Daughters

You know what really puts me into the holiday spirit? Yeah that’s right, Daughters of the Dragon.

This image has been knocking around in my head for a while now. I always like to keep several commissions going at once. This is because of the random way ideas form. It’s another thing that separates commercial work from commissions. Commercial work will have exacting requirements for size, theme, and especially time. I always do battle with that last one. Ideas have to be created, edited, and produced on tap. Sometimes this can be like squeezing water from a stone, but it can often lead to spontaneous shotgun creativity. Commercial work is the active pursuit of images, but commissions are passive. I allow the paintings to come to me. Every so often it’s all in a rush or dream, but often it’s like following a trail of breadcrumbs. This was defiantly breadcrumbs. One day I would get the attitude of a pose, and then a week later I’d get a sense of colors, and a month later Misty’s face would pop into my head clear as day.

This sketch was the last piece of the puzzle, and with it I was off to the races.

The good witch

So I’m asked if I would do a portrait of Elizabeth Montgomery. First, you have to understand I love all those TV Land shows, and I’m a particular fan of the ones featuring mystical girls. Surprisingly, there were a lot of them. Bewitched was an important part of this addiction. They switched Darren's and I don't think I even noticed because I was way too busy staring at Sam. That woman was gorgeous.

I went on a search for reference and manage to collect a pretty decent cash of shots. When I do a painting of a classic Hollywood figure, I don't want to just reproduce a stock shot. On most occasions I just do quick sketches from the available reference and just let things flow and see what happens. Elizabeth strikes me as someone who is modest but accidentally sexy. The bare shouldered sketch seem to strike the right balance, but I thought I'd have her turned a little more away from the viewer.

Angelus sketch

Rob from Top Cow asked me to do a one-shot of Angelus. It's part of this whole Broken Trinity thing they're doing. I have never worked with Top Cow before, but they seem to be cool guys, and my buddy Ron Marz was writing the script.

Rob visited the studio and hung out with us for an entire day. Totally cool guy, and he said his company emphasized artistic freedom. That's always music to the ears.

I turned in this sketch, and it was approved without a hitch.

One red cent

So I get an e-mail with a link to this thing called Dr. Horrible’s sing along blog. This thing is pure viral and pure entertaining. One of the characters is this redheaded love interest named Penny. She is beautiful in a way that's difficult to explain but effortless to observe, and her skin seems to radiate from an internal light source.

When someone suggested that I paint her, this became viral as well.

I didn't get a chance to do a lot of steps on this one, as it went from sketch to a finished piece in only a few hours. I was just getting ready to sign it when I first thought of the camera.

I started with the sketch on the lower half of the page but I felt this was losing the portrait quality. The color in the other sketch is not really something I planned out. I got a phone call while I was developing the sketch and just sort of started doodling around. The basic composition of the sketch seemed to work, but the fact that both characters were more or less facing right it seemed to force the viewer's eye right off the image. I flipped the doctors figure to create more of a visual loop and push the viewer back into the composition.

Enter the Dragon

Seeing that I'm in the swing of the classics. This months babe is the Dragon Lady from Milt Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates. Robert and I made the decision to go with her, but I had no idea what to do. She has a great look and I just assumed something would come to me. Then Benno, a good friend of mine, paid a visit to the studio. He had a Milt Caniff hand colored print in his portfolio, and that clinched it. I decided to follow Milt's lead and to keep the image simple and direct.

You simply can't draw a Milt Caniff girl without thinking of Joan Crawford, and I can't have pictures of Joan Crawford on my desk without drawing her.

By the way, rent Mildred Pierce and enjoy the Crawford goodness when you get the chance.

That's the Spirit

Mark Chi called up last week and asked what I was working on. I got about three words out before he started insulting both me and the work. He said I should immediately put that work away and work on his project instead. He told me it was cooler than anything I could possibly be working on. Then he just said Doc Savage, The Spirit, Black Hawk, and Rima the jungle girl. Dammit… he was right.

He wanted the composition to illustrate DC's current pulp heroes versus their newly acquired ones. Not necessarily fighting, but more of a us versus them thing.

The sketch finished itself in my head before I hung up the phone.

Three bats for three brothers

My buddy Scott wanted to do something nice for his three brothers. He thought it would be cool to get each of them an original Batman pen and ink illustration. He asked me if I would do it and I naturally agreed, but then the waiting began. Early one morning before heading into the studio it hit me. Since these images are for three brothers, it would be really cool to somehow graphically tie them together. Yeah, there is the fact that each piece would go to a separate brother and hang on different walls possibly in different states, but they would always be tied together. I thought this formed a satisfying allegory to the bond between brothers.

Normally I'd tackle something like this on a scratch pad or sketchbook, but I was home at the time and too lazy to go on a search, so I fired up a pen tablet PC.

Moving still

I'm currently working on a series of Flash covers, and I'm quite enjoying the assignment. My initial thought was to try to make every cover a study in motion and distortion, but my favorite design for this current cover required static figures. My thoughts on this sketch was to try to shift the movement from the figure to the composition. In this sketch I deliberately turned Flash’s head away in an effort to keep the reader's eyes moving along the looping lightning bolts, but the editor asked me to change his head position so that he would engage the reader. I was reluctant to make this change at first, but in the end I have to admit it lead to a stronger image.

Druuna sketch

I thought I'd just let my ideas free flow on a single page as the assignment is not specific and I don't have to send a sketch to an editor. This is just doing quick sketches of the character and seeing if anything develops, actually it's doing sketches of a nice butt with a small woman attached to it. Druuna’s butt is as integral to the character as the “S” symbol is to Superman.
Serpieri tends to go very explicit with the character, but I'm not very comfortable in that venue, so I'm hanging out in the cheesecake neighborhood. In fact, I would caution any image search for Druuna, and limit that to individuals 18 and above.
I liked the chair pose best, but I thought her body language was a little too dominant for the character. Softening the posture and tying her down did the trick.

Flash sketch

I just recently got an assignment to do covers for a flash miniseries. He's definitely a fun character, and I thought this would be a great excuse to do a study of motion.

There's a Storm coming

In the early 80s the fluid yet sketchy styles of Bart Forbes and Bernie Fuchs gave rise to a new breed of illustrators. I refer to them as the rubout guys. Led by Mark English and David Grove, these guys crafted a look that would eventually dominate book illustrations. Reckless spontaneity fused with powerful draftsmanship and overwhelming composition were the hallmarks of these masters of picture making. Their ranks would eventually grow to include Robert Hunt, Michael Dudash, and the explosive Kazuhiko Sano. What made their work interesting was not the craftsmanship behind the application of paint, but instead their technique was based on the removal of pigment.

That's the inspiration behind this Perfect Storm cover. I want to incorporate some of the rubout techniques to give this the feeling of an 80s spy/thriller paperback.

I'm quite pleased with the composition of this sketch, but the colors are way off. My plan is to go considerably warmer with the colors by building the color composition off of her bright red orange hair. I'd also like to go warmer with her expression. She should portray a confident sexy quality.

Reilly’s Spiderman

Robert asked me to do a painting based on one of his all-time favorite comic book scenes. The scene is from The Amazing Spider-man #33. It is a Steve Ditko /Murphy Anderson masterwork of art and storytelling. Those guys wore giant boots, and my feet seem so tiny by comparison. What makes their scene so powerful is the multipage buildup that Stan Lee sculpted. I need to try to capture both the struggle and the triumph in one shot. I finally settled on this shot because it was very evocative of Ditko without simply reproducing his work. I'm also planning on going a little chiaroscuro with the lighting. I'm hoping that this ominous lighting will convey a sense of gloom even though the pose appears victorious.

The little girl and he goddess

These characters are so different that it was difficult to get them on the same image. I wanted a spunky and playful Batgirl, but I didn't want her to take away from the regal quality of Wonder Woman. This sketch seemed to really hit the right balance.

In all honesty most of my other sketchers made them look a little too lesbian for what I was going for.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Clancy's Spy Girls

Lets start things off with the spy girls for Clancy.

This is a great commission because it immediately inspires imagery. I can't help but think of those sexy babes from those old TV shows. Emma Peel from the Avengers, 99 from Get Smart, and Julie Newmar were all critically crush inducing for a boy my age at the time. The fashion and design of the 60s all have a graceful yet refined structure. It was still high design, but it was also allowed to play just a little. This is probably what really attracts me to that era.

I played around with doing this as a single figure, but I eventually settled on three before arriving at this thumbnail. For some reason it just works better in my head that way. Another good thing about this commission is that I have very few limitations. I can just allow my imagination to go flying, sailing, or spelunking. This is both a lot of fun and a dangerous proposition.

The thumbnail stage primarily solves the big problems of composition. I can already see changes I'll make before the finished drawing. It's a bit hard to explain, but I'm looking for a certain feeling at this stage. This is not about drawing, but more about attitude. I don't want to go dark and dangerous with this one, but instead I wished to go for a sexy playfulness.