Crop from "Aliens" for Wired Magazine, Art Direction Alice Cho, line art in Manga Studio, colour in Photoshop
Just as I was about to leave the house for bonfire night fireworks (yes, it was that long ago but I wasn't allowed to post until now) I was contacted by Alice Cho at Wired magazine. She commissioned me to illustrate four films, due to come out in 2011, that feature alien invasions. The films were World Invasion: Battle LA, The Thing, Paul and Cowboys & Aliens. The catch, aside from trying to fit all these films into one image, was that most of these movie's hadn't even released a publicity shot.
Reference for "Aliens"
I scavenged what reference imagery I could and produced three roughs, mainly playing off and thusly becoming a little homage to the overhead ship composition from the Cowboys & Aliens cover by (I think) Luciano Lima.
Initial roughs for "Aliens", drawn & coloured in Manga Studio
At this point the copy got cut down to only three movies (loosing the remake of The Thing) so I was asked to redraft version 3, adding in Paul from version 2 and a larger cowboy behind him to create the new rough below.
Final rough for "Aliens", drawn in Manga Studio
Final art for "Aliens", line art in Manga Studio, colour in Photoshop.
Have a great week!
