The Space Mariner

Here's a little madlib for you, “The Illustrator’s Lament”:

No matter how many ( cool objects, people, or scenarios ) I draw, I will still be a ( self adjective ) ( self noun ) who will never ( fanciful action ).

For instance:

No matter how many tough lady space marines I draw, I will still be a cautious nerd who will never fire an interstellar harpoon.

This was just a piece I did for fun, out of my love of sci-fi and awesome ladies. I also used it for a quick Photoshop demo when I was a guest in Sam's advanced digital illustration class (which I will be teaching next semester!)

I used a lot of clipping masks in this for many of the textures. If you want to see how I do it, I made a walkthrough post on my tumblr about texture and clipping masks (albeit with a much simpler image). You can read it here!

My original sketch:

(although looking at it again, I kinda like its simplicity.....ah well!)