No Strip, but have a President

32-Roosevelt
Originally uploaded by xadrian.

I've only got 4 more to go and then they'll all be done. A friend asked why I'm doing this. I didn't and don't have a good answer. I like robots. I like the idea of robots. I like reading about fictional and real life works of automation. Some of my favorite books and movies involved robots.

These drawings weren't meant to me much more than a bit of quick sketching. I've been straying so far from what I loved doing (drawing) that I think I needed to draw as much as I could in a short amount of time. I needed to smell pencil and eraser and develop the calluses on my fingers and see the smudge of the lead again. These pictures are #2 pencil on 5x8 index cards and that's it; no photoshop, no brushes or inks. It was very simple and very refreshing.

Admittedly I know little about engineering or physics or robots. The machine leaders-of-men I've made follow less a practical emphasis and more an aesthetic composition. The bits of metal follow the form of the face, the shape of the metal doesn't dictate how the face is made. For each of these I quickly found the distinctive facial tricks and just lumped some rivets and creases into place. The hardest ones took maybe a half an hour.

I guess I did it to remind myself that after all the weird and mostly failed attempts in other media, I still have the ability to both draw what I see and be a bit creative in the process. I'm still good with a pencil. I quote The Princess Bride, "...when a job went wrong, you went back to the beginning."

The art show is next week, I'll be done with these by Wednesday. For Friday I'll have another 6 panel strip up for you three.

Go Rockies!