Showing posts with label Illustration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Illustration. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

iZombie


Here's a promotional image I was asked to draw for the CW show iZombie based on the comic book of the same name, created by Chris Roberson and Mike Allred. It was a great book and makes for some pretty durned fun television as well! This image is a tease for tonight's episode-- ZOMBIE RAT!!

iZombie airs tonight at 9/8c on the CW.

Friday, August 1, 2014

Photobooth Friday, No. 52

Guardians of the Galaxy edition!
Today Marvel's new movie the 'Guardians of the Galaxy' hits theaters, so I thought why not feature an illustration I did recently in celebration of the movie. Here's the full image:
I was commissioned to make this piece for Variety magazine for use along with an article they were running about the film, it's producer Kevin Feige (pictured above in blue) and director James Gunn. You can read the full article here.

Basically I was asked to draw up a "fun, heroic group shot" of the crew from the movie, along with producer Kevin Feige, "in an alien/space setting." Thankfully they basically went for my first idea--looking at the group in an anti-gravity setting aboard a starship. I also added in a small narrative of Kevin wearing Star Lord (Chris Pratt)'s headphones as seen in the trailer. Star Lord reaches for them, trying to peel them back off Kevin's head. Here's a look at the initial sketch, and a follow up tweaking of it after some notes from art director, Chuck Kerr:


Some photoboothin:

A look at the rest of the process from digital pencils to real inks to digital color:
And finally, some detail shots of my inks:

And that about does it! I'm off to the movies, y'all. :)

Have a great weekend!

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Guardians of the Galaxy (and Kevin)!


The Guardians of the Galaxy (and Kevin)!
Above is a look at a illustration I recently did (and had been teasing here) for an article in Variety Magazine focusing on film producer Kevin Feige. Kevin has been one of the driving forces behind all of the Marvel movies, the most recent of which is the up and coming Guardians of the Galaxy film. The article highlights Mr. Feige’s contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Art Director Chuck Kerr asked me to produce an illustration of Kevin interacting with the Guardians in some sort of playful way. I decided to depict him and the Guardians crew from the interior of a starship, it’s gravity turned off as they all bounce about. Kevin is dressed as a member of the Nova Corps, sporting Star Lord’s coveted Walkman. 
Hope you like!
Oh, and in case you were somehow unaware that this movie was coming out, you should probably watch this trailer. It’s awesome.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Captain Marvel No. 5



This month Marvel, in conjunction with the Susan G. Koman for the cure organization, are putting out a series of variant covers for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I contributed to the bunch with the above Captain Marvel cover.
Here’s a link to Marvel’s official press release regarding the subject —http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=41298
Stay healthy, folks.

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Pete and Pete tribute



Greetings, my little vikings!

Above is my cover contribution for the forthcoming fanzineWaiting for October. It's a celebration of all things relating to the 90's Nickelodeon show, The Adventure of Pete and Pete.

In case it’s unclear, the composition takes cues from the movie poster Big Trouble in Little China, by the great Drew Struzan. I wanted to go big, movie poster style for this cover, and that seemed like a good starting point. Below you can see samples of both my initial 'Big Trouble' sketch as well as an alternate cover idea.
I tried to cram as many Pete and Pete things in there as I reasonably could, being such a big fan of the show. Hope you all like!


Friday, December 23, 2011

Photobooth Phridays, No 38

Hey there, kiddies! Welcome to another installment of Photobooth Phridays! Today we'll be looking at my fifth cover to Star Wars: Knight Errant - Deluge, which just hit comic shops this week--


Above is a side by side comparison of the initial inks and finished, digitally colored piece. Here I experimented with using a china marker for the rendering on the Hutt's face, rather than my standard dry brushing technique. It was nice for some of the nuanced areas, but on a large scale like this, I don't know that it was all that more efficient. Anywho, here's a look at my hilarious photobooth reference shot --


A Maris Wicks photobomb is becoming the standard with these things.

Eagle eye's might have noticed that Kerra's face is somewhat different in the final finished illustration, versus the initial inked piece - and you'd be right. My editor thought Kerra looked a little off model at first (and I couldn't really disagree with him --hey, I'm only human!), so I went back into her face and altered it slightly. Check it!





Above are my initial sketches for the cover. The middle one, my personal favorite of the bunch, was meant to harken back to old James Bond novel covers. I like the idea of it, but can see why they didn't go with this one. Still, an idea to revisit perhaps for some future piece.

Alrighty, that about does it for now. Happy Holidays, every body!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Captain America: The First Thunderbolt?


Above is the first of a four issue run of covers for Marvel's Thunderbolts series that I'll be working on, featuring Captain America. I've never gotten to tackle Cap professionally before, so I'm psyched.

More to come!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

The Fantastic Four -- Featuring...

She-Hulk!


The above illustration is a variant cover for issue 16 of X-men, coming out this August. It's one of a series of Fantastic Four themed covers Marvel is putting out this year in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the famous superhero family. This particular cover is meant to harken back to the John Byrne era of the series (in the early 80's), in which She-Hulk temporarily replaced The Thing. It's also my very first painted cover! True.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Photobooth Fridays, no. 27


Today we'll be looking at the first cover of Star Wars: Knight Errant, series 2, starring none other than the jade saber wielding Jedi, Kerra Holt.


Or is that Maris Wicks? It is! Thankfully Ms. Wicks was once again gracious enough to model for me - this time with props!


Above you can see a comparison of my initial thumbnail sketch for the cover, as well as it's proceeding finished inks. Looking at the final cover, you'll notice there weren't really any major changes from its initial composition, save for minor tweaks in the pose, anatomical correcting, detailing, etc. Lucasfilm did however think that Kerra's smile looked a bit goofy in the thumbnail, and asked me to get rid of it altogether. Having intended the piece to be a bit of a throwback to 1940's WWII propaganda art, I thought it essential that it be as blindly optimistic as possible. I toned down Kerra's smile hoping they would let me keep it, which they thankfully did.

Here's a pencilled drafting of those pearly whites:


Which you can compare against the final finished cover here.

And as a final bonus, here's a look at the two unused concepts for this cover:


Have a good weekend!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Knight Errant Returns

This here was just announced at C2E2 this past weekend--


It's the next installment of Star Wars: Knight Errant! The series, which premiered last fall, showcases a new era in the Star Wars universe set 1,000 years before the events of Episode I: The Phantom Menace. It'll be hitting stands this August, and I'll be returning as cover artist for its run. I'm psyched.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Mass Effect: Evolution #3

Spotted the solicits for this issue last week.

It's the cover to the third issue of Darkhorse and Bioware's Mass Effect: Evolution series! This particular cover focuses on a new character to the Mass Effect universe, who shall remain a mystery for now...

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Mass Effect: Evolution #2

Saw this floating around the interwebs today -

Above is my second variant cover for the up and coming Mass Effect: Evolution mini-series, due out early next year. This installment features the cybernetic-enhanced, megalomaniacal alien from the first installment of the video game series, Saren. I'm a big fan of the games, so it was fun getting to illustrate two very intriguing characters from its universe. (The other being The Illusive Man)

Hope you like!

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Star Wars: Knight Errant # 3


Above is the third cover in the series; a bit of an homage to famous Star Wars production painter and concept artist, Ralph McQuarrie. I've long been a fan of Mr. McQuarrie's work, so it was a ton of fun doing this piece. Hope you like!

From everything I've heard and seen, 'Celebration V' sounds like it was a total blast. I'm hugely jealous of anyone who got to go. Though I suppose as a consolation, some of my artwork came along for the ride --

It's none other than the 'Knight Errant' herself, Kerra Holt! Woah -- she's a real person? Apparently Dark Horse commissioned a young lady to galavant around the convention floor dressed as our jade saber-wielding heroine. Neat!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Star Wars: Knight Errant #2


FOUR! I mean FIVE! I mean FIRE!
The solicits came out today (on my birthday, no less) for the next issue in my run of Star Wars covers for Dark Horse. Pictured here is the 'big bad' of the story - feared sith lord and contender for the Mr. Clean look-alike contest, Lord Odion.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Star Wars: Knight Errant


For those of you that follow my blog or know me personally, you may have pieced it together that I'm a big time fan of STAR WARS.
You can imagine my excitement when Darkhorse Comics approached me about illustrating the covers for a five-part miniseries they would be publishing this fall, called Star Wars: Knight Errant. It's a new Star Wars tale set 1000 years before Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. I'm pretty jazzed about it. Above is the cover to issue one due out this October. MTV just posted a big interview with the series' writer, John Jackson Miller. You can check that out here.

More to come!

Saturday, June 26, 2010

Miss Mah Vel


This summer Marvel Comics is going to be releasing a series of variant covers celebrating the women of the Marvel universe. Above is my contribution, a pin-up of the famed Avenger, Ms. Marvel (how many times can I type the word 'Marvel' in one blog post?). It was a fun little project, and a neat idea to highlight strong female characters of the Marvel-verse (there I go again). Here's a page from my sketchbook where I was figuring out possible poses for the pinup. Enjoy!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Adventure Comics #11 - Variant


Above is a cover I did for DC's 'Adventure Comics' series. All of the series' variant covers tend to showcase a collection of scenes broken up to resemble a comics page. Here I was given a set number of panels and ideas of what should be in those panels, but decided to try and go someplace a little different with the layout. The hope was to try and to echo some of the old pulp sci-fi mags covers from the 40's. I may or may not have been successful...

Friday, April 30, 2010

In Other News...

I just saw that Marvel posted this online -

This was the last of the 'villain variant' covers that I'd done for Amazing Spider-man. It'll be the cover to issue # 630, coming out next week!

Annnd I just recently found out that I'll be included once more in this years Spectrum Annual due out next November. I've got two pieces included this go round. You've probably seen them both before, but here they are again anyhow -
My Kraven 'villain variant' cover for 'The Amazing Spider-man'

And page 11 of my Green Lantern story from last summer's Wednesday Comics series.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Adventure Comics #9

Supergirl! LOOK OUT!

Hey Guys, here's a look at my most recent DC work, the cover to Adventure Comics #9.
Here the editors on the book had expressed that they wanted this particular cover to feel a bit like a Drew Struzan movie poster. They had no idea who they were asking! I adore Struzan's work and had already done an homage piece to the artist back in college, so I was psyched. I broke out the airbrush and colored pencils and got cracking.
I'd actually meant to take process pictures through the whole thing to show off just how it's done, but time constraints got in the way. Regardless, basically you start out with a rendered pencil drawing, to which you cut several masks through which you'll airbrush base layers of paint/color. Atop that, using the guideline of the underlying pencil rendering, you build up your light and darks with colored pencil. It's a little tedious, but also a lot of fun. Here's a detail shot of Supergirl.


And speaking of my college days, Paolo recently had a post on his blog where he mentioned our senior show in college, for which my Struzan/homage poster was created. Here's a link to a photo of Paolo and I and our show-mates attempting to re-enact our poses on the poster. I recommend you all check out Paolo's poster from the event as well (Yes, I'm wearing a dress there, but damn, I've got nice legs).

And lastly, here's one more picture from our senior show, featuring my recently passed on doggie Noel, who was at the event. ...She was as close to a cat as a dog could get-