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."

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.

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.

88 MILES AN HOUR

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock

Original Creation Date: Apr 27 2014

Lots of experimentation with new things in this homage to Doc Brown and Marty McFly. New pens (which I did NOT care for), new vector ideas (notice the blue outline around the black details on the right leg), and some new coloring tricks on top of the vector elements. I certainly learned some things about the process along the way, and all in all had a lot of fun with this piece.

ROCKET, COLOR

Pen & Ink on Standard Stock, Colored Digitally
Original Creation Date: Apr 15 2014, Final Completion Date: Apr 21 2014

The Rocket Raccoon piece, in all its digitally-painted glory. Ever since I drew this one, deep down I knew I just
wouldn't be satisfied until I took it to full color. Over the past few days I've been grabbing snippets of spare time
to attack this, one multiply-blended layer at a time. Overall I'm pretty satisfied with the results, but after
playing the colorist on the job, I can certainly admit there's a few things I would have gone back and
changed during the inking phase.

But, I guess as a wise artist once said, each finished painting is its own lesson.

A production screenshot, somewhere around the completion of the figure.

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.