Here we see R. Daneel Olivaw, essentially elevated into a God. He is an invisible hand, protecting and saving humanity from itself with the help of the Zeroth Law. His status of “God” is implied by the intricate halos, along with the golden color of the palette. I chose to have his eyes glowing blue as perhaps looking into the eyes of a God may seem — powerful, overwhelming — as well as a way to tie more colors into the composition higher up on the page.

I chose the overall golden palette due to R. Daneel Olivaw being described as a “golden spacer” by Elijah Baley upon meeting him on some occasions, with gold itself being associated with pharaohs, Gods, and other divine beings, to which I emulated gold leaf in the background, as well as gold cracks in Daneel’s skin — reminiscent of a kintsugi effect, the cracks of imperfection in pottery filled with gold.

I have carefully cross-referenced what R. Daneel Olivaw (the “R” stands for “Robot”) with his skin looks like with what is in the book (slicked back bronze hair, high cheekbones, identical to his creator, “no detail spared” [yes I thought about drawing his peen because of this]) as well as the official book covers.

From the top of Daneel’s body towards the bottom, his skin is peeling away — disintegrating or flaking off. I did this for two reasons. The first being that R. Daneel Olivaw, in his pure humaniform form, is indistinguishable from a human being, yes — until he opens his robot mouth, most of the times. I didn’t want the drawing to be of just “some guy” to the average viewer — I wanted the viewer to know that it was, in fact, a robot, passing as a man, holding all of humanity’s fate in his hands. Let’s talk about the second reason. Daneel, especially earlier on in the books, can pass for human until he opens his robot mouth, in which case through his reasoning it can become all too apparent that he is a robot. Even further, when he is acting as Demerzel, Hari Seldon has to coach him on how to look human while laughing because R. Daneel Olivaw doesn’t hold up to scrutiny once someone suspects him as robot. So you can see in the drawing — the closer he gets to humans, the more apparent it is that he is a robot, and his skin, no matter how convincing it may be, “peels away.”

Further, as a reminder, Daneel can opt to remove his human looking skin at any time. In The Caves of Steel, after Elijah Baley insists Daneel is human, Daneel is instructed to remove said skin to prove that he is, in fact, a robot. R. Daneel Olivaw also remarks himself that his skin can be cut and damaged and takes a special sort of “welding” to put back together — a visual display of this is shown by the Foundations TV series when Demerzel repairs herself with repairing tools after an impact with boulders.

I would also like to note that I opted for R. Daneel Olivaw to be visibly naked so you could see the details crafted by his creator — Muscle tone, flesh, skin, collar bones, etc etc. I implied his First Minister robe with a wireframe to further drive home the thought that this man is not human, but does exist in the human world. I used the blue from his eyes and his exposed robotics to showcase this wireframe, which also is breaking away and disintegrating the further down towards humanity he is getting.

I also implied an archaic sort of circuitry in the background texture, which seemingly runs in one uninterrupted line all around R. Daneel Olivaw and these habited planets he is helping to control and guide.