Sentient 39 – Dunak

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Part of the premise of the Sentient 39 “universe” is that life, while somewhat plentiful in the galaxy, has actually evolved fairly rarely. Life evolved on a few worlds and then spread out to populate other planets. Usually this was done because some species on a planet evolved intelligence and with intelligence technology. With technology the species is then able to leave its world and colonize others.

This critter is a Dunak. His species is named for the original Dunak, a character in a novel I tried writing in 8th grade. The Dunak in my novel was basically a human in alien drag. He was inspired by both the Frank Kelly Freas cover for Conscience Interplanetary and Michael Whelan’s Little Fuzzy covers. For some reason the alien on the Conscience Interplanetary cover is always blue in my memory so that’s probably why Dunak ended up having blue fur.

Sentient 39 – Female Human

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Honestly I don’t remember if I drew the male human or the female human first. I tried to make them look as generic as possible. Which isn’t really possible since humans have a lot of variety to them. I drew them naked since I planned to draw all the other races (the aliens) without clothes. It seemed to rude to give the humans clothes if their fellow sentients didn’t get them.

Sentient 39 – Male Human

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I like to invent worlds. Ecologies. Cultures. I grew up reading science fiction and fantasy. It seems like the thing to do.

I’ve ended up with a number of different “universes” in my head. The biggest one is what I call the Sentient 39 universe. While I’ve been building bits of it most of my life I made an active project of it starting at the turn of the century. In 2001 I bought a WACOM tablet so that I would have more control working in Photoshop and creating digital art. I especially wanted to learn how to do computer coloring. First though I needed something to color. So I decided to do a series of illustrations of the major “races” in the Sentient 39 universe, starting with my own race/species – the human being.

Since humans come in two rather distinct sexes I drew one of each. This one is the male.

(I did color this and the other illustrations I’ll be posting but I’ve lost those files over the years. Even if I found them I’m not sure if they would open. A number of my older digital files seem to have gotten corrupted.)

First Salehs Sketch

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Ah, April 1st. That day when people make up elaborate lies so they can shout April Fools when others are taken in by them. I won’t be doing that. If I didn’t need to schedule this post I wouldn’t even remember the date. It’s not that I have a problem with an international day of lying (it would nice if we could keep our most egregious lies restricted to a single day) it’s mainly that I don’t remember holidays in general. I remember Christmas and New Years. Christmas because I have to plan ahead. New Years because it’s so soon after Christmas.

And what does that little rant have to do with the above sketch? Not a darned thing.

Oz Squad – The Lion

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The fourth member of the first Oz Squad was the Lion. This squad was an unofficial creation and their mission was for personal growth rather than national defense. Still, they managed to kill two witches and overthrow the Wizard. Not bad for a little girl, a walking doll, a tin man and a neurotic predator.

Oz Squad – Dot

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2010 seems to be a year for completing projects. I just got word that an old Black Seal project has lurched back to life and I need to find and complete some artwork for it. That’s going to require going through a number of still packed boxes to find the art but that’s good thing. I need to get unpacked.

One of the other things I’d like to do this year is finish sorting the books and magazines I own to decide what I want to keep and what needs to find a new home. That’s not going to happen while they’re in boxes.

And of course, the big ongoing project is getting the new Oz Squad number 1 finished. I get a little bit done on the art every day. Some days it’s so little it’s really frustrating. Other days I can actually look at a page and decide I’m done with it. I can’t predict when I’ll actually have the art done. I’ve made so many predictions in the past and failed to make them come true that I’ve (mostly) learned to stop making them.

This sketch of Dorothy is from 2004 and was part of the design of the cover of an ashcan preview of another, earlier Oz Squad number one.