Friday, January 25, 2013

By Grabthar's Hammer...

"By Grabthar's hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you shall be avenged!"

It's Dr. Lazarus from the 1999 movie Galaxy Quest. Dr. Lazarus is of course a member of the alien Mak'Tar species from the planet Tev'Meck. He's highly intelligent, has limited psychic abilities and can increase his might by performing the Mak'Tar Chant Of Strength.

In the film Alan Rickman played Alexander Dane, the actor who portrayed Dr. Lazarus in the fictional Galaxy Quest TV series (got all that?). Dane was a classically trained Shakespearean actor (hence his last name) who resented being typecast as an alien in a defunct sci-fi program.

Galaxy Quest is one of my all time favorite movies. It manages the difficult task of poking fun at Star Trek and its fans without downright ridiculing them. Dr. Lazarus is my favorite character in the film-- Rickman was the perfect choice to play a pompous actor who's uncomfortable with being typecast as a Spock-type character and disgusted at having to eternally repeat his popular catchphrase.

Dr. Lazarus is a vector drawing, drawn all in InDesign. Man, the Doctor has an incredibly complicated head. I didn't realize just how intricate it was until I started drawing it. I eventually figured out how to render it, but it took a lot longer than I thought it would-- even longer than it took to draw his ray gun.
Here's the digital sketch I did of the Doctor. Not much changed from sketch to final drawing.

Here's an alternate pose I did of Dr. Lazarus. This one probably better suits his personality, but in the end I wanted to include the Ion Nebulizer (his raygun), so I went with a gun-totin' pose.

4 comments:

  1. Missed your stuff. Get well soon from over the pond - where we've got the same strains I think.
    I'm still ill with it, but this is one of my faves too and I had to comment.
    Anonymous Terence from England (I've got to get one of those from the drop down box...)

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  2. That's awesome... I too love this movie. I think you captured his expression really well :)

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  3. He is awesome! Makes me want to watch that movie again :) Love this!

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  4. Thanks. everyone!

    @Dawn: I just watched the movie again last night!

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