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.

COMPULSIVE DETAIL vs. RESTRAINT, or INKING ANGELS AND DEVILS

Yes, that's a picture of me inking, with a devil of sorts on one shoulder, and an angel on the other. If you look closer, however, you might realize that one side of the drawing is inked in an entirely different manner than the other. The devil, or my inking devil, as it were, is Arthur Adams, probably the single biggest influence on my entire pursuit of comic book illustration and just a huge influence in general since his big-league debut in Longshot #1.

Arthur Adams's Man-Thing

Arthur Adams is a beast for detail, to the extent that he's developed it into its own medium-- he seems to use ludicrous detail the way other artists wield acrylics or oils. He's taken it to an entirely different plane over the years. And, not surprisingly, he's had a reputation of sorts for not getting his books in on time.

Now I'm not going to go so far to presume that I draw, ink, or even wield detail to the extent that Mr. Adams does. But his work, and my longtime fascination with it, has inspired me to develop a style that really puts down a lot of ink, usually in small, and not always clean lines in hatching.

My Own Daredevil, with plenty of hatching

In the Daredevil piece above, you can see me sort of getting carried away with the inks, almost not knowing when to stop. The hatching is intended to develop form and promote the illusion of mass in his body, but very often I'm only flattening things out. In other words, I ink to the point of excess.

And I've recently acknowledged it, and am trying to stop.

--

The inking angel depicted above is, sadly, a real angel. The super-talented and super-nice guy Mike Wieringo tragically passed away in 2007 in the midst of a celebrated career as a comic book artist, and left a multitude of loyal fans to wonder what might have been. I met Mike in Baltimore a few years before his death, and I found him to be friendly, accommodating, and honest.

Mike Wieringo's Fantastic Four

Mike's own style certainly had its share of detractors, but he was also on my short list of artists to watch and be inspired by. And unlike Arthur Adams, Mike's style was greatly reserved and simplistic. There's no hatching, no heavy and laborious working, and seemingly no effort. Quite simply, he's the day to Arthur Adams' blackest india ink night.

Since I've gotten back into this style of artwork just a few short months ago, I've really struggled to find my own voice or signature style as an inker. I love the Adams look but certainly don't want to just mimic it-- plus I worry about becoming an artist who just can't work quickly enough because of all the detail. On the other end of the spectrum is Wieringo, who draws so differently than I do that I'm not sure how good such a simplistic style would look over my pencils. Either way, I think there's a fine balance between the two to be found, and I've spent some time recently exploring that balance.

My Own Flash, with no hatching whatsoever

In the Flash piece above, I laid down the law to myself:  NO HATCHING. NONE. And I think I still tried to cheat in a few places. But, as a professor, one of the greatest things I've learned in art projects is that by withholding certain practices or techniques, a student can learn to appreciate, execute, and better identify the need for other techniques. So I turned the tables on myself here, and learned quite a bit from my temporary ban on hatching. Mostly I learned how natural it was for me to just overwork things, and HATCH FOR THE SAKE OF HATCHING. Not good, and certainly not necessary.

I anticipate this to be an ongoing battle as I settle in to a more comfortable style. But I thought it might be worth sharing the struggle between the angels and devils.

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.

GREETINGS FROM THANAGAR

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock, Digitally Colored

Original Creation Date: Apr 26 2014

This thing, very small, was part of the inking experiments last week. It borders on cartoonish, mostly because I was trying to limit myself to a certain pen size.  Not the best ink job, but I enjoyed the coloring.

Also, Hawkman is really weird. I never truly appreciated how unique his color scheme is, however.

MADNESS

Pencil, with vector and raster digital enhancement.
Original Creation Date: Apr 11 2014

A new technique I've been experimenting with, using my preferred graphic design weapon of choice, Adobe Illustrator.
This pencil drawing of J, initially not much bigger than a post-it note, was vectorized and colored in AI before being
brought in for some final treatments in Photoshop.

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.