A Collection of illustrations by Darran Hight a.k.a. Doctor Multiverse (me), this was a labor of love. For a long time, I’ve wanted to create something unique to share with people and this coloring book seemed to be the best way to begin.
This is something that I was REALLY excited to do! I cannot tell you how much fun this was to do. It was a very positive step for me to take after such a difficult year and a half. At $14.99, for eighteen printed pages, I think it’s a great deal. These are all my characters and illustrations from the past few years… some were physical that I had to digitize, while others were finished pieces that I reformatted for a coloring book platform.
I’ve been making some great strides in likenesses over the past few weeks. There have also been a few steps backward, but that is all part of the process. They are all in order so you can view my progress and, in some cases, my regression. As a new bonus this new year, I have opened a RedBubble shop that will be slightly different from my TeePublic shop. I feel like Redbubble will be a better fit for my developing art style.
Recently I’ve been sharing symmetrical portrait illustrations on various mindshare platforms. It is something that I picked up from an artist that I respect named T.N. Perkins. The last two that I’ve done, as of this blog entry, have been Lynda Carter and Carrie Fisher. My goal with these two illustrations were to create a more realistic representation of my subjects. I feel like my attempt with Lynda fell short, but I learned some lessons and applied what I had learned to my rendering of Carrie. I really think that I did a much better job on this last one by not hyper focusing on accuracy and leaning into creating an essence of the woman. The following have been my Pop Art Portrait series so far. I dig doing these and, while I will also be doing other style drawings, I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.
In the beginning, well not the very beginning, the predecessor to this site was Quantum Multiverse. I used a Kenner Gonk Droid to represent the site in a very small role. The site tage was “Gonk Droid Approved”.
Just before my blogs downfall to a dead phone, and inability to access my two step verification that I had set up, I designed this logo that I was very happy with. I dropped the use of a mascot and went with turning the on/off symbol into the “Q” in Quantum. This is something that I still really dig, but I am happy that that I was forced to move on and rethink my approach.
Before I totally abandoned the Quantum Multiverse I toyed with creating a face for my new blog. Dr. Multiverse came into existence first as a Sam Jackson character, then as a Sentai-esque one. That shorthand version of my QM logo is still fun when I look at it..
Then Doctor Multiverse became a fully formed concept, if not a locked in style. Playing with my Micronaut to make a “real” version of the character. My tag-line was very inspired by Mego’s adaptation of Micro Man.
This one was used for a time, minus the 3D effect. It was something that I had created in Photoshop using shapes.
Now we get to something that I feel was an inspired design. Using toys from my past, I frankensteined together this version of the Doctor. This design consisted of A Kenner Boba Fett body, a Kenner maskatron head, a Hasbro Mike Powers the Atomic Man’s “hair”, Mego’s Captain America’s shield, and Mattel’s/Popy’s Great Mazinga’s fist & sword.
From there I remade the real toy parts using Photoshop shapes. I was very satisfied with how this shape rendered illustration turned out.
My next step was to embrace my comic book roots. While this only lasted four months in 2020, it was a fresh and clean look.
Here is the latest incarnation of Doctor Multiverse. I still am using the base body of that original Boba Fett, but then I went mad with a Kirby style sketch using my own hand as a model. As you can see I went back to a sentai style mask that I also rendered entirely in PS shapes. Ever since I saw Prince wear his stunning three lense shades, I’ve been stuck on that look. Anyhow, I hope that you’ve enjoyed this journey, I know I have.
The beauty of the Doctor Multiverse concept is that he/she/it can constantly change. To utilize a Bruce Lee-ism here, I use the branding of no branding.
In 1984, was 14 and almost as big a nerd as I am today. Those were heady days indeed. Comics were coming into the mainstream zeitgeist, video games were about to really explode after a lull, and music just kept on improving. The beautiful thing about progress is that if you choose to stay behind, you are free to do so. I have three feet, one planted firmly in the past, one in the present and one in the future. Today, I am speaking of the past.
Back when I was 14 there was a big push to bring Japanese properties, models, and toys to the west. I was all in. Earlier Bandai-America brought a line of robot toys out called “Godaikin”. Looking back, those toys are all boxy-looking, and had very limited possibility. Compared to “Soul of Chogokin” figures, these are… quaint, but back then they were vibrantly dynamic. They dwarfed Jumbo Machinders, what we knew then as Shogun Warriors, in quality and versatility. There were ads for these in magazines like “Epic”, a Marvel imprint, and I would cut those ads out and drool over them. I would also spend hours drawing from them.
Nowadays, all of these are too expensive to purchase on my dime, or lack-thereof. My favorites were always Voltus V, Combatra, and Daltanias… in that order. Will I ever have one of these guys? Probably not, but nothing can replace my priceless memories of daydreaming about these giant robots and making friends with others who loved them as well.
