between_time_and_42 | Old drawings part 2

Back by no demand whatsoever! As I mentioned in my last post, I had more Ziggyfloyd/Concept Album Multiverse drawings in my sketchpad at home that I wanted to post. What I didn't realize was just HOW MANY there are. O.o Rather than post them all, I've decided to share just a few specific ones that I'm proud of, that reveal what certain characters look like, and that show off my progress in drawing over the years (though I still don't consider myself a particularly great artist or anything). Also, there's another new drawing because I can't help myself.

So, these are really painful to look at, but here are my first EVER concept album drawings. This one is from 2011 (!!!!! I completely forgot I'd first discovered The Wall that early):

This is my first-ever drawing of Pink, which I think was more inspired by the lyrics on the album than Bob Geldof's portrayal of him in the movie (I definitely would have drawn his floofy hair if I were basing it off of him). From Pink Floyd's song "Nobody Home": "I've got elastic bands keeping my shoes on... I've got the obligatory Hendrix perm, and I've got pinhole burns all down the front of my favorite satin shirt. I got nicotine stains on my fingers, I've got a silver spoon on a chain..." A lot of these things I clearly didn't know how to depict, but I'll cut myself some slack for having been 15 at the time :P The woman beside Pink is his wife, and beside her (though I tried to crop her out) is his mother.

Here's my first EVER drawing of Pink and Ziggy together. (Rael from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was also in the picture, but I cropped him out.) I clearly did NOT know how to draw Ziggy's hair- I don't think I had seen many pictures of him at the time, and Bowie's look on the album cover is completely different from what became accepted as the traditional Ziggy Stardust look. Also, not only does he have the lightning bolt that actually belongs to Aladdin Sane, but it's on the wrong eye!!

Here are all the main Concept Album Extravaganza characters, minus Johnny from American Idiot. Rael is my favorite here- I've always enjoyed drawing him. Mylo & Xyloto are never described physically on the album (it's not even clear that they're two separate characters, but that's always been my interpretation), so their looks are based on what I envisioned when I first listened to this album.

So, the character of Ziggy Stardust as portrayed by David Bowie has bright red hair, and that's usually what I draw when I draw him. But, the song "Lady Stardust," which I think is supposed to depict one of Ziggy's first concerts before he got super famous, mentions his "long black hair." So I've always imagined that Ziggy's natural hair color is black, and when he starts getting famous, he changes his look by bleaching and dyeing it. So here is a rare depiction of black-haired Ziggy singing at a small club, as described in "Lady Stardust," which is one of my favorite songs from the album. (Side note, I actually found a fan's interpretation recently that posits the theory that the singer in "Lady Stardust" is not in fact Ziggy, but another singer he admires who inspires him, which leads into the song "Star" which is Ziggy daydreaming about how much good he can do in the world as a rock and roll star. I assume that in this interpretation, Ziggy refers to the singer as "Lady Stardust" because he has a crush on him and sees a future with him. I really like this interpretation, but I've been living with my own interpretation for ten years now and it's far too late in the game to change that.)

I had completely forgotten I'd drawn them, but here is Ziggy's backing band, The Spiders From Mars. Left to right- Mick Weird, who plays rhythm guitar and keyboard; Mick Henry, who plays drums; and Trevor Gilly, who plays bass. On the album, they're only identified as "Weird and Gilly" (and "Henry" comes from the line "Oh, Henry, leave me alone" from the song "Suffragette City"), but I gave them the first names of the real-life Spiders From Mars band who supported Bowie on the Ziggy Stardust tour and also played on the album- Mick Ronson, Mick Woodmansey, and Trevor Bolder. I may end up changing their first names, though, because it feels a little too much like RPF for comfort. I also didn't know what any of them looked like for years, but if I had, I would have based the Spiders' appearances in this drawing on their real-life counterparts.

Finally, here's Ziggy's Martian lover who he met at the free festival, Serafina. This is what she looked like when Ziggy first met her- the stars on her face were painted by Ziggy's sibling Pia, at the festival.

Now here are some shippy drawings I'm proud of:

"I woke up like this/There's no way you woke up like that."

This is an exchange I can imagine Ziggy and Floyd having when Ziggy is deep in the throes of his various addictions. "Darling, you don't deserve me." "You're right. I deserve the universe, not a goddamn star." It was inspired by a tumblr post that says "You deserve the universe, don't settle for a star." Poor Floyd (poor both of them, really, I'm glad they both get better). Also: I completely forgot that I had drawn those boots before!! And I'm pretty sure that Pink's outfit is based off one of Bob Geldof's actual outfits, though I don't usually rely on photos of him for inspiration because his IRL fashion sense is very different from Pink's :P

I don't remember why I never posted this on tumblr, because I like it SO much. It's clothing swap time! "Ahh, Floyd, it smells just like you!" (Ziggy would totally be the one who wears all his boyfriend's clothes.) "Ziggy, how the hell do you fit INTO this? I can barely breathe!" "Shut up, you look sexy." "Yeah, well, you're a narcissist... you really think so?"

This is not a drawing I'm particularly proud of, but I just think they're cute, okay... I wrote some sappy paragraph above this that I'm not going to reproduce.

Finally, here's a comic inspired by a tumblr post (I never colored it in though, how sad):

"Things I Want to Do With You: 1. Get milkshakes at a cute 50's place. 2. Splash in the street during a storm. 3. Take pictures of flowers and cool plants. 4. Kiss and hug in the ocean. 5. Play cards by candlelight. 6. Overthrow the government, probably."

...wow, I am seriously in way too deep for this ship, I can't believe this crossover pairing that only three other people have ever even thought about has been my OTP for 10 years (well, okay, besides Merlahad and C/Fe, but it was still there in the background the whole time)...

Anyway, before we move on to some of the drawings I did for Will They Come?, here are a couple Ziggys just for fun:

I've wanted this jacket ever since I saw a picture of it. I'm obsessed! Even to the point of having Ziggy wear the jacket when I commissioned my own concept album artwork.

Finally, here's Ziggy after being rescued from the American government who were experimenting on him- this is him trying to hide in public. (Still with the lightning bolt, I see... sigh.)

Now, moving on to drawings for Will They Come!

Our heroes of the story, "Hallowe'en Jack" Stardust and Kylie Martin. (Speaking of names I want to change: Kylie's last name is Martin because Chris Martin is the lead singer of Coldplay, and Coldplay is the band that created Mylo Xyloto, and Kylie is the daughter of both Mylo and Xyloto. But as I said, I don't know if I'm comfortable referencing real people's names even to that extent. Also, I really don't like the name Kylie, but I can't change it now because I've gotten so used to calling her that (the only reason I named her Kylie is that Mylo and Xyloto are dorks who decided their daughter's name should use "yl" just like their names do. At least Kylie wasn't a boy, then I'd be stuck with a name I like even less- Kyle)). When I wrote this story, the only thing I knew about the persona of Hallowe'en Jack (which wasn't really a persona, it was just a character referenced in the song "Diamond Dogs"- "The Hallowe'en Jack is a real cool cat, and he lives on top of Manhattan Chase"- but for some reason the fandom considers him a full-fledged persona a la Ziggy and I'm not invested enough to ask them to explain their logic) is that he wears an eyepatch, which came from Bowie's performance of "Rebel Rebel" on the show TopPop. (Actually, that's another thing I've always been confused about- why does that one particular performance apparently define the Hallowe'en Jack look, when he didn't even play "Diamond Dogs," the song that references the character? But again, this is pretty much fandom gospel so I'm not going to bother.) So I drew my Jack with an eyepatch... but would it have killed me to have actually looked up the correct outfit??? I didn't even get the eyepatch on the right eye. Sigh. Also, Jack has black hair instead of red hair, but again, that's because my version of Ziggy has natural black hair, not to mention that Haushinka (Jack's mother) has black hair as well. Also, I think the jacket Jack is wearing in this drawing is supposed to be Rael's leather jacket, which Mylo gives him as some point in the story.

Here are the Nadsats, AKA the "Diamond Dogs," who Jack falls in with after running across them in the city one day. From left to right- Sledge, Jagger, Widdy, and Dice. I don't remember where the name "Sledge" came from, although his full nickname is "Sledge Hammer" (I think I also had a brief mention of a "Barbara Wire" in this story, AKA Barbed Wire, so I guess the Diamond Dogs like naming themselves after anything that sounds tough). "Jagger" was me working backwards from the name "Bowie"- instead of naming him after one famous rock singer, I named him after another one, Mick Jagger. "Widdy" and "Dice" were very weak attempts to emulate the rhyming slang that makes up a portion of nadsat-talk. Dice's real name is Bryce, so his rhyming nickname is "No Dice," AKA Dice (I just love the phrase "no dice" in general, too). Widdy's real name is David, which has part of the nadsat-talk word "viddy" in it, so his nickname that rhymes with "Day-viddy" is Widdy.

Finally, here's a drawing of the three extraterrestrial species encountered in Will They Come?: the Venusians, the Martians, and the Mercurians.

Of course we already know what Martians look like- Ziggy is one- but this is my interpretation of Aladdin Sane. At this point I had realized that Aladdin Sane is the one with the lightning bolt, but since I had already given the lightning bolt to Ziggy, I felt like I couldn't retcon it, so I drew it as a design on his shirt instead. (He's also the only character based on a Bowie persona that actually has naturally red hair. About time!) The Mercurians are a pretty basic reptilian alien design, but I'm very proud of the Venusians- I'm not sure where that design came from, other than I was inspired to add them into the story because of a line in the song "Memory of a Free Festival"- "We talked with tall Venusians passing through." To me, that song is full of rainbows and pastel colors, so I think that's where the color scheme came from.

Now, just for fun... here's a new Ziggyfloyd drawing to end this post.

This may be in poor quality because I took the picture when the lights were off and then tried to brighten it on my phone. Oh well. Anyway, this is Ziggy & Floyd enjoying their giant Aresian-style bathtub... I think Floyd was expecting sexytimes like the fun they'd had in the shower the day before, but once he got in it felt SO good that sexytimes became the furthest thing from his mind, and he ended up falling asleep while holding Ziggy, who didn't mind in the slightest. (Side note, it feels SO weird to draw Ziggy with black hair. Also, I'm really not that happy with this but I whipped it up pretty quickly after the image came to mind, so...)