Gender's Game by Orson Scott Card: Sketchbook Friday

This week's sketch was inspired by a band called Speaker for the Dead which is a Big Queer and Allied Brasspunk Clusterfolk! The name of the band was inspired partially by Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game sci-fi novels. Specifically a sequel called Speaker for the Dead.

The purposely ironic thing about naming a queer band after an Orson Scott Card book, is that the author Orson Scott Card himself is openly a homophobic person, you can read about it on-line if you are interested, here is an article to get you started (http://www.salon.com/2013/05/07/sci_fi_icon_orson_scott_card_hates_fan_fiction_the_homosexual_agenda_partner/). Meanwhile, Orson Scott Card's science fiction books are quite good and have been some of my favorite books growing up and I personally was surprised to hear Card's opposition to homosexuals and it did put a sour taste on some of my favorite books. I got to talk with Speaker for the Dead's (the band) lead singer Greg McKillop about this and it made me think about a changing the name of Orson Scott Card's most popular book (and my favorite) Ender's Game to Gender's Game. I thought this was clever.

Speaker for the Dead (the band) is an inspiring group (sometimes over 15 performers at a time) of artists, performers, musicians who always put on an incredible show and worth spreading the word about! Greg McKillop is incredible on vocals, writing songs and playing music. Usually their performances meander with great energy into the streets or take over the alleys, sidewalks and parking lots surrounding the initial venue and it seems like the crowd ends up in the band by the end of the show. The energy is palpable. It should be noted that I have actually never been to one of their shows, but I have heard epic stories first hand and also watched videos and seen pictures. The music and lyrics themselves are also incredible:

Speaker for the Dead available on Bandcamp

All this information and I almost forgot this was a Sketchbook Friday post. I almost forgot to mention Googy Logan. He's quite a character. The breast feeding Sitar player was an early sketch for a modern god of creativity Saraswati. A project that is still in the works. If you look closely you can find Ryback the WWE wrestler in there and an ankle injury being blamed on god. The sketch page was also a vehicle for me to try out some unusual action poses too. But, really, if you are to take anything away from today's post, I think you should go check out Speaker for the Dead (the band).

Each Friday at noon I scan in one new sketch or drawing from one of my many sketchbooks. You can find information about buying artwork, webcomics, performance art, miniature art hunts and new projects on my fine art website William Hessian dot com. Also like me on Facebook, or as projects right here on my Bearded Bunny art blog. If you enjoy these sketches make sure to also see all of the sketchbook friday posts.

Logan's Run Vs The Running Man: Sketchbook Friday

This is a collaborative drawing done with artist Kenny Hodgkins. We drew this image in the community room together while discussing science fiction films like Logan's Run and The Running Man. I was particularly interested in discussing Stephen King's science fiction persona, as the author of Running Man and the similarities/ difference between the book and the movie. Logan's Run story line was also discussed, where a world existed where you were only allowed to live 30 years and then you were hunted down. Personally, I think both movies have a great story line, both came from great books, and both explore a future that is quite grim but seemingly possible. Especially as we look at our own world in 2014, I can see so many scary similarities between the Running Man scenario where the media lies to the public in order to create a good story and innocent heroes are thrust into a deadly game show for the sheeple population to cheer and bet on. I can also see a one world government scenerio where overpopulation is solved by eliminating anyone over the age of 30 and even doing it a nation apart with unmanned drones. Science fiction quickly becomes reality...we are the authors of our own future. What page do we turn?


Each Friday at noon I scan in one new sketch or drawing from one of my many sketchbooks. You can find information about buying artwork, webcomics, performance art, miniature art hunts and new projects on my fine art website William Hessian dot com. Also like me on Facebook, or as projects right here on my Bearded Bunny art blog. If you enjoy these sketches make sure to also see all of the sketchbook friday posts.

PBL ROBOTS: The Ultimate Robot Card Game

The robot card game that lets you build the ultimate robot and destroy your opponent. Pro Bionics League Robots is the culmination of all competition. In the future technology has surpassed athletics and sports are a test of the mind. This dice/card game forces starts you and your opponent(s) with a base robot that you upgrade with new armor during the battle, you hire crew, build hangers, you contact new pilots and play action cards and then make attacks to blow off limbs of the challenging robots. 

http://www.pblrobots.com

https://twitter.com/pbl_robots

https://www.facebook.com/pages/PBL-Robots/1424908744390609

 The beginning of the game involves a simple draft circuit where you begin to pool your resources and then begin to make moves and actions to put yourself in the best position to make attacks and defenses by rolling dice. Above you can see a buff hanger which gives your robot an attack boost during the game and allows two crew members to enter the game. 

Action cards have various instant effects that can change the outcome of the game. The art seen above is for the card, "COMMABACK" which allows you to draw three cards after one of your Robot's limb is blown off. 

 Maxine Trinidad, Trace Law, Shero, and Pelpe Derdae make up some of the games most popular characters. In the background you can see one version of a robot you can build during a typical game of PBL ROBOTS.

 Each body part has upgrades of different levels and powers. The AracnaClaws are a level 3 head armor designed by crew member Tormax, fusing spider DNA with robot parts. His designs are a controversial addition to the league, but such popular and powerful designs have slowly made acceptance into the league over the years. Tormax may be one of the most bizarre characters on the PBL ROBOTS roster, but it is no doubt his ideas may be the future of the sport.

 Artwork of a PBL ROBOT in the middle of the game with many level one and level two upgrades making an attack. The Yahtzee Bazooka is the current shoulder weapon, which provides an additional attack after each combat. You can also see the pilot pit in the center of the robot. The real question is, what will this attack be? What did they roll?

The game itself was invented by William Hessian in 2001 and spent 10 years being developed and play-tested until William play-tested the game in 2013 with another Hidden Ladder Collective artist John Supinski. Directly after the game John made a comical bet that he gain control of the game with a role of a 7. A seven was rolled. The fate of die roll was meant to be, and William Hessian began a partnership with John Supinski in a deal that resurrected PBL ROBOTS into full gear. The die roll was like an epico beam that has blasted the game towards completion. William and John have also played each other 100 times and keep a running tally of their current score against each other.

The final artwork for this introduction to PBL ROBOTS: the ultimate robot card game is crew member Soda Fats! He gives you a larger card size and the ability to boost your attack and he constantly yells, "HOT DOGS FOR LIFE!"

Follow PBL ROBOTS as we work towards a North America release and kickstarter campaign:

http://www.pblrobots.com

https://twitter.com/pbl_robots

https://www.facebook.com/pages/PBL-Robots/1424908744390609

A Traveler in Discarnia

Check out Greg McKillop's new book (i helped with the cover art): "A Traveler in Discarnia". Greg is a musician, writer, poet (and probably a lot of other things) and he asked me to create a cover for his book. Upon hearing his description of the book I was more than excited to come up with something for him. The story is about the gap of time between death and afterlife. A city where your soul gets to hang out while all the processing is taking place. You can order it for $10 at www.gregorymckillop.bandcamp.com!

 

Sketchbook Friday: Sky Hawk City

Once in a while, when I am teaching a group of kids, they will begin to draw things that I think are a little inappropriate or in bad taste. Having been one of the kids that drew inappropriate things as a child myself, I know that anything someone told me NOT to draw is what I wanted to draw. Therefore, my strategy as a teacher is to instead sit down next to the kids and draw something that changes what they are interested in drawing. For instance, the kids drawing body soldiers being shot up by machines say my quick sketch (shown above) and decided to start drawing pictures of spaceships and cities floating in space. I told them this elaborate story of how anyone who broke the law in this space city was sent to video game jail. The prisoners were forced to play a video game, which they didnt realize was actually flying police drones around the city arresting other people. So prisoners were arresting more prisoners and forcing each other into a slave system. The one who play the game the best get to help fly the entire city through space and whenever the spaceship meets an enemy ship they can let the prisoner controlled drones out and let the 24 hour a day video game players shoot up other ships with ease. In the end, I wondered if my own sketch was just another one of those drawings that someone else was supposed to tell me not to draw, especially around kids. Eh, either way....the kids loved it!

Each Friday at noon I scan in one new sketch or drawing from one of my many sketchbooks. Many times my sketches are ideas for larger projects that you might find on my fine art website William Hessian dot com, or as projects right here on my Bearded Bunny art blog. If you enjoy these sketches make sure to also see my Favorite 20 sketches from 2011 or go back and check out all of the sketchbook friday posts.

If you want to own some of my work, you can always find great deals on my artwork and stickers at my Etsy shop. Do not forget to subscribe to my blog and never miss another post.

Another Realm: SEED

a page from a graphic novel I had been working on, called Seed. i have been trying to find a place to publish my four page graphic novel, in its current form. Either way, here is one of the pages.

I used markers, micron pens and a little colored pencils.

2nd earth webcomic mini series

The second earth series, was an idea for a webcomic set on a floating (death star) like structure called 2nd earth. It took place far in the future after our natural earth has been destroyed. The main character wakes up from an advanced cryogenic freeze to be implemented in a suicide bomber mission, his frozen body was sold like many others trapped in cryogenic freeze chambers. The ancient humans waking up from the freeze are far less valued and under developed and treated as slaves. Thus, why they are unfrozen and subjected into a death upon a ship of technologies that do not make sense to the simplistic modern mind of the 21st century human.

These four comics are as far as I am going with the series at the time being. The concept with these webcomics was to have each page have movement, flickering lights, slight animations to make the comic feel a little different than others.

I still plan to write a science fiction graphic novel at some point, and this short series gives me some practice for such a venture later in my life.

Art must create the future

After 26 years of developing my craft as an artist, and learning about this world, I have decided that art must create the future. In the past, art had to develop through a competition with nature to create reality which ended with the invention of photography, shortly after art became a race to break the rules: to break down what art is and redefine what art can be; and art had always and still remains to be a personal expression of the artist. Given the modern world, art must now lead the way and literally create the solutions to the world's problems.

Art that creates the future can and will save the world. Art must influence science, art may need to become science itself. Artists must not simply be reacting to problems on a visual or emotional scale but must have practical and realistic implications. Art must literally create the future. A lot of my attention as an artist will be focused from now on, on the idea of the advancement of the human race and the betterment of our society. It needs not be political, but needs to address some of the issues that are under the political umbrella.

In the next few weeks I will be publishing a series of crude, but important, sketches dealing with renewable energy, free energy, solar cells, pay structures and other relevant subjects. My goal is to raise awareness of art as the solution to problems, or at least act as gateway to spark conversations that need to be taking place.

I feel that more artists' need to get on this concept. Not just visual artists, but writers, musicians, filmmakers and poets as well. I am inspired by works by contemporary artist Matthew Richie, Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok (i strongly suggest you google their names). I will also be researching and revealing other artists and artworks that are predicting and creating the future with their art. I have been inspired, by Google Presentations on youtube and the TED conference, which features lectures by a variety of people on a variety of subjects that effect the world. Science and art must be interlinked in order for the betterment of the human race, I came about this concept based on the TV series Connection by James Burke, which changed the way I interact and respond to the world around me.

I am looking to find other people who are looking to the artists to shape the future, and looking to find artists who are trying to accomplish this same goal with their own artwork. Please leave a comment with links to anything you think pertains to this topic, because I would love to see it, as would most readers of my art blog. Stay tuned to my blog to see works by me, and works by other great artists for our future.

We could all use more police weapons

I do not advocate weapons or violence. In fact, I would advocate the exact opposite. One of my least favorite people was my college roommate who was a criminal justice major. Yet surefire, a company that sells police products has a few neat things. Aside from the knifes and other weapons, they have a cool arrangement of LED flashlights for helmets, car mounts, vest lights and hand held lights. I personally have an affinity for these LED flashlights. I hate, but understand the importance, of those flood lights, and they also sell those.

While the implications of law enforcement weapons can turn some people, i happen to always enjoying seeing the best products used by this department because it shows you what technilogical advancements have been made in this modern day. These very light, very small, portable LED Flashlights are also extremely bright & long lasting. A small accomplishment for us, and leading us into new modern technologies in the field of lights.

I really plan to use small LED lights for my solar robots, and possibly sock creatures I have been creating and therefore my research in this area is important to me. I have no idea if any military, law enforcement, security or criminal justice majors have ever read my art blog, I would assume there has been one or two, so this post might only appeal to the select few in that regard. However, I think everyone is interested in the future and which way we as a nation, or race are going is a fascinating subject to think about. The products on surefire seem to reflect the science fiction that has become science fact, just like the cell phone or the internet. Now if only we can hurry on to robots and flying cars I will start getting REALLY excited.

I will be posting more about my solar robots and sock creatures in the near future.