Space Oddity

After making Jim Cookie, I was still in a Star Wars/THX1138-induced fever of wanting to do space-themed images. So while I was working on another image that may or may not pop up on here one day, I came up with something about the first chimp shot into space (in 1961) named Ham.
I found some fantastic photos of Ham with his trainers and closely modeled parts of my image after them. I still managed to mix in some small doses of Jim Cookie with the Luke Skywalker influenced orange jumpsuit.After a marathon inking watching A New Hope and the Empire Strikes Back, I brought the piece into Photoshop, where I moved his eyes so they would look more directly at his captors.
To make arms holding him down more ambiguously alien, I colored them all blue, an obvious contrast to the bright orange jumpsuit.I had a lot of fun playing around with the color and getting in close with all of the little details on the patches, screws and wires.. I think it wound up a fantastic finished piece, especially considering how fast it came together.
Until next time.

--CKL--