The dark and murky origins of the Captain Cosmos robot.

If you've ever picked up Captain Cosmos Collectibles business card, then you've probably seen the the Captain Cosmos robot. He's never quite had a name, though I sometimes call him 3C.

 

The Captain Cosmos Collectibles business card,
front and back.





A slight family resemblance.

I have a fondness for robots. Especially the likes of R2-D2, and Robbie the Robot. Your basic domed robots. So you might notice some (fairly obvious) similarities between 3C and some of his contemporaries. To date 3C has made 3 distinct public appearances on various pieces of art that I've created to advertise Captain Cosmos Collectibles.


 

3C started life as a business promotion in the summer of 2009. The local downtown business association for Winchester, Ky. found some money to make advertising banners for the business district. It was decided that one side would have a pre-printed image promoting shopping in downtown, while the reverse side would be painted by (or sponsored by) the individual businesses. Each image could relate to the specific store, but could not directly advertise the store on the image itself. So a book store could have a stack of books, but it could not say "the Cozy Nook Book Store." The coffee shop could show a steaming pot of coffee, but could not be emblazoned with the Starbucks logo. The names of the businesses themselves would be printed on a smaller banner below the main banner. For Captain Cosmos Collectibles, it was pretty clear that the image needed to be a tiny toy robot destroying downtown Winchester. And the robot had to be the smallest, most recognizable, yet still ambiguous, of my favorite childhood toys: Tomy's wind-up Rascal Robot.

I started with LOT'S of photo reference. I took several photo's of downtown. I took several photo's of the Tomy robot at various angles. I even took photo's of chrome Christmas ornaments on the street to see how the downtown buildings would look in it's reflection.

3C's first baby picture.



Photo reference, and sketches
of the Tomy Rascal Robot

That all lead to a preliminary painting that I was just never quite happy with. Translating that tiny robot into a massive scale just wasn't working. The prelim image did teach me 1 very important thing about the final image; the banner was simply too narrow to effectively convey a background with the robot. So I decided to simply use the robot on it's own, and scrapped the idea of using the actual city. Next came some computer editing of the robot pictures, and several sketches. I was finaly ready to paint the real banner.

 



Early stages of the banner 'bot,
from sketch to under painting

The finall image.
 

Due to the scale of the banner, I elongated the robot, and made the character more animated. Of course I started with a sketch directly on the banner. Then I worked in the under-painting including refection's of the robot's own arms. The robot was finished off with a metallic look taking great care to make the reflections apparent, without being obvious. Finally, the background needed something, so I finished it off purple mist to add depth, and contrast.

 





The back of the banner.



The banner goes up.
 

But I wasn't done there. The obverse side of the banner featured a black and white image of the courthouse clock tower. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to have my giant robot climbing a building just like any good giant monster should.
 

 
 
 


There he is peaking out of the window of the
Captain Cosmos Cruiser.

 
 
 
3C's next appearance was a much smaller one. He's peeking out of the window of the Captain Cosmos Cruiser bicycle for another downtown promotion just months later. But that has its own blog entry, no need to cover that again here.
 
 
 
 


Forbidden Planet seemed like a
good place to start.

 
 
 
 
 
 

That brings us back to the business card. I decided I wanted a business card that had the look of a 1950's sci-fi movie poster. I wanted to keep the theme of the robot going, but I also wanted to move away from a specific existing toy. It was time that I make him more of my own character, while still keeping some of the classic element's.



The background.
 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This time I started with the background. I wanted to really invoke the plantescapes seen on Mid-Century tin litho space toys. Next I blocked out the robot. Finally, 3C came to life.

 

 



Blocking him out.



 





3C comes to life.