Lee's Artlog

2010- In the original series “Farscape”, Crais redeems himself at the end of his character arc by committing suicide with his bonded and crippled ship. They decided to ‘jump’ the sentient ship Crais was bonded to inside a battle cruiser, thus causing their death and imploding the latter. At the last moments of Crais’ life the screen goes to white and the ship disappears and is thought to have imploded.  Fast forward 10+ years later to the events of Farspace. It appears that Crais and the sentient hybrid leviathan gunship Talyn have survived,- well sort of. Crais is now more of a cadaver than anything else. He’s in a coma, but Talyn utilizes him as a marionette to communicate to and with the crew. The ship does so that the crew feels more comfortable dealing with it, but really the crew thinks its creepy.

Crais hasn’t walked for years, so his legs are atrophied to a point where there is a signifigant difference in his upper and lower torso. He is connected directly to the ship (Talyn) and the ship has made numerous alterations for connections to him so that it can monitor him and provide him with sustenance and basic needs. The ship needs the comatose Crais as much as he needs it and while the relationship seems symbiotic, it becomes more apparent later that it is really more of a parasitic situation with the ship unable to let go of him and move on. The ship works in trial and error attempting to keep him alive, not understanding the fragility of the human body. Long exposure to the wrong ultraviolet spectrum has purpled his skin and the majority of his body is covered in RCA style ports for quick diagnostic.

The original color of Crais’ skin is more purple and this subtle color change may be due to web registration. I used the same strategy as I did on Crichton and once again went for a Mike Mignola style.

2010- I took Inventive Character at Art Center College of Design during the Summer term of the year. I was a big fan of the Sci Fi/ Jim Henson epic Farscape and wanted to do a reimagining of the series. While initially my instructor hesitated at first, he embraced the idea once I had fleshed out the storyline and universe, making sure to walk a fine line of preserving the legacy of the original series while going in a completely different direction.  The easiest way to allow for this was to have the series take place 10 years after the events of the “Peacekeeper Wars”.

I think this is the final version that I’ll do of the main protagonist John Crichton. He’s much more troubled than before. His son is dead and his wife has left him and re-enlisted with the Peacekeeper force. Worse is the fact that the Scarrans are still in hot pursuit of John to get the location of Earth where the flower that sustains the Scarrans evolutionary stability is found. To complicate matters, an arch rival of his had procured his DNA and manufactured another child with their combined DNAs trying to recreate wormhole technology. Crichton is on the run again, and initially lacks a surviving motivation other than the desire to be left alone. A band of former friends and ‘limited associates’ from the original series ‘rescue’ him. From there the chase is on. I guess if I was to manage over the series, I’d look into the idea of rediscovery and rebirth as an overarching theme.

I emulated the artist Mike Mignola throughout this project and wanted to duplicate his passion for charting in blacks and his colorist’s muted style. I dove into the character creation by creating pages upon pages of silhouettes and then went for there. After I had decided on the general shape, I then figured out an action pose and tried to figure out some motivating background elements. The initial drawing is done in ink on tracing paper and then brought into Photoshop for considerable collaging, coloring, and enhancement.