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MJBivouac β The LOST IN SPACE Robot
Published: 2008-12-27 01:39:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 23160; Favourites: 532; Downloads: 1858
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Prismacolor on Canson colored art paper. Okay, when i was about five years old, the TV show LOST IN SPACE premiered on CBS. I loved the show, outerspace, spaceships, alien life etc. Of course, by today's standards, the show is considered really bad and campy and stupid, and boring, and every other negative description I can imagine. BUT in 1965, there was nothing else to compare it to. Now before you teens and 20 somethings try to throw Classic STAR TREK in my face, let me remind you that it did NOT premier until 1966. So for one TV season, LIS was the ONLY serious SF show set in outer space on TV. Filmed in moody black and white, season one had a unique look that still impresses me almost 50 years later.Anyway, while the cheesy aliens that cropped up on the show from time to time scared me plenty...but what REALLY scared me was the ROBOT! During the first few episodes of the first season, the robot was an out and out villain! With his flailing sickle-like claws, flashing lights, and deep monotonous voice, I had more than one nightmare about it! But I eagerly tuned in the following week just the same! In one episode, the robot threatens young Will Robinson in the dead of night on the creepy desert planet they have crash landed upon. The image of the slowly advancing robot, in the dark of night, defined almost solely by his own blinking lights, has never left me. That was the stuff of bed wetting!
So, this drawing is my recollection of my THEN five year old mind's interpretation of the robot. He was tall, threatening, and the grouping of lights on his chest were, for me, his FACE! A terrifying winking blinking leering face of a robotic monster! So I drew him just like that, and BOY was it fun!
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Comments: 356
Excellent likeness!! It took me quite a while to see anything scary but looking closely the robot can seem to be unfriendly. It brought back memories of the show as I watched it as a young teenager (dating myself, here, aren't I?). Every Wednesday we watch it and have a tornado warning issued!. Great technique. I enjoyed it immensely. The barren landscape makes you wonder where on earth there at and extremely lonely. It makes me nostalgic and somewhat envious as I'm, unfortunately, not that great of an artist, but I do enjoy the artwork greatly. Keep the pieces coming!
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Thanks for the glowing review...and I must chuckle at "Where on Earth they're at", as they were NOT on Earth at all.
I was about 5 when LIS premiered, and I loved it, but I was also scared of the robot and the now rather silly looking monsters. But at that time, and at my young age, it could be potent stuff. It's also nice for once not to be the oldest guy on DA!
Thanks.
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If some of you budding cartoonists want to learn about tone and highlight, you can't learn it any better than utilizing contΓ© crayons, color pencils and a rough matte color paper. MJB's "Robot" is a great example of this process. I would pull out several of his other examples, (which are fabulous btw) but this will give you a good idea of how to apply and work your tools. The highlights on the jagged peaks and the forced perspective make this piece pop. The subtle color in Robot's grill is not too stark but gives you the impression of colored lights and panels. Take lesson kids...this is the real deal...without using computers..!
Now I want to head down to my local Michael's to stock up on color pencils, conté crayons and Cranson colored papers..! e.deviantart.net/emoticons/w/w⦠" width="15" height="15" alt="
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dln,
Thanks very much. That was as nice a critique as I could have asked for.
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LIS was my favourite show as a 60's kid. The first season is still pretty good. The robot was such a great character himself.Β He looks pretty sinister here! I once met Dick Tufeld, who did the robot's voice, and Billy Mumy.
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My favorite as a kid as well.
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He was and always will be a great character robot. This is a superb picture, love it.ππ
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Thank you for the kind words!
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Thank you Cap'n. You are most kind.
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Yeah the robot was scary as all hell and Dr. Smith was a wicked, scheming SOB. The first season rocked.
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And then when I got a little older, and started to fear that Dr. Smith might be a creepy pedophile!
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Thank you so very much.Β
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I am a Trekkie, specially fan of classic series.
But, you are right. Before ST, there was nothing similar to LIS on TV.
Irwin Allen was a great pioneer and the credits do not remain only on LIS, but Time Tunnel, Land of Giants, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea...
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None of the Allen shows have aged nearly as well as Star Trek
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Agree! Good times! I believe that the 60's were great times for TV.
I was born in 68 and, living in Brazil, I watched those series during 70's and some of them even along early 80's.
Really good times for TV.
A curiosity for you:
The guy who performed Dr. Smith's voice in Portuguese, Borges de BarrosΒ was met by Johnathan Harris when he was visiting Brazil in late 60's/early 70's. Harris wathced the show in Portuguese and declared that his voice in Portuguese was much better than his own voice. He said that he got to extract eh essence of the character even better than himself.
It is true. The Brazilian actor had a very peculiar voice, stressing a kind of Royal-British way of speaking (not an actual British accent when speak foreign language, but the way a British noble would speak). He was great.
And another curiosity: The actor was a black man.
You can watch him here www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze_6VK⦠, playing a begger that believes he is a multimillionaire and here performing Dr. Smith's voice:
www.dailymotion.com/video/x126β¦
www.dailymotion.com/video/x126β¦
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Very interesting.Β
I listened to the clip, and it seems (to me)so funny to hear such odd voices coming from those characters.
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I can imagine that!
I heard some shows (American and Brazilian) with Spanish, German, Japanese and Russian voices.
That was so odd.
Russian sounds like they were speaking Portuguese, but back to forward.
Odd and funny!
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I'm used to good old English...typical American
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ERMAGERSH SOMEONE ELSE KNOWS AND LOVES THE ORIGINAL LOST IN SPACE TOO!!!!!!!
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LOL!
Young lady, I was there when the show premiered many years ago. I was but five years old, but I was there.
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Awesome!!! What was it like the first time you watched it??
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I was five and I was blown away. Up until that time a to me a spaceship was a long silver cigar with fins at one end. All of a sudden here was this saucer shaped ship with landing gear that dropped down...I was amazed. And the robot was so cool and so damned scary! I had nightmares about it. Β And the cyclops! WOW! That was one scary monster!Β
Even though I was supposed to... I never identified with Will. He was too smart and too willful. Things that I simply was NOT. But I was hooked. Now I still much prefer the first season in black and white, when it was less fantastic like in the 2nd season. Β Obviously I'm still a fan.
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Wow!!!! That's amazing!!!! Thank you for sharing that with me, it means a lot. ^^
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Ask a geek a question, expect a long answer.
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Thank you very, VERY much. So nice to receive a compliment from an artist as skilled as yourself.
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Interesting picture, looks very close to the robot model that I have, power pack and all.
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I just noticed that you can't actually see the Power Pack in my drawing....
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Yeah, that darned robot is completely ingrained on my brain! I can draw him 100% from memory, and I DID!
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Very nice portrait of the Lost In Space robot. I remember that series from my childhood, and what I liked best was the trading of insults between the robot and the cowardly stowaway, Dr. Smith. I never really thought of the robot as scary. In fact, I used to wish he'd smack Dr. Smith around as Major West often threatened to do! And if it's a contest as to what was the scariest sci-fi series on TV, then my vote would go to The Outer Limits.
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YES! I must agree, the Outer Limits scared the crap out of me as a kid. But today it's still a major favorite of mine. But when i was 5, that robot was pretty scary. Especially in the first season when it was under Dr. Smith's control and it had orders to kill the Robinsons.
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I seem to recall that part of the series. Still, Dr. Smith ended up a mincing, whimpering coward always complaining about his "delicate back" whenever there was work to be done. We had a name for guys like him in the Army: Goldbrick!
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well, perhaps you have not seen the first season of LIS. It often does not get shown on TV/cable due to the fact that it was B&W. Originally Smith was quite a villain indeed! He was a karate-chopping sabotour bent on destroying teh Jupiter 2 and all aboard. They toned him down about half-way through season one. they wanted to keep him as part of teh show, but he was just too evil a character for TV of that time. that was when he became the mincing, simpering "gay uncle" to Will and the robot.
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I confess I did not see the first season of Lost In Space where Dr. Smith was a more aggressive and assertive type of villain. Interesting, indeed. But even as a karate-chopping, evil saboteur, I like to think that Maj. West could've taken him down. All through the series I kept hoping that West would just punch Smith's ugly mug right through the back of his skull! Sorry for the violent metaphors. I tend to get worked up when lazy cowards seem to get away with murder.
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Well I whole-heartedly encourage you to seek out seaosn one. It really is the best. Actually the first say 6 or 7 eposides are the best, and show what the series was meant to be about. But as the show went on, I fear a lot of their writers did not fully understand what the show was supposed to be about and they did a lot of fantasy and just silly stories. Borrowing from Robert Lewis Stevenson, Lewis Carroll, etc. Then by the tine season 2 came about they wantewd to compete with BATMAN, and the show went wildly colorful and campy to try and compete with the Caped Crusader...Ouch!
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I'll try to find LIS, season 1. Of course the main reason LIS couldn't really compete with Batman was because all the villains on that show were played by some of the most famous stars of movies and TV. Many of these celebs had their agents begging producer, William Dozier, to get them a part on that show knowing it would boost their careers.
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LIS couldn't compete wirth BATMAN, because it wasn't BATMAN. They should have just stuck with the original concept, instaed of trying to get cute.
I beleive the first season of LIS is available for online viewing on HULU...and I think it's free.
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Thank you Doctor, you are most kind.
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This show is so undervalued! The family relationships are so priceless! Ah, the golden days of yore long gone...
This is my favorite classic show
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Thank you. I obviously have a soft spot in my heart for the old show. Of course I was there(5 years old)when it premiered on CBS in 1965. So I saw it when I was young and impressionable. It was like nothing else I had ever seen before. And I think it was the family basis of the show that made it work for me at that young age. I had a family myself, so there was something I could get my head around even if the aliens frightened me, and sometime the scientific(and not so scientific)concepts were way over my head. The following year STAR TREK premiered, but I was too young to appreciate or understand it, so I had to wait until it was in re-runs in the early 70s before I got into that show.
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