A couple of weeks back, I started doing a drawing based on Watchmen.  I call this one "Old Photographs" and it is based on a scene from Chapter IV ("Watchmaker") in the book.  This was inspired by the Illustration Friday topic "Time".

This chapter from the book came to mind immediately when I thought of "Time".  This chapter presents time in a very unique way — Dr Manhattan in the book is a character who experiences time simultaneously.  For him, all events, past, present and future happen at the same time.  The chapter starts with Dr Manhattan looking at an old photograph on Mars in 1985, and then it goes back and forth in time, covering 40 years worth of events.  It's an outstanding piece of writing and art in a book that is a masterpiece.  So brilliant.

The concept for my drawing is simple — you have Dr Manhattan looking at the photo, and the actual photo (with Dr Jon Osterman and Janey Slater in 1959) is in the background.  It is being drawn in pencil, and I am doing the shading in a more realistic manner rather than going by the comic-book style.  At the same time, I am not using photo references from the characters in the upcoming movie.  Rather, the reference used for Dr Manhattan here is Ed Harris.  I hope the drawing turns out well (I have always been intimidated at the thought of drawing something based on Watchmen, because I doubt whether I would be able to do justice to that magnificient piece of work).

On a related note, it's not long before Zack Snyder's Watchmen movie adaptation will be released in theatres (March 6).  I do hope it'll be released in IMAX here, and you can bet I'll see it the first chance I get.  Going by some early reviews that have hit the net (see here), the movie is supposed to be EXTREMELY faithful to the book except for a slightly altered ending.  If they do pull it off (and I believe that Snyder would have done it), Watchmen will be the greatest movie of 2009.  The theatrical cut is supposed to be 2 hours and 36 minutes long, with an extended edition running 3 hours and 10 minutes that'll be released on DVD later.  A third version of the movie (with the animated story The Tales of the Black Freighter reinserted into the main movie) will run 3 hours and 25 minutes.  I would want to own all these versions (see here for more details)!

Oh, and while doing this drawing, I have been recording footage that will be compiled into a short video later on.  One significant bit though, I have uploaded on YouTube.  This is me drawing the Hydrogen atom symbol on Dr Manhattan's forehead.  You can view the video here (it is just 56 seconds long).