Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Frank Herbert`s Dune - Sardaukar Speedpainting

Character speedpainting experiment for the Sardaukar. I quite like the mood on this one, but still have to figure out their armor, weapons, etc. properly...

3 comments:

Zaid Alawi said...

I like a lot of your Dune concept work - Arrakis slums, Atreides City Market, and The Baron are notable standouts, with beautiful colors and atmosphere, which also serve well to capture the feel of the Dune universe.

But I feel two works in particular really miss the mark - this one (the Sardaukar) and Harkonnen Battle Droid. While otherwise fine paintings, I feel they are inappropriately named and do not belong in the Dune universe.

I'm assuming you've read the book - if so, you'll know that there are certain limitations in technology ingrained deeply in the society and cultures of Herbert's worlds (the fallout of a distant war with thinking machines). That's why there are no AIs or robots or even computers (their place having been taken by human talent, such as mentats and Spacing Guild navigators).

In your case, thinking, semi-autonomous machines (like a droid operating in the field) or bio-mechanical augmentations beyond a certain primitive, prosthetic level (as in your Sardaukar - assuming he's even merely bio-augmented and not entirely synthetic in the first place) simply have no place in the world of Dune.

Again, they're fine renderings and would certainly do well to stand alone, apart from Herbert's world. Not that there isn't room for deviations when using such source materials as inspiration - as you have done, to great effect, in many of your other Dune pieces. But to label these in particular as being from Herbert's worlds would be akin to rendering a Klingon with a lightsaber - no matter how gorgeous the painting, it would simply be thematically inappropriate and is best left apart from its source material or inspiration.

Looking forward to seeing more Dune concept art (and other original work) from you in the future!

Mark Molnar said...

First of all, thanks for taking the time to write all this down.

Yes, I read the books and I am absolutely aware of these things, but I did not want to limit myself at this early development stage of the process. All these paintings are experiments to establish the overall mood and colors for the illustrations later.

I think the beauty of artistic freedom is that I can re-imagine the world of Dune and I can do a Sardaukar with mechanical implants or a Harkonnen heavy armored exosuit (actually the name `droid` was really misleading, as those are human controlled machines / vehicles), if I want to.

And you know what? I can even do a Klingon with a lightsaber on top of a cylon mothership riding a unicorn, if I feel like it! Wooooo! \(ToT)/

Maaan, I am just having fun, thats all. Don`t be that serious with this stuff... <:)

Guyver said...

Your art is amazing. This dude here reminded me about Erasmus robot!