry - really well done! And I love that you used a Star Trek photo as a reference for your Eva drawing

 

[Firebird]

That's a great drawing of Gene Roddenberry - really well done! And I love that you used a Star Trek photo as a reference for your Eva drawing

Ultimately, it’s all gonna come back to Trek one way or another with my drawings… as tomorrow’s sketch (the fiftieth) will prove. No spoilers, but it’s going to merge the two franchises I’ve drawn the most Sketch of the Week installments of since starting it up.

 

[publiusr]

I think you could probably get two Evas in the wide Planet of the Titans shuttlebay if you scale the ship up enough as the USS Evangelion.

Planet of the Titans itself probably works best as an Evangelion tale. The plug suits are drawn perfectly.

Today's bonus Sketch of the Week pays tribute to the sorely missed Robin Williams:

One of your best. I wish I had this level of talent
https://abc7chicago.com/entertainment/video-artist-creates-incredible-robin-williams-drawing/305955/

 

[Firebird]

I think you could probably get two Evas in the wide Planet of the Titans shuttlebay if you scale the ship up enough as the USS Evangelion.

Planet of the Titans itself probably works best as an Evangelion tale. The plug suits are drawn perfectly.



One of your best. I wish I had this level of talent
https://abc7chicago.com/entertainment/video-artist-creates-incredible-robin-williams-drawing/305955/

I kinda like the juxtaposition of the darker themes of Evangelion against the calmer tones and designs of the TNG era (not to mention it’s easier to draw backgrounds with lots of reference material). Trying the PotT aesthetic would be interesting, and maybe it’s something I’ll attempt in the future.

As far as scale, I’ve been thinking about how the Evas would fit inside a Galaxy class ship. They’d have to launch horizontally from the main shuttlebay, but even then there would have to be restructuring done on the aft part of the saucer to fit all of the support areas required. Might also require scaling the Evas down somewhat to make it all fit right… and maybe I’ll do an MSD drawing of the USS Nerv to work out those areas.

And I’m glad you liked the RW drawing! I must admit that I traced the initial linework from one of my favorite photos of him after the freehand approach wasn’t working. Portraiture is a pain in the ass sometimes.

 

[publiusr]

The Galaxy shuttlebay is something of a torus, with the spindly Evas perhaps wrapped around the central core. Seen from "above," it could look as it the two are in a dance.

 

[Firebird]

I like that approach to their storage. Probably have them double-stacked so they can fit Rei’s, Shinji’s, and Asuka’s Evas, and then have an open bay for a fourth Eva unit, since history will still have to repeat itself with poor Touji (unless it falls to Kensuke or Hikari… but I’m getting way ahead of myself).

 

[Firebird]

And here we have Sketch of the Week FIFTY, returning to the Instrumentality loop where Shinji rebooted Evangelion into Star Trek's 24th century:

After coloring this all in, I just need to say I hate the amount of beige in this goddamned Bridge set. I burned almost halfway through my beige pencil by the time I was done.

 

[publiusr]

Just use scrapings from 80’s monitors

On a more serious note…Armus might not be the only relative. There was one Angel that was almost pure crystal. In the Vanguard series of novels there were ancient gods of the Tholians.

And one breakaway entity even had a wonderful name as befits all things Evangelion:

The Apostate

 

[Firebird]

I'm going to preface Sketch of the Week #51 by saying it might be the most ridiculous one I've come up with so far, but I also couldn't stop laughing for 5 minutes after the concept popped in my head this afternoon.

So now, I present The Last Main Character Supper, featuring the MCs for Love Hina, Kimagure Orange Road, Maison Ikkoku, Evangelion, The Quintessential Quintuplets, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, and Tenchi Muyo:

 

[Cyfa]

Your 50th SotW is fantastic! Those Eva characters (I don't know who they are - sorry) all look so at home on the bridge.

After coloring this all in, I just need to say I hate the amount of beige in this goddamned Bridge set. I burned almost halfway through my beige pencil by the time I was done.

- Ha ha! I've just bought a new beige marker so I can do the interior of spacedock for my August Art Challenge piece