Alien comic images

The excitement (and disappointment) around the release of Prometheus reminded me of some old artwork I made many years ago for an Aliens fanzine called Dropship. I did a couple of covers and some interior art, all black and white pen and ink drawings.

It terrifies me to realise I did these almost 20 years ago!

This first one was a cover image, and I remember enjoying doing it at the time. I always tried hard to make the black areas work, to give some shape and form to the characters. It was only weeks later that I realised I’d missed off the tail! How did that happen?

I tried to correct that on this second image, but still missed off the alien’s horns/spikes that run up its back. I was still learning about the alien’s anatomy and, in my defense, reference was pretty thin on the ground. I was trying to suggest an intelligence by putting the marine’s pulse rifle in the alien’s hand. The pose is quite balletic for an alien, but I enjoyed it, and this is porbably my favourite of these three. I don’t think I had the patience for the stipple effect in the background.

This third one is my least favorite, but at least its got all the right bits on – tail, horns etc. Its the pose that bothers me, its just not sinister or dynamic enough. We can’t tell if the alien is going to rip our throat out of sing to us. But I had fun doing those light shafts in the background, so it wasn’t all for nothing.

At the time I harboured ambitions to be a comic artist, but got sidetracked into animation instead. I’d still love to do some comic work one day, but the craft has advanced so much in the last two decades that I’d have a lot of catching up to do. I still prefer black & white art over coloured stuff though. I was brought up on black & white comics and I think its much easier to appreciate the artists work that way. Maybe one day I’ll get out the pen, inks and brushes again. Maybe.