Here’s a rough ballpoint pen sketch from one of my sketchbooks. A sketch for me is kind of like going to the gym for a workout. I’m not exactly trying to produce a masterpiece but rather stretch boundaries and put ideas to paper. Ideas you have in your head look one way but sometimes don’t come out as planned on paper or digital canvas so sketching is how I try out something to see if it'll work. In the case of these ballpoint pen sketches, it’s more a basic practice of can my hand recreate what my eyes can see. It’s fun to just sit down and look at some cool gun content and let artistic hands scribble away. For me, it’s cathartic. I enjoy the Line aesthetic as well.

You might recognize some of these guys from the interwebs. They are from left to right: Arron Cowan of @sagedynamics, Army SF secret squirrel guy Zach @man_in_a_tree, Drew Hopkins @drewhopkins from Trexarms, and the talking balaclava @administrativeresults

No one can hear you scream in the vacuum of space.

Until you key your coms, I guess.

There’s a new sect of AKs out in the wild now that many colloquially call “Space AKs”. These AKs are kind of like the 21st century - updated rails, handguards, stocks allowing the integration of modern optics, red dots, IR lasers, and weapon lights. I’ve seen all kinds of modern AKs on the interwebs, but the coolest are @Administrativeresults and @bandito_bill Space AKs. So, I’ve featured them in one of my newest illustrations. Their builds were my inspiration for this Cosmonaut with AKs extravaganza. I gave the pair of them some space MMU so they can maneuver around space as they battle.

It occurred to me at the end of this illustration that a standard semi-auto rifle wouldn’t be the most efficient gun. In a zero-gravity environment, it would always be pushing you back when fired. Perhaps a recoilless system or counterbalance gun like the AN-94 would be a better candidate for this role?

Let me know what yall think in the comments.

Illustrated with Adobe Photoshop on my Wacom Cintiq. Below I will show a bit of work in progress, some images I gathered of various stages while creating this piece. As an artist, I always find the process of how someone creates just as enjoyable as the finished work. Enjoy.

I kind of flew through the beginning of this one so yall will miss the linework and base colors and basic shadows but this was pretty early on with Administrativeresults. I knew from the get go I wanted to play with some fireballs from that AK slant brake.

Bandito_bill all lined in with some flat color and just a few basic shadows.

Working on trying to color out some of the hard dark lines on Bandito. His helmet design changes a few times before the end as well.

At this point I knew I needed to put some more thought into the lighting so that meant I needed to work on the background.

Added some nebulas looking colorful masses and kind of used those as a color guide for some subtle highlights with light green on the left and blue from the viewer’s perspective and the light from the muzzle blast on the right of course.

Finally, just some little detail changes mostly to Bandito to make him look more like him and finishing highlights and the piece really jumps out.