#The Railway Series

[retroillustrates]

The Great Westerns

[charseraph]

My trainsona, an RC body of my sapient AI persona, Charsoft.

A high-speed electric multiple unit (EMU) with a LiDAR and camera array. The cartoon eyes are not Charsoft’s, they are a separate BOAtic intelligence inhabiting the machine itself.

[lesorg]

I thought you were stronger

[dragonsandrails]

Getting the hang of how to draw steam locomotives

[edwards-exploit]

The North Western Railway with their newest engine, circa 1922

[theflyingkipper]

A redo of my Edwards Exploit drawing from ages ago, now in traditional mixed media!

I felt like I didn't capture the mood I wanted last time when I looked it over again (to the horror of everyone who got to see this early. Thank you for gassing up the old one, and keeping me motivated through the making of this)

this version is much more directly studied off the Peter and Gunvor Edwards' illustration, because I've grown into the opinion that the model adaptation of exploit was really weak (technical limitations!!! what a shame) and i want to get back into studying these illustrations, there's a lot to pick apart in them.

Here's a bunch of perspective lines i drew over it when I was sketching. (I don't normally do that when I redraw, but that's usually because I'm drawing from model era screencaps and I can rely on those being proportional, most of the time) Edwards face breaks perspective here just a bit to add more drama to the scene, everything else is proportional.

some in-progress pictures, during which I absolutely HATED how it looked and wanted to switch to digital because I feared I'd messed it up irreconcilably 😭 good thing I was able to look at it with fresh eyes after staring at it for like four hours, the first session of drawing ended at 1am. Believe me, if you hate how your drawing is turning out, put it down and come back to it later!!

Edward is also more referenced off a real K2 here because I really like how they look. Unfortunately they have painful geometry.

something frustrating about my traditional drawings is how they can't be viewed from multiple angles online. I use silver gel pen to highlight some parts (here it's Edward's handrails and the damage) but it doesn't show up well when I photograph it head on. I hope this picture shows a little bit of how it shows up in real life!

(if you can't see, look at the bottom of Edward's boiler bands)

Hopefully you enjoyed reading under the cut :] I like explaining my process and I appreciate it immensely when someone shares my enthusiasm for it.

[maxwellscorner]

"I wonder why Edward was chosen instead of me"

[great-green-hunslet]

There are two types of diesels-

[seaswine]

"We've no money to mend you... to the back of the shed you'll go"

[sudriantraveler]

"There was no doubt in my mind that steam engines all had definite personalities"

-Rev. W. Awdry

[retroillustrates]

Gordon and Edward in a nutshell.

[charseraph]

[lesorg]

how black were they??

[ladychandraofthemoone]

Saw this meme going on about and had to join in, it fits them so well

Bonus: some alternative rws Duncan pic icon concepts & the og:

[edwards-exploit]

does anyone remember when they said this

[pompcoco]

Rough comp + thumbnail of Edward’s Exploit for a illustration project for school! (Assignment is creating a movie poster for any media and making it in Illustrator)