So here we go for another week. And in an odd reversal, I didn’t like THIS page until it was totally finished! “Go figger.”
Not much to say about this page storywise, as I think it speaks for itself. Instead I’ll say that it’s the first time I’ve managed to successfully complete a page like this on the road, as I was travelling this whole weekend. It’s also the first time I’ve used a real one-point perspective in a long time, and I was really worried it wouldn’t look right. One-point is not a really great perspective to use, as it distorts really easily. But I found a U.S. Air Force photo of the inside of a C-130 medical transport plane, and that gave me a very good head start. It may seem odd for me to say it (as I am an architect) but I hate drawing interiors. They are a really technical subject, and are hard to pull off convincingly on a tight schedule. This one kind of… well, I wish I’d made a model of it or something first. When I design interiors, like for buildings, they’re the result of several days or weeks of revision, and are usually not drawn in these kinds of tight perspective. I wanted the UNA infirmary here to look much cleaner and more high tech than the Federate field hospital, which was more cluttered and disorderly. So the result was this, very white and sterile, and maybe a little too smooth, but okay overall for the timeframe, I guess.
And by the way, this is Joost Haakman’s long-deferred cameo appearance, in panel one. I have, alas, never met him, and the only thing I had to go on was his self-portrait from his website, so I just kind of had to do my best. I do hope I got close enough to reality. I might have made his hair too light. Ah well.
So anyhow, this is it. I now have the privilege of cleaning up after my cat, who saw fit to punish me for leaving for the weekend – I’ll leave it to your imagination to figure out how. So until next week, be well, folks!
What is wrong with him? It’s not very smart to burst in on operations in progress.
Unless this comic is turning into M.A.S.H., in which case it’s hilarious.
He is clearly not paying attention to such things as aseptic surgical procedures.
Actually, when I had surgery a few years back, my sister came looking for me in the Recovery Room when I got out, and I have to say that, although it was streich verboten, I did deeply appreciate it. I was thinking of that when I drew this page.
–M
It’s “streng verboten”, but who cares? ^^
The only thing which makes me wondder why everyone is always wearing his gun-belt. Personally I found the weight and bulk uncomfortably – especially when seated. :/
Streng Verboten! I stand corrected.
As for the gun, the Browning .50 HIVELOC pistol he’s carrying is very bulky, and it weighs almost four pounds. In my original sketches (smowhere) I had them wearing a complicated underarm harness that I scrapped on advice from a friend of mine who wears one and hates it. Some of these guys also wear a thigh strap to keep the thing from banging around, but sometimes I forget to draw it in, so I’m in the process of retconning it out. On the upside, it gives them all this look of being “ready for combat” that I like so they keep wearing them. And they are, after all, in a combat zone. However unlikely it may be that someone will try to storm their underground base, they have to be ready for anything.
You may be interested to know, or have noticed, that I based the design for the weapon on the PK-D Police Special carried by Rick Deckard in the movie Blade Runner. The pistol carries a slot magazine of eight rounds of .50 HIVELOC Browning Magnum APH-Special ammunition that has an impact capable of defeating powered armor at close ranges, at the expense of extremely high recoil. The weapon can also fire EPS (evaporating plastic sabot) .44 Magnum Standard rounds, which is what most soldiers keep loaded for typical use. The .44 MS can’t break powered armor but will do pretty much anything else. These allow the smaller caliber bullets to move in the larger barrel by spanning the gap with a thin plastic casing that literally vaporizes due to barrel friction by the time the bullet exits the business end. This reduces accuracy but does allow for a much lower recoil and makes the weapon more useful at close ranges.
–M
Hey, hey, I am a medic! And I can definitely see the resemblance. You know my hair is actually not as dark as my self-portrait, it just came out that way when I was painting it.
Hard to say why, but it seemed more “you” to be in the medical bay. Glad it was recognizeable, however barely.
–M
Thought you might be interested in this link re the effects of a nuke on a tank:
http://thebrigade.thechive.com/2011/07/19/centurion-tank-169041-survives-a-nuclear-test-kind-of-funny-story-17-photos/
Spotted on a thread on The Minatures Page:
http://theminiaturespage.com/
Rob
Aside from the random pictures of Hef, a very interesting piece. But see? Mike could SO have done it!
–M