Earth is being invaded! Run! Hide!

Earth is under attack from hostile invasion forces! Robot armies! UFO hordes! Tentacles of doom!

OK, OK, I have to say it, so here goes: I’m really, really proud of these three designs. *whew* These are the first CafePress-specific posters I’ve ever designed. They measure 16×20 inches (I’ve ordered one of each; they should be arriving any day). Orginally developed to be a triptych (no, it’s not an altar piece but that is where the idea originated) they stand well as individual works.

The idea was born while familiarizing myself with Inkscape and the Bamboo drawing tablet. Like many of my drawings, this one began with a single line (see side image) and no concious thought. Quite quickly, it developed into a large monster-robot creature with a raised foot about to stomp you (and you’re on ground level – heh) Being new to Inkscape (and giant robots with waffle-iron soles) I was easily subdued.

The idea inflated: a giant robot demolishing a city! A bunch of giant robots (‘bunch’ is the proper technical term) demolishing a city with their death-ray laser eyes!

Heh. Rwaarr!

It wasn’t long before a second idea popped up: UFO invasion! Then a third: a giant tentacled monster of doom! Galactic doom! This design was so much campy fun, I resolved to stylize the presentation as a 1930s B-film (complete with the appearance of aged paper) The designs went through several iterations as I struggled to perfect the look (also learning the ins and outs of the software)

Using layers allowed me to ‘group’ related image data — I was able to keep each robot, fire effect, city as separate graphics. This allowed me to create differently sized documents (for things like the posters as well as the coffee mugs) for unique but consistent compositions.

I’ve got thumbnails for “Invasion of the Mole People from the Centre of the Earth!” (thanks to Mari for that idea) and I’m working on a few other ideas. Perhaps I can revisit this in future.