Gillborg vs. Minion

I recently saw a trailer for the upcoming movie Megamind, and noticed something familiar about the "Minion" character in the film. He bears more than a passing resemblance to my "Gillborg" character.

Please understand that I'm not suggesting Dreamworks Studios copied my "fish inside a robotic body" idea; by this point in time there are very few new ideas under the sun. I just don't want people seeing my character and thinking I copied from them.

For the record, your honor, I drew and posted Gillborg way back in July of 2009. Here's the sketch I made of him from around that time.

And let the record show that I drew the very first sketch of him waaaay back in November of 1997, back when there were two alien looking fish inside the robotic suit.

Gillborg

This was a character I first started doodling about 10 or 12 years ago. I decided it was time to dust him off and draw him up proper.

I'm not exactly sure why, but this was a tough one! It took forever to draw. I think it was to do with the robotic suit. Normally my characters are fairly loose and organic, but this one had lots of mechanical parts that I felt needed to be more precise.

It took a lot longer than usual to color as well, on a ton of different layers. Most likely because there are so many different materials and textures involved, such as rusty iron, shiny aluminum, transparent glass, translucent water and fishy scales.

I'll never find the time, but some day I'd like to make an action figure of this character. I bet I could find the clear bell jar and the bottom cast iron basin shapes at the hobby store. Not sure how I'd go about making the legs and tentacles though. Or how I'd make the whole thing watertight. It would look cool on a shelf though. Maybe I'll just stick with an illustration.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.



Here's the original sketch of Gillborg. It's pretty much the same as the final drawing, other than changing some of the proportions a bit.



I found the very first sketch I ever drew of Gillborg, ten years or so ago. For some reason I drew two alien looking fish in the tank.