Firebird's Sketch of the Week Series

[Kamen Rider Blade]

This Sketch of the Week ended up turning into one of my favorites, as it continues to build upon my Eva-Trek concept. Also was another long session of work, done as a single 8-hour from start-to-finish mainly since I just couldn't stop myself once I kicked off working.

FILE PHOTO, STARDATE 48543.2:
Lieutenant J.G. Asuka L. Soryu argues with Acting Ensign Shinji Ikari as Chief of Ops Lt. Commander Misato Katsuragi looks on, moments before the first sortie against the classified lifeform code named “Israfel.”

Approximately 2 hours after this photo was taken, the USS NERV’s First Officer, Cmdr. Kozo Fuyutsuki lectured pilots Ikari & Soryu on the steep amounts of gold-pressed latinum charged by the Ferengi Science Fleet to remap portions of the Beta Quadrant following an incident in battle “too embarrassing to be noted in the ship’s log.”

As a bonus to this drawing, I also took some time during this session to draft up a concept of a Starfleet-issue Evangelion entry plug, and I think I'm happy with how I melded the Sternbach aesthetics of the shuttlepod cockpit with an Evangelion:

(Please ignore the obvious issues with perspective and the control console looking weirdly askew)

The holographic UI reminds me of Nena Trinity & Gundam 00's holographic UI.

Having the transparent background makes looking at the images difficult IRL.
Even Gundam 00 bothered to put a Opaque background so that your floating UI is easily viewable like a regular screen and have the background of your floating window be a simple Opaque color to match the windowed color themes is easy enough to pull off and be logical and consistent with IRL Windowed UI.

 

[Firebird]

The holographic UI reminds me of Nena Trinity & Gundam 00's holographic UI.

Having the transparent background makes looking at the images difficult IRL.
Even Gundam 00 bothered to put a Opaque background so that your floating UI is easily viewable like a regular screen and have the background of your floating window be a simple Opaque color to match the windowed color themes is easy enough to pull off and be logical and consistent with IRL Windowed UI.

The way I figure it is that the holographic communications displays acts in a similar way to a one-way mirror. For the pilot, the image would appear opaque as to eliminate visual background noise and make it simple for the pilot to pay attention. For an observer in a position as in my drawing, the communication window is transparent. Admittedly, this wasn't initially on my mind when I first sketched it (the transparent way I did it worked better visually), but you got me thinking about it now...

Expanding further, I think a Starfleet-made Evangelion unit would primarily utilize the main display screen for communications in pre-flight and non-critical situations. Once the mission has begun, the holographic displays would be automatically engaged for any video communications so that the pilot's attention would be mainly focused on the external visual sensors. The displays would be used for projecting images only, and probably wouldn't be operable via hand-motions, in order to keep the tech consistent with the DS9 season 3/4 era I'm setting the comic in (also also accounting for the budgetary impossibility to do that with special effects on a TV series in the mid-90s). You'd still have to use the main control panel to open/close a channel, much like I drew Shinji about to do in order to stop Asuka's yelling from blowing out his eardrums.

Delving into some other design considerations of the Evangelion-class now: Since it's established that the synchronization with an EVA makes all control done via thought and the joysticks are mainly backups, I decided to give the Starfleet entry plug a standard LCARS panel without any control sticks. A pilot would move and operate the EVA and thereby any external weaponry with their thoughts, and the control panel operates thrusters/impulse drive, internal defense systems, communications, and other auxiliary systems.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I was thinking more of Gundam 00 / Martian Successor Nadesico.

Where you can arbitrarily move the Windows / Re-Size / Close the Floating Holographic Window at your whim.

The only difference is that the back ground isn't transparent. The Back is opaque so that the intended viewer doesn't see through the screen due to transparency and make the screen harder to interpret.

Trying to do a one-way mirror effect with floating holographic UI seems like a unnecessarily difficult problem to solve and not worth the effort.

 

[Firebird]

Decided to keep things on the Trek path for today's bonus Sketch of the Week with the cast of Lower Decks:

 

[Hawku]

Nice! Just finished watching the new episode.

 

[Firebird]

One again, I return to my EVA-Trek project for today's sketch, which set a new record for time spent working on it. I lost track after the ninth hour or so... We now present a group photo of the EVA pilots assigned to the USS NERV: Shinji, Rei, Asuka, Kaworu, and (breaking from canon a bit) Kensuke:

This would take place in the latter half of the story, once they've changed into the new DS9/VGR-era jumpsuits. I gotta say I thoroughly enjoy drawing said jumpsuits, but I despised having to color them. My poor dark gray pencil took a beating to finish everyone's new threads, but they look pretty snazzy.

Also, those type-6 shuttlecraft are similarly annoying to color. I initially tried to keep to the color palette from the actual set, but that would've been a little too monochromatic and would've burned out my dark warm gray before I finished. I finally gave up coloring by the time I got down to the engine nacelles, mainly because I was tired, and also because they aren't the focus of the drawing anyways.

 

[publiusr]

Now this one just pops!

 

[Firebird]

Forgot to post this sketch when I drew it last week. Decided to have a little fun with a self-portrait, and did it in the style of an animator's reference sheet for an anime:

 

[Cyfa]

These are great! What or who are you yelling at in the last image?

 

[Firebird]

These are great! What or who are you yelling at in the last image?

Probably myself for taking so much time to finish my drawings lately.

 

[Firebird]

Well, last night I got started on sketching rough layouts for my EVA-Trek one-shot manga and ended up getting 4 pages laid out after a couple hours, so things are off to a good start. Here's a little glimpse at the sketch for a scene between Misato and Pen-Pen, who only ever speaks in varying versions of "Wark," as is tradition in a lot of Evangelion fan works, though the universal translator still doesn't seem to understand Hot-Water Penguinese.

And now I can add "penguin side-eye" to things I never thought I'd need to draw, yet have found a reason to.

 

[publiusr]

Frobisher's pal.

 

[Firebird]

A bit of an unusual Sketch of the Week post today in that there are actually two new drawings to post! I got on a bit of a roll after finishing this first piece last night and before I knew it, I went headfirst into a second sketch.

So, drawing number 1 for the day (SotW #62, 2021 artwork #76) is a tribute to 20 years of Scrubs, featuring Turk and JD's EAAAAAAAGLE:

 

[Firebird]

Drawing number 2 for the day (SotW #63, 2021 artwork #77) dips back into my EVA-Trek project with a "cast photo" of Chief Science Officer of the USS NERV, Dr. Ritsuko Akagi:

 

[Firebird]

Seems I'm on a bit of a roll this week, with one more EVA-Trek drawing dropping tonight (SotW #64, 2021 artwork #78). Since I drew Ritsuko yesterday, it seemed only natural that I would follow that up with her kouhai, Lt. Maya Ibuki.

 

[Firebird]

I guess I'm not going to stop doing these portraits until I drop dead from exhaustion, so here's SotW #65 / 2021 Artwork #79: magnificent bastard, master manipulator, father of the year, captain of the starship, Gendo Ikari:

You gotta love that Picardigan, even though it's a bitch to try to replicate that red suede look. And I know that Starfleet uniforms don't have pockets, but it's Gendo, somehow he finds a way.

 

[Firebird]

Completed this one (SotW #66 / 2021 Artwork #80) late last night, and I think I finally hit my physical limit after doing 5 full-color drawings in the last 4 days. After this, I'm resting for the next couple days before it comes time to do Sunday's sketch.

So, here we've got Ensign Ayanami demonstrating the new Starfleet-issue plugsuit for use with the Evangelion-class Mobile Units. This was a chance to finally nail down all the little details of the EVA-Trek plugsuit after the last couple attempts at rough sketches, and I think I like where I've settled with the design.

 

[Cyfa]

Picardigan

- I've never heard it called that before. What a great portmanteau!

 

[Hawku]

These are great. I especially like your posing, wrinkles and messy hair in Dr. Ritsuko. There's a good balance in this one.

 

[Firebird]

There was a bit of a long road getting to today's SotW (#67 / 2021 Artwork #81). I'd initially planned on doing the below drawing, but then I got a wave of inspiration of what might happen if Q showed up to mess with the EVA-Trek cast? I spent about an hour trying to adapt John de Lancie's face into the artstyle of Evangelion and it just wasn't working, so I switched back to my first concept.

Today's sketch shows that certain scenes in Eva are guaranteed to play out in every permutation of its multiverse, such as the infamous long elevator scene between Rei and Asuka.

All that warm dark grey blew through about a third of the pencil by the time it was all finished. The fun of drawing 90's TNG sets strikes again!

These are great. I especially like your posing, wrinkles and messy hair in Dr. Ritsuko. There's a good balance in this one.

I gotta give credit where it's due - her pose in that one, along with the other 3 cast portraits, are actually based on some production artwork in one of the published Groundworks books that were published in the 90's.

- I've never heard it called that before. What a great portmanteau!

I thought that was a pretty well-known term for it! I've heard it a lot on the Star Trek: The Next Conversation podcast, so maybe that's where I picked it up from.