"I don't even know, what I'm doing here."

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Sketch 21 - Ken the Eagle from Gatchaman





















It's a bad photo because my scanner wasn't big enough, but this is Ken Washio from G-Force, Gatchaman, Battle of the Planets,... whatever you want to call it. You can always just call it, "awesome."

Sketch 18





















Kato, from Green Hornet, drawn from a Bruce Lee photo.

Identification



Monday, July 25, 2011

Sketch 14 - DSC: Jessica Alba

This is supposed to be a portrait of Jessica Alba for the Daily Sketch Challenge on Deviant Art one day. Done in about 50 minutes. Pretty happy with it, though, the proportions on it, and likeness, really bother me, now.

Sketch 12 - DSC: Gabriel, Devil Hunter

A guick 30 minute sketch of an obscure Marvel character, "Gabriel, Devil Hunter," that was the chosen subject for the Daily Sketch Challenge that I do on Deviant Art. Unfortunately, he turned out looking like some crazed evangelical christian, so I like to imagine that he is aiming to exorcise a demon from some dude by threatening to "beat the devil out 'a bitch with his bible."

Saturday, June 11, 2011

"Daily" Sketch 4 - DC Relaunch Superman Redesign

(You should click to embiggen, since it's a light pencil sketch)

Everybody in or around comics is talking about the DC Relaunch, so I decided to try to draw the Superman redesign to see if I could make it look good… because it is just a bad design. And I've always thought that, even a bad costume design can look ok if done by a good artist, and maybe a little reinterpreting and tweaking. Not that I consider myself the best person for the job, but I wanted to give it a try. I ended up having to change the design more than I planned to, but, let's face it, it's just bad. The worse the design, the harder it is to make it look good, I think.

I still got rid of the "underwear on the outside," which seems to be the most significant change in the redesign, but I just couldn't do those armored boots. Everybody knows less is more when it comes to a costume/outfit. I tried to keep the general shape of the boots, which mimicked the original design, anyway. The next big design change were the seams, which I learned were actually lines of armor, which is just stupid, so for me, they will be seams. I noticed more of the new "seams" in the blue areas when I started drawing them, and decided some just had to go. I tried to keep the main ones, though, since they are a majority of the modernization of the suit. The vertical lines on the sides look great on most modern superhero designs, most noticeably to me on the Wolverine redesign by John Cassaday. Wolverine's new costume, while I still prefer the brown and orange, is more modern looking, but I remember not even noticing that his costume had been changed at first. The same kind of seams were used on Batman's new Batman, Inc. design, too, and look fine. Another example where I barely notice the redesign at first. I guess that's the key, to make the changes so seamless(intend the pun, or not to intend...?) that the classic iconography is not lost. My friend suggested looking at the new Supergirl redesign for cues, because it's great, so I took some seams from her elbow area(which actually create the impression of a joint in a toy figure), and these shapes ended up mimicking the shapes in the boots. I drew the symbol after Jim Lee's style on the new JLA cover, but, ended up keeping more of the serifs on the "S," because without looks too much like Kingdom Come Supes, and with that context, seems darker, and more cynical.

The pose, and figure is just lifted from a Joe Shuster drawing, because I've always liked the classic look of the first versions of Superman. I've seen where his symbol in those earlier strips even has a black background behind the "S," instead of yellow, like the Kingdom Come Superman, but that just made the costume seem like an alternate version, not the "real" version of Supes. I was thinking of putting that black instead in the belt, where I left out most of the extra shapes, since they were ridiculous. In the end, I'm pretty happy with the results, and will probably ink and color it soon.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Daily Sketch # 1


It's been a long Monday, but here's a quick reproduction from a Japanese print, at least. Ain't much, but you gotta start somewhere.