First Contact

"Mission log: July 21st, 2247. Day fourteen of expedition. I have finally discovered and made tentative first contact with a native life form. I attempted the standard recommended greetings with the subject but its response was inconclusive. Subject stared at me for several minutes before relieving itself on my helmet and fluttering away."

This is another one of those drawings that I thought was going to be simple but just went on and on. Every time I thought I was done I'd see a little detail that I forgot to add or color. I seem to have trouble in that regard; estimating how long a project is going to take. I always start with these simple little sketches that end up turning into epic productions. 

Then I kept fiddling with the background colors, trying to pick ones that would contrast with the astronaut without totally overpowering him. I finally settled on a color scheme I could live with, but it was a struggle

First Contact was drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

Here's the original sketchbook doodle I did of the astronaut and his alien discovery.

And here's the tighter digital sketch I did. I wasn't happy with the astronaut's odd looking head in the original drawing so I changed it quite a bit in the final.

While working on this drawing, Photoshop claimed the file was 395 meg in size. Wow! That's pretty big; most of my files hover around 200 meg or less.

That got me to thinking about file sizes and storage devices and how far we've come in a short time. Look at the ad above from the early 2000s. It's for a flash drive that holds a whopping 256 meg! My little drawing here wouldn't even have fit on the ferkakta thing! And it was available for the everyday low price of only $149.95! What a steal!