Turnarounds are a great way to get a feel for a character and to see if you can get a handle on their look and personality, even more than a pin-up. Last week I drew Batman; not the 'normal' Bruce Wayne, but rather his momentarily replacement, Dick Grayson. (He was the first Robin, if you didn't know) This week I'm sticking to the DC universe, but doing a character who is pretty far from iconic, at least at the moment.
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Geoff Johns, one of comics' most notable writers at the moment, has helped bring a renaissance to "Green Lantern" in the last five years. He was the mastermind behind last year's big crossover "Blackest Night", which was a lot of crazy, super-hero fun. One of the things that Johns has done during his tenure on GL has been to introduce the idea of various of colored power rings besides the green ones worn by the Green Lantern Corps and the yellow ones worn by Sinestro (and, as of recently, his own corps). We've know got red, orange, blue, indigo and violet laterns all traipsing around the universe.
Most of these 'Rainbow Lantern's' stories were told pretty completely during "Blackest Night", but Geoff Johns has left, so far at least, the Indigo Lanterns as a bit of a mystery. They are described as a tribe rather than a corps and they are powered by the emotion of compassion. (All the power rings are powered by some emotion or other) They don't ostensibly have a leader but their main representative is the enigmatic Indigo-1. She's who we're tackling today.
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I'm going to draw the turnaround and then drop some thoughts that I have, but right off the bat I can tell that this costume breaks the Ron Frenz Rule of comic costume design. You didn't know there was such a thing? Well, go read that link while I finish up this turnaround and then we'll meet back here.
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So, did ya read it? Pretty straightforward. Anyways, yeah... kinda weird costume, but I think it fits the character. The Indigos are described as a tribe, and the makeshift look of Indigo-1's costume (the tattoos, the torn elements, the bandages...) add to that and reinforce it. Speaking of the tattoos... I don't think anyone's decided where they go, and what goes where. Every book she's appeared in gives me something different! So I winged it.
The Indigo emblem on her chest doubles as a lock for the collar she's wearing, which is a nice little deviation for the Indigos. (I thought this was new, and in fact its' only been portrayed this way her last few appearances. It's a good change.) It's touches like that (and also her braids, the emblem on the head, and a few others) that made this more interesting than I figured. You get a lot of her personality from the look, and I think after this I'm going to go immerse myself in some Indigo-1 comics.
She's a fun character to draw, Ron Frenz rule be damned!
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