Man In Black

No, not Johnny Cash. It's the other type of Man In Black. The one with the aliens and the spying and the black helicopters and the flyable (say it like Jerry Lewis).

Not sure if he's using his ray gun to wipe someone's memory, or eliminate some witnesses, if you know what I mean.

I deliberately made all the colors here very pale and washed out, and then made the ray gun very bright and vibrant so it would pop. Why? Um... because stop asking questions, that's why.

Here's the original pen and ink sketchbook doodle.

And here's the tighter digital sketch. It's pretty close to the final drawing, with the two exceptions. In the final drawing I changed the angle of the ray gun so it's more level, and I enlarged his head quite a bit because the proportions were bugging me. That's one of the advantages of working digitally!

The Man in Black was drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.

SILENCE!

What is it about all these space aliens anywa... [SILENCE!]

Seems like all they ever say to you is... [SILENCE!]

So why do they want it so quiet all the ti... [SILENCE!]

Is it their ears? Are their pointy ears more sensit... [SILENCE!]

Do their education bots not teach that it's rude to interru... [SILENCE!]

OK, OK, don't soil your robe. I'll "silence" myself. Just make sure you keep that probe where I can see it. You ain't gonna do that to me again!

Like most of my illustrations, this one started out as a simple notebook doodle of just the alien's head, and of course grew from there. I liked the drawing, but it just felt kind of meh. It looked a little too much like a high school yearbook portrait.

So I did a digital sketch showing a big more of his robe and his arm raised in a commanding gesture, which I thought had more visual interest.

His sparkly robe went through a wide array of colors, all of which I hated until I finally decided I could live with purple. The sparkles, meant to indicate it's some kind of shiny, sequiny fabric, were a last minute addition. The robe seemed to need something. Not sure if the sparkles are working though, or if I like them. The text at the bottom is hand lettered.

Drawn in Photoshop on the graphic tablet.