CHOCOLATE DONUTS & GRAPE SODA

Pen & Ink on 11x15 Warm Press

Original Creation Date: June 18, 2014

G.I.Joe. The 80's. Like most men my age, there was a natural transition through the Reagan years from Star Wars to G.I.Joe to the Transformers, and then finally onto girls and junior high and all of that mess.

But man, I was a Joe kid. At this very moment, somewhere in my parents' attic sits boxes and boxes of vehicles and figures, presumably their rubber-ringed pelvis suspensions all rotted and broken. Where I differed from so many other guys from my generation was my opinion of the cartoon.  The G.I.Joe show was always second-rate to me; it was like a serviceable dilution that promised to be so much but never quite delivered.

It always fell short in comparision to the comic.

Marvel's G.I.Joe was a fantastic series. Sure, it was too much of a promotional tool to sell toys, and there were too many characters to really develop stronger personalities... but what'd I care? I was the one buying those toys, and even when I reluctantly gave them up I still followed the stories. Larry Hama. Herb Trimpe. Great stuff. For a long time, if I recall correctly, it was Marvel's best selling title. I think there was a perception back then that this was only a result of its crossover success from the brand itself... but I disagree. This was a great comic book with cool characters and compelling adventures.

I thought I'd pay homage to one of my favorites... the infamous master of disguise, Zartan. Zartan and his men were so much cooler in the comics (I think in the TV show they were just buffoonish comic relief), and they were written more as the unruly thugs and gang members they were intended to be. They caused trouble. They broke the rules. They partied.

However, it was also a comic book being read by a lot of kids. So, presumably, Jim Shooter or someone in those circles instructed Larry Hama, the legendary mind behind G.I.Joe (he's the guy that wrote all those file cards you cut out and saved in your rubber-band encased stack), that they shouldn't be having TOO MUCH fun. No drugs, and no booze.

So instead, Zartan and his boys had a thing for grape soda, and chocolate-covered donuts. Works for me.  I've depicted Zartan here returning home from a trip to his local grocer, complete with his famed bow, some healthier necessities, and some treats for the lads.

I LOVED drawing this, if only for the nostalgic value. I might get around to color at some point.

ALIEN LEGION #60 COVER, aka HARKILON HELL FINISHED

Pen & Ink on 11x15 Warm Press

Original Creation Date: May 20, 2014

Color Completion Date: Jun 3, 2014

No, there is no actual 'Alien Legion #60' being published by Epic Comics this month.
Heck, there's not even an Epic Comics anymore.

This is the final 'Harkilon Hell' cover design piece, in all its colored and cover mock-up glory. As fun of a pencil and ink exercise this was for me, I may have very well learned more about the digital coloring process on this one, just because there was so much layered detail. I originally planned on using some blurs to push the background away from the figure and action, but in the end I think the contrast of value and color was enough to define things in their proper environments.

A glimpse of the final piece without the branding and title treatments:

I'm happy with this, and certainly happy calling this a portfolio piece. I probably took more time than I would have liked to color the completed inked version, but I was doing it part-time at night, and without a Wacom tablet. Either way, this is certainly a display of what I can do and how I can do it.

A glimpse of its evolution from pencils to production color:

Finally, for the record, why #60? Well, in a perfect world, Alien Legion would have ran endlessly from its original series if not the second, and there would be just hundreds and hundreds of adventures featuring the famed footsloggers of the Tophan Galactic Union. I just chose 60 because it's a number that hits very close to home for me, both in sports and design. For many seasons I wore '60' as a hockey player (I've since shortened it back to '6') and I have freelanced as a branding and design consultant as 'Six Zero Branding.' So it just seemed like a logical choice.

Finally, if you haven't ever had the opportunity, take some time to check out Carl Potts' ALIEN LEGION. There's a new series breaking this summer from Titan Comics, but the originals are still out there and in recent Omnibus collections from Dark Horse. It's some great sci-fi comic book storytelling.

"TOUGH AS TUNGSTEN, AND LOYAL TO THE DIRTY END."

KITTY & LOCKHEED

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock
Original Completion Date: June 1, 2014

Another round at Shadowcat and her beloved dragon. Actually this was another exercise in inking restraint, where I withheld the option of putting down any sort of hatching whatsoever.

Since I've been tinkering with this drastic change in inking style, I have found that the secret to restraint in inking is actually... restraint in drawing. I have spoken before about the compulsion to fill the page with detail (see the Alien Legion piece for reference if necessary), and how it all seems to come from an inexplicable aversion to untouched, white space on the paper. That part of my process is certainly at its highest point during inking... but I am learning that those decisions start when a pencil is in my hand. Occasionally it even rears its head during the initial blue pencil phase.

Forcing myself to resist such urges, such as in this piece, helps me consider the "how" and "why" behind all of it. I think that heavy detail I love so much is, in many ways, a partially subconscious behavior that probably started a long, long time ago in the evolution of my style. Hatching adds complexity, and visual interest... but it also serves to hide things as well.

My lines aren't as graceful as I'd like. Sure, the vector process mangled those above a bit more than I liked, but even without that step, my lines just don't seem to possess an inherent elegance like those in the works of Josh Middleton or even Paul Smith. Perhaps deep down I'm not happy about it, and I'm subconsciously hiding something that I don't like in my own work?? We can dig as deep as we'd like here about the psychological foundations of an artist's drawing style... but I do think I've arrived to the conclusion that less detail will come much easier if I focus on the quality and grace of my lines.

So in other words, I'm switching to a much softer graphite tomorrow, haha!!

THE SCARECROW

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock
Original Completion Date: May 23, 2014

The Scarecrow. Not much back story behind this one... I just have a list I made up a long time ago of things I wanted to draw when I started back on the horse, so to speak, and one of the entries simply said

"A Scary Scarecrow. The Batman one."

This was fast, fast, fast... and that's including doing all of the black with pen.

WOLVERAMPAGE, finished

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock, Digitally Colored
Final Color Completion Date: May 27, 2014

The Wolverine piece in color. Did some different things in the coloring process that I think worked out fairly well. I'm still on the fence with the lens flares, but decided to leave them in there, at least for now.

THE PUNISHER

Pencil on Standard Stock
Original Creation Date: May 20, 2014

The Punisher, in all his vigilante glory.

TRUE STORY: Those are actually Charlie Manson's eyes. And why shouldn't they be? Somewhere in the 90's Frank became some sort of blue collar good-guy hero, but lest we forget the lessons taught us by Amazing Spider-Man #129... The Punisher is a villain, and probably a deranged one at that.

Dude is nuts, and should be. Look for this to get inked at some point as well.

HARKILON HELL

Pen & Ink on 11x15 Warm Press
Original Creation Date: May 20, 2014

I treated this piece as if it were a full blown cover commission, done on 11x15 warm press and conceived, penciled, and inked over the course of about 48 hours. I purposely wanted the entire scene to be overwhelmingly filled with the alien attackers, but tried to use tangential eye lines and other compositional elements to push the focal point continuously back to our beleaguered hero.

The hero, of course, is the amazing Jugger Grimrod.

For those not readily familiar with him, Jugger was the sociopathic anti-hero of ALIEN LEGION, Carl Potts's epic space serial comic, originally released under Marvel's Epic Comics creator-owned line.

(Original Pencils)

I LOVED Alien Legion, and still keep the completed run of both series in a relatively accessible location. And yet I haven't read a page for a good ten years. Hmmm... I think I'm gonna go do something about that right now!

ATTUMA!

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock
Original Creation Date: May 17, 2014

Don't know why, but I've really had a desire to draw Namor's brutal brother-- I'm smack dab in the middle of "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," so perhaps that's why.It's almost shocking that I haven't colored this-- my favorite thing about Attuma is his color scheme.

I thought the lower camera angle worked out pretty well here-- and who doesn't love drawing evil octopii?

UNCANNY

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock

Inked on Date: May 15, 2014

The Uncanny X-Men, say, circa 1983.

Aka my childhood. I knew these characters better than most friends and family growing up, and sitting down to draw them was certainly a great trip down memory lane.  The X-Men franchise today is an empire, an army of mutants and students and villains and villains that become headmasters and such.

But back then, they were just... family.

THE SORCERER SUPREME

Pencil on Standard Stock, Digitally Colored
Original Creation Date: Completed May 11, 2014

Doctor Strange. I think I read one of his comics once when I was a kid, but otherwise I know very little about him. In fact, I think I even made fun of him a few times in my Michigan Comic Strip in the past. But he was never one of my favorites.

Which, of course, is exactly why I sought him out. I wanted to draw a character I was unfamiliar with, and even prepare another piece in the more elaborate vector painting style I've experimented in the past, first with the Joker Madness and later the Nemesis pieces. Without giving away any of my secrets, or boring anyone in the process, pencil artwork is treated in very specific ways in Adobe Illustrator and then later embellished with additional raster treatments in Photoshop. I like to call it my "GrayPaint" technique.

As you can see here, the piece starts as a very loose, and free-form pencil drawing. It's almost as if the pencil doesn't leave the page at all during its creation.

And additional treatments are made for shadows, contrast, color, and in the final image, mystical magic bolts.

This drawing tested the technique in ways I'd never pushed it before... as well as the active memory of my MacPro. But as it always is, a solution is found, and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

MEANWHILE, AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN...

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock

Inked on Date: May 7, 2014

Really enjoyed throwing this thing together. Like so many other kids from the 80's who watched and loved the SuperFriends but ultimately became a Marvel reader... I've always had a thing for Black Manta. But I don't know much about him at all.

This will definitely be inked.

NEMESIS

Pencil on Standard Stock, Digitally Colored

Original Creation Date: May 6, 2014

Thought I'd have a go at Mark Millar's contest over at MillarWorld. To be honest, outside of Kick-Ass I'm not very well versed at Millar's characters... but this guy Nemesis seemed like a fun little draw. He was once described as "what if the Batman was really the Joker." Which explains the bloody head.

Experimented pretty heavily with the vector technique applied in the Joker Madness piece posted not long ago, with some more traditional coloring thrown in over top for good measure. Lots of Illustrator, and lots of Photoshop at play here.

Also worth noting is that to achieve some of the textures and random lines throughout this piece, I actually took the original sketch and, well, crumpled it up a bit. Heresy, right?!

WOLVERINE RAMPAGE

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock, Digitally Colored

Original Creation Date: May 2 2014

What started out as a quick pose sketch of Wolverine quickly evolved into a full-blown partial background, with the intent of providing a full environment to continue my inking experiments on top of. Lots of fun to draw him all ripped up like that.

However, I also went against my own usual method and put some heavy, soft graphite into the pencil drawing itself, and ultimately decided to try and flesh it out enough to attempt a direct digital ink job. I've already done some digital inking on my Michigan comic strip in the past, but with mixed emotions on the results. In some ways, penciling for direct ink seems to be more work, since I always seem to spend more time trying to recreate the graphic quality that inking lines naturally possess. It just seems less spontaneous, less authentic.

Digital Inking Attempt 1

Digital Inking Attempt 2

Digital Inking Attempt 3

As seen above, I took several passes at this, both in Photoshop and Illustrator, to achieve the final look I have in my mind.  Unfortunately, all of these are too loose, too muddy, or too sparse to satisfy my aesthetic sensibilities. I just see it differently, and probably won't be happy with this until I get it there.

In this particular piece, the lesson learned is that if I am going to do direct pencil work, I'm going to have to spend more time refining the background lines, drawn in a tight 3H as opposed to the figure's  bold 5B marks. As a result, several elements in the background-- the tree, some of the ninja fodder, even the pagoda-- just aren't tight enough.

I think I may sit down and ink this guy after all. Although it's sure to be a great big mess now with all that graphite all over the place. Still, some great lessons learned, and it's still likely to be my best take on a very popular character.

A LATE SNACK FOR LOCKHEED

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock
Original Creation Date: Apr 16 2014

Kitty Pryde. Man, those were the days...

JUST A MAN IN A BAT SUIT

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock, Digitally Painted.
Original Creation Date: Apr 10 2014

When I was younger, my take on the Batman always ended up being this herculean specimen of a man in tights, as if all that was missing was the green skin from another hero named Bruce. These days, I kind of like the idea that the Batman is just a regular guy, albeit with his own twisted motivations to do the things he does in the streets of Gotham at night. Just a guy in a bat suit.

I doubt this is my signature take on the caped crusader, but I think I'm getting closer.

THE EMERALD ARCHER

Pencil on Bristol.
Original Creation Date: Jun 20 2005

Gravity.

I learned a valuable lesson from this piece about how to pose a figure from memory... and how NOT to.

Green Arrow in the woods. The woods in question are actually a part of the Hawk Mountain Raptor Sanctuary
in Pennsylvania, a favorite hiking destination of mine at the time. Oliver was added later.

A few years later, then-DC inker Rich Faber was looking over my stuff and remarked about how the character was
incredibly, hopelessly off-balance. And he was right-- I was so caught up in having him appear to rest on the bow that
I neglected the placement of that foot. A lesson worth learning... Chin over feet, and always remember gravity.

THE PADDED CELL

Pen & Ink on Bristol.
Original Creation Date: Aug 27 2008

An early Joker, developed initially as an in-class tutorial on inking techniques.
My Jokers have improved over the years.

JUNGLE ADVENTURE

Pen & Ink on Bristol.
Original Creation Date: May 28 2009

Ehh. Not my best Logan head shot... but I like the texture of the vegetation, and his legs.

SPIDEY AT SUNSET

Pen & Ink on Bristol.
Original Creation Date: Nov 23 2009

Entirely pen and ink. The idea was to catch a costumed hero in a contemplative moment,
and perhaps recreate a colorful moment without the use of, well, color.