Bots, Books, and Beginnings

For a while there were rumblings and rumors that DRE had notions of turning Robots of the Company into a book – a real book, a proper novel, even, with dialogue and descriptions and subplots and other such booky features. I’m not entirely sure where this idea originated but somehow the project wound up in the hands of my friend and frequent collaborator, Victor Alpha.

Victor is an incredibly talented writer who amazingly manages to juggle writing duties on a number of projects and audio series, including the wonderfully odd and silly Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes. Plus, I am led to believe he is actually James Bond when he is not writing a half-dozen scripts at the demand of his Whiteboard Taskmaster or catering to the imperious whims of his cat.

I could not and cannot think of anyone better suited to writing the ROTC novel.

Much of the book would be written in the madness that was NaNoWriMo of 2007 and I would not get to see it until it was completed. However, I jumped at the chance for a sneak preview when I learned that Victor had already completed a prologue for the novel, a short standalone story written to set the tone.

Reading this prologue, I was utterly charmed by the tale of the lonely little robot and was quickly inspired to do some scribbly sketches to accompany the text.

Before I knew it, I was illustrating the whole prologue. It was just too much fun adding extra layers of absurdity!

I’m not ashamed to admit that I particularly enjoyed drawing the scene below. I mean, how often does one get to draw a robot talking to a plus-sized space-suited social worker, surrounded by a sky of flames?

Not nearly often enough, I say.

I especially like the pearls.

One day, I hope that this prologue and/or the full novel actually gets published.

Until then, I am perfectly happy to keep doing goofy drawings to go along with the work of a writer who always manages to make me laugh.

Thanks for the inspiration, Victor!

On Radio and Robots

It would appear that my goal of updating this blog on a weekly basis was perhaps a bit overambitious.

Life-related craziness and technological fickleness seem to conspire against timely blogging. These last few weeks have been particularly marked by the demise of my main home computer – the machine on which I created and stored most of my projects from the last five years. Thankfully most if not all of my work has been backed up. However, thanks to the inexplicable way my computer area was set up, this now means that my scanner is inextricably hooked up to a large metal doorstop and will be inaccessible for the indeterminate future.

So, until things are back up and running, it looks like posts will have to be based on whatever I have saved to my laptop.

I suppose for now that means robots. People like robots, right?

Sometime around 2004-2005, I joined an online audio drama group called Dream Realm Enterprises. The flagship series for the group was a strange and silly science-fiction comedy program called Robotz of the Company, which was broadcast online and on a few independently-run radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. In the early days of the series (i.e. when I had more time), I wore many hats in the production process, acting as script editor and casting consultant, as well as occasionally penning an episode or voicing a character.

As the series wrapped up its second season, it seemed like it might be helpful for the writers and producers to have a shared mental image of what the different characters were like. Based on what I imagined from the performances, scripts, production notes, and chats with the production staff, I worked up some concept sketches for characters in the show (all robots) and ideas for other bots which might one day exist in the series’ universe.

These sketches include several miscellaneous designs, as well as ideas for featured characters and series regulars such as Boffin the cockney engineer, Maxi the walking, talking button of unknown purpose, Captain Jammer, and Shinwipe, the administrative bot.

In truth, no one ever asked for these drawings. I just wanted an excuse to doodle the characters.

Does it count as fan art if it’s based on a project you’re involved with?

More on these bots in future entries…