Edgar Rice Burroughs is one of my favorite pulp authors, and the best of his creations is truly the adventures of John Carter of Mars. Daring adventure, beautiful women, and flying battleships, what more could I ask for! I keep coming back to the books for inspiration, and my sketchbook has several pages devoted to the subject. Of course, there are plenty of martian inspired works throughout my galleries, but what follows here are designs and sketches working out characters, creatures, and mechanical designs.
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Tara, a Princess of Barsoom - 2001
Tara is the daughter of John Carter and Dejah Thoris. I wanted to design a costume for her that stayed close to Burroughs. He describes the characters (back in 1917) as being naked except for various accouterments. But of course westerners thought of the American natives as "naked," even though they wore more than a modern beach goer does! I decided to follow Burroughs' idea that men and women wore garments that were meant to enhance, not hide, their forms.
Tara Faces - 2001
These weren't meant to be the same character from different views, but rather different takes on the same character, sort of an evolving character design! Oh, and the Princess shirt is a joke - she wouldn't really wear that!
Thark - 2009
This was me trying to refine my design for a green man of mars. I began working on the design with photos of Cicadas and Grasshoppers in front of me, as I wanted the Geenmen to have an alien "insect meets reptile" feel. The final design added lips to the mouth, usually important if you want to speak human tongues!
Greenman of Mars - 2000
Here I was messing around with a design for the four armed Greenmen of Barsoom. The Greenmen can use their extra arms to walk on all fours. Here I chose to go with small middle arms and large primary arms, which is counter to what most artists have done. Burroughs describes the intermediate arms as the larger pair, but by intermediate, did he mean the pair that are functionally between arms and legs, or the pair that are physically between the arms and legs?
Heliumite Destroyer - 2001
This was an old sketch that I did to work out the profile of a Martian Flying Battleship, you know, for fun!
Dejah Thoris Faces - 2001
Another experiment in character study. Here I was looking for the right combination of regal beauty and exotic Barsoomian features.
John Carter Faces - 2001
Here again I was experimenting with different looks for John Carter. I don't think I was very happy with them over all - although I like the drawings themselves, I just didn't see Carter in them.
John Carter - 2001
Here I was more concerned with costume and weapons than Carter's face. Again, I wasn't really happy with the character, but I like the overall direction.