Big Boss BMX Design Process

Here's my second drawing of the new Big Boss Robot. This time he's on a bike. Just drawing this bike angle is tough. I learned that it's hard to figure out how far to draw the bike tires from each other. It's easy to make them too far apart. It took a bunch of tries to get there.

After the sketch, it was time to get on the computer. I drew this one fast and it looks horrible. The flag? Forget it. Abandon the flag!

This version is looking better since there's actually dimension to the bike. It's a bit boring. I did enjoy making the number plate. 94 is the year GR started. Yes that's 24 years ago! 

I leaned the bike over to make it look like Big Boss is in a turn, but really it looks like a weak turn. It's better than the upright riding version, but it wasn't enough.

I got the suggestion from Jason Teraoka @44tooth to make the leg stick out. He sent me this as a reference. 

Drawing the foot is tough. That's all I got out of it. The first version had the toe up. It's what you would do to perhaps slow down. You'd use your foot and maybe the heel to protect your toes which might stab into the ground and fuck you up. 

This was difficult to depict. How do you make the leg look like it's sticking out and maybe a bit forward? You do have the exaggerate everything or else it doesn't work. Then artist Linnea Strid suggested the bent leg and the toe method. I tried that from her sketch.

I sent this version to a couple folks who thought the robot was stationary and the foot was balancing the bike up. No! This robot is in motion! It's an action shot. 

I ended with this version. Ryuko Ozawa came up with the dust idea and that worked! I also forgot to mention that I turned the head into a BMX helmet and added some elbow pads. The robot is leaning in just that little bit. I'm sure there's more that could be done and we'll see if that happens, but for now this is where I'm leaving it.

Thanks for checking out the work process that got me to the end. It took a few days.