Art by Christopher Carter
Alright! We’re into full redraws now! I’ve shown a couple already but now we’re in the bulk. Again, these pieces use the original basic shapes of the first Jurassic Park arcade vehicle but they have evolved into something wholly different.
This first piece (cover art and above) started at a request from my fourth daughter. She loves board games and wanted to see a board game vehicle. I loved the idea and couldn’t wait to get started. I conceived the idea of constructing every single piece of the vehicle from some kind of board game element. There’s not a single remnant of the original vehicle here, granted I might have stretched a bit with billiards and croquet which might not be boardgames per sé. I just like Billiards and Croquet.
The roof is a carrom board (another favorite game) as indicated by the small hanging green nets and the two small cues protruding from the top. In addition to common games we’re used to here in the states, I also included a variety of games lesser known on this side such as the Shogi piece, the Go board with white and black stones, a card from a Hanafuda card deck, Mancalla, and some Mah-jong tiles. One seat is cribbage board, the other is a slot car track.
The tiny numbers on the roulette wheel and dart board I painted by hand with gouache. My daughter was disappointed so many gambling elements were present. Oh well, can’t win ‘em all. I tried to explain that many gaming elements are used in a number of non-gambling games. The roulette wheel was harder to explain away though.
Blasting out of the chess king “cannon” is a variety of recognizable cards and pawns and whatnot. In the back, piled up, is a variety of board game boxes, some classic, some quite contemporary.
This would not be the first time I’ve drawn an intricately detailed pile of board games. In “Board to Death”, a ballpoint pen drawing I did, we have another pile sans color. With both examples, I used reference pics and attempted to match the box arts exactly. Have fun seeing how many you can recognize.
The 80’s anime “Akira” would be my next target. It was fun taking the famous Nasuko-Cycle and widening it into a two-seater car. I also enjoyed bringing out the shape on just red. That was an interesting challenge akin to the “Kirby and the Forgotten Land” vehicle. This one had sharper edges though. The trademark stickers depicted are actually from the left wheel-fork cover but the stickers on the opposite side are less iconic in my opinion so I cheated a bit and put the decals on the opposite wheel-fork cover.
This next one (above) is another favorite of mine, particularly because my whole family got involved. Each kid drew a cat. Some drew more than one. Even my wife chipped in (Though she insists she can do better and was simply scratching it off quickly because she was busy. I believe it. She is busy and I’ve seen her other artistic endeavors.) I wasn’t concerned with the quality of the kids’ (and wife’s) art work, just so long as it was them doing it. So we have a total of nine cats here. Can you spot them all? No, the one in the tube is not elongated. The black and white cat on the hood is our actual cat, Arwen. The Russian-Blue is my old cat Inga.
This would be one of the last pieces I would do that simply colored into the black sharpie lines, giving it that cartoony look. Except for a couple purposely cartoony examples, I changed my technique after this to be rid of those black lines unless the shadows required them. Keep in mind, I’m not exactly presenting these in the order in which I drew them.
Before we look at the last one today, I want to show you a funny little experiment I did. The following are basically a color test. I printed the original vehicle in this formation and colored them (rather crudely) just to see how they would look. The vehicles were quite small on the page, so coloring them by hand was sloppy. I don’t know that I will ever do full sized versions of these. The novelty of seeing them like this is enough. Though I do have a couple more ideas for these “team” shots.
Finally, we have a big one here. My son suggested an Enchanted Forest version. Enchanted Forest is a theme park just outside of Salem, Oregon. I loved the idea of a huge mobile theme park similar to the mobile cities you might see in the film “Immortal Engines”. This is what I came up with:
Well, just on a whim I sent this to the operators of the Enchanted Forest and they LOVED the artwork. They offered to buy it! They wanted to put it on shirts and stuff. Naturally, I agreed. The wanted to cover up the tank treads though, which made sense to me so I happily accommodated the request.
So now I have much history and connection to this place. My kids love it, my wife worked there, I proposed to her there, there’s an engraved brick in the walkway commemorating that occasion, and I’ve been commissioned for more artwork pertaining to a particular ride. That project is still underway. Exciting!
If you like the design or are a fan of Enchanted Forest, you can get a shirt and many other cool merch at:
https://www.enchantedforest.com
I’ve already encountered a person back in my home town wearing this design. It was so surreal to learn she just bought it and was in no way connected to anyone I knew. Crazy!
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