I’ve always been a little confused as to why Marvel has two short-haired female characters running around in S.H.I.E.L.D. outfits (the other one being Daisy from Secret Warriors), so my visual cue for Hill is slightly longer hair, which is pretty much how she’s depicted in Invincible Iron Man.
Also, I didn’t think it was appropriate to put a S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem on her arm, so I made up a Star-Avengers A hybrid. Hope nobody minds.
Drawing this a little late in the day coz I spent the afternoon rubbing elbows with artists from Manila at the Renaissance Book Signing. Jessica Drew is excellent for waking up before spending some time at the desk. Turns out warming up can be fun.
This is my interim piece before i plunge into another ‘poster project’ … I’ve always held a fascination for World War II history and have long thought about doing a piece showcasing its top political and military leaders.
Below is one of my brother Roby’s new sketches featuring selected historical figures. You can see the rest of the art here.
Zuda’s October competition ends in a coupla days. Things have been crazy exciting so far, so I figured I’d do a bit more blabbing about what qualified as work behind our entry… just to take my mind off things for a bit.
I was honestly thinking about showing a bit more of action in this page, like an actual sequence of moves, but space constraints would have forced me to make them too small and possibly a bit muddled. Instead, I settled for showing key snippets of how violent the battle was, because that’s all we needed to know anyway.
This page required a different approach than the first five because it’s the first daytime sequence in the comic thus far. Not being too comfortable with it all being too bright, I made sure to play with line weights to at least hint at a sense of depth. There’s an occasional big black shape to add character to each panel, but having to limit my use of them took a bit of doing.
I walk away from this page fairly pleased with myself and my use of the hand as a gestural tool. To be totally honest, as I was just learning to draw, I was one of those guys who would use any and every excuse to obscure a character’s hand because I dreaded having to draw them in. Not saying that I draw hands perfectly now, but I’ve surrendered to them often being a indispensable tool for expression sans dialogue.
Let’s just ignore my failed attempt at a Bryan Hitch-style camera lens flare and move on to panels 4 and 5, shall we? The thumbnail will tell you that i planned for the characters to appear a lot bigger in the middle panel, but it killed too much of the castle’s… regalness (yes, that’s a word now)… if you can call it that. Not too happy about how those small figures ended up looking, but I guess it carries the action across.
The last panel was actually a bit of an issue because Gabe and I needed it to act as a strong enough hook to make people want to read more… but without over-dramatizing the scene. The script actually had the king saying something to Pluck, and we also thought of Pluck sheepishly introducing himself. Ultimately, we decided that a relatively subtle one-point perspective shot would emphasize that all eyes were on Pluck, and his looking up would show that not only is he being looked at… but actually looked down upon. Fidgety hands and a sheepish grin helped bring the panel home.
Anyway yeah, that’s what went into the PLUCK Zuda entry and my layout process in general. Was it good for you too? *huff
You can read the first part of this commentary here.
If you haven’t yet read the comic, I’d really appreciate it if you checked us out and dropped us a vote. Enjoy the comic here.
I never really feel comfortable sitting still and waiting for word to come in about things I’m waiting for word on — I’m sorry if that’s not vague enough, I’ll try harder next time — so Jad and I are plowing forward with our joint comic venture. Just in case you didn’t catch previous mentions of HARBINGER WAR, it’s a Zuda pitch we’re collaborating on. Set in the distant past, it’s gonna play with a lot of sci-fi elements (her department) while balancing all the smart stuff with monsters and boobies (my department).
She’s turned in a draft for the initial script, and together we’re whittling that down to the smoothest and tightest read it can possibly be. No specific looks for specific characters have been established yet, which is why I’m still playing with design aesthetics and mix n’ matching elements. Prehistoric-set stories tend to be pastiche pieces, wardrobe-wise, so I’ll need to take a few liberties, stylistically. They had lip gloss back then right? Right. Sweet.
I was sorting my junk today and stumbled upon one of my high school sketchbooks. Here are a few sketches done circa 1999… exactly ten years ago.
Huh.
Getting caught up on House episodes. I was relatively late to the whole TV-series thing, and so I’ve got a whole zoo of stuff I’m yet to watch. The Shield, CSI, The Wire, The Sopranos — you name it, I haven’t seen it. Unless it’s Entourage, which is the shit. My brother collects DVDs as opposed to my comics, so I sure don’t have a problem getting new flicks and shows. I should do a “things I watch(ed)” journal entry or whatever. Currently on season two of House. The Leonard-Laurie bromance is always fun. Doc Cameron is hot. And the soundtrack is flawless. Good show. Apparently a coupla years’ worth of Emmys can’t be wrong.
Woof!
In one episode, Hugh Laurie goes, “I don’t work hard. I work smart.”
Ouch.
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Internet did it’s job perfectly and very efficiently distracted me from work this week. And that’s not even counting the hours I spent Wednesday morning glued to CNN for the election coverage. So… no, not a very productive week, work-wise. Only got a total of two (maybe three, if I tighten this WWII scene tonight) inked pages of OVERTHROW! out the door, though I did get to do revisions on some old pages. I’m quite happy with how those turned out, so it ain’t all bad. I’ve apparently arrived at some action scenes in the issue (finally!), and I work fairly quickly through those. For some reason though, I always hit a slump after every action page. I don’t quite know why that is yet, but the pre-work warm ups are definitely helping me not to cool too far down. More on those later.
Taking my sweet time with the concept sketches for the horror project. I’ve stumbled upon an approach that has somehow allowed me to maintain my style but adopt a whole new aesthetic to it. It’s subtle, but it’s there. Been studying the little differences in Humberto Ramos’ work between Crimson and X-men, that sorta thing. Buncha Hellboy trades are helping too.
::: Tres Komikeros Episode 10 :::
I said I’d do a sketch a day this week, and so far it has helped a lot in getting me in the groove in the mornings (read 2 pm… heh…), so here they are, along with some commentary. They each took about an hour tops, that being the time limit I gave myself, me being great with deadlines and all:
MONDAY: I read a Red Lanterns book for last week’s podcast and I just suddenly found Sinestro cool, despite me never having been a fan. This is a shot of him inviting you to be part of his corps. My foreshortening needs work.
TUESDAY: Again, inspired by a previous episode of the podcast, I couldn’t resist doing a Darkseid piece after seeing the last page of Final Crisis #4. Nothing special to say about this though, it was just fun.
WEDNESDAY: Michael Crichton’s books and resultant films played a pivotal role in me getting serious about art — this was for him.
THURSDAY: Election day, so I couldn’t resist writing a little something extra on PG’s cape… clasp… thing. She’s actually a bit tough to draw without making her look top-heavy. i might’ve fucked this up.
FRIDAY: Took a suggestion from Viking Alex so I wouldn’t end up choosing easy characters to draw. Having lotsa blacks on a character is always fun… and speedy!
Marvel stuff next week.
Took the Sunday off to recharge my batteries and chill with the boys. Things were getting a bit tight in that studio after about two straight weeks of comic work. What’s funny is I chose drawing as a way to relax from… drawing.
Suede Monkey Rey :: :: :: Seuss-whore Lloyd :: :: :: Viking Alex
That’s no moon…
Yes, my hand really does blur like that. True Story.
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