Digital Painting - "M.U.M. Unit"

I've been terribly distracted lately, and let my blog updates slip...

So I'll try to add a few new articles. Firstly, a few new digital paintings, for the Imagine FX magazine forum competitions. However, unlike the previous two articles, I've done the 'weekly' forum competitions instead of the 'monthly' ones, which have encouraged me to speed up and improve my techniques. Instead of getting bogged down in extraneous detail, they have forced me to make sure I get maximum effect without spending hours over-working something.

The first weekly I tried, was as follows:

Initial Designs

Brief: "Design a MUM system for long range space travel."

Description: "The MUM unit is an automated human incubation and hybernation pod designed for long distance interstellar travel. Each unit holds a single infant in hybernation. As the infant grows to adulthood within the unit, the MUM supplies the subject with sustinance, and provides muscle and brain stimulation (including educating the human as it sleeps). Once the destination has been reached the pod will wake and release the full grown adult, ready to perform his/her duties. Most terra-forming ships contain several hundred MUMs to establish base colonies among the stars (to infinity... and beyond)."

Final design before
digital colouring

As I often do, I started with a few rough pen/marker designs (above). I chose the first design, and in order to complete the task in time, I chose to draw the final version traditionally and only colour it digitally.

My idea, was that each unit would have a self-contained control tower beside it, that not only monitors and controls the growth of the individual, but provides a virtual 'up-bringing', during which the will learn and reach full maturity before arrival at their destination.

For the final image, I coloured and painted it digitally, then gave it a stylised context. As you can see, the result isn't astounding, but it was fun and satisfying.

Final "M.U.M. Unit"

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