Devil in the details by LucrataNexarii

Thoughts: I was on the verge of submitting this as an actual deviation, but for now it will remain in my Scrap section; it's composition is just below what I'd consider worthy of the actual art section. Foremost, dear Julian Robotnik appears almost... "Pious" is what comes to mind, though "peaceful" would seem more accurate (indeed, what is there to him as he assembles his thoughts, schematics, and schemes?). Top right: Robotnik, his fingers steepled, his eyes slitted with thought. Middle: A vague image of Robotropolis - the area in which I'd begun the overall image - largely unplanned; I was going to use watercolors to darken the image and add a sense of filth and overcast plumes of exhaust, but later decided on a minimal pallete (life has no 'undo' button). I wished to contrast the building types, the altered adobe Mobian structure left, and the nearly organic, mysterious technological structure foreground right. Other large structures are lost in industral fog. Bottom: I was attempting to capture a sense of motion in him snapping his fingers and leaning forward - a minor quirk, that: one, that he can snap his metal fingers, and two that he would bother doing so, when bellowing is his preferred method of command. Also: My first image of a SWATbot, ever; in this case one rather more bulky and specialized, a specific guard, possibly - Random identification bars cross it's chest. I left it's shading imbalanced as to imply it is bowing forward slightly while in motion, it's head angled downwards as if in devotion. Note also the blocked forms of some mysterious machines behind the SWATbot, and in the top left, similar panels of dimmed monitors, including the glow of his forward command-chair monitor (Here thrust forward on it's track for easier viewing).

Details: A simple exercise in panel-constrained sketching. The borders were made with a straightedge and regular ink, and any surrounding sketching and notes have been removed for the sake of the general tidiness of the image.

Materials: mechanical pencil, blue col-erase, orange col-erase (swift coloration of his moustache), watercolor (added to his eyes only, as well as a swift wash to the SWATbot), 6B square graphite stick, and black ink. Canson sketchpad paper.

Cynicide: Not applying watercolor to some areas of the image has left it rather drab, but it benefits by the amount of contrast, at least. Robotnik's metal hand in the bottom panel is largely undetailed near the area where he is snapping his fingers - I wanted the sparsity to allow a greater sense of captured motion. The panel lines are not squared, but I wasn't very concerned over that. The SWATbot I had deliberately left vague to convey a sense of it materializing out of the darkness. Oddly, his face in the top-left panel is rather blurry - maybe it's a nimbus of unholy thought.