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Take me to your loss leader

MAY 28, 2009
I've been building automatons and robots for a while - strictly a personal pursuit - until this assignment came along.

I've built an inventory of robots over time (one of them was 'chosen' for AI-28, pictured here).
This assignment gave me a chance to create a whole new set. Because I had to work quickly, these took on a life of their own and developed in ways I couldn't anticipate.

I work in Illustrator, so I create new files as I go along. If I chose a direction that doesn't work, I refer back to an earlier version. This piece was complicated, so I had to chose the colors carefully to allow the individual robots to stand out or recede into the background.

Initial sketch, which I used as a rough guide
Blocking in with various elements & shapes on different layers. Looks like a junk yard at this point.
Background added, final starting to take shape
Final art. I added the bubble head robot on the upper right towards the end, probably about 3:30 in the morning. I think he's my favorite.
When you take a new direction with your work, sometimes it takes a while to percolate with art directors and result in an assignment. This was fun & challenging to work on.


The article talked about retailers developing new sections of low-priced items to attract shoppers. In this case Toys-R-Us created a section of items under three bucks.



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