Foto Friday!

Welcome back to my artblog, and the end of my fifth week of continuous weekday blogging! I'm your host Alonso. Thanks for stopping by. Today is Foto Friday! Let's do some reference!

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This is a short one, due to the holiday chaos and subsequent more chaos. A few weeks back I showcased some hands that I'd done for a sketchbook assignment. This week I'm showing off my feet! ...um that didn't come out right...

Here ya go! (I still really like the one of the back of the foot. Maybe it's the geometry of it, or something, but it strikes me as well-done)

Inspiration Thursday!

Welcome back to my artblog! It's the middle of the holiday season, but still I persevere in my attempt to post every single week day, rain or shine, hell or high water, caffeine or no ca-... No, that's too far.

If I'm out of coffee, and there's none around, all bets are off. You've been warned.

Today is Thursday, which means I'll be pulling something out of my magic art bag that relates to something that's been influencing me. I've been juggling a few things on my plate lately (who isn't?) and one those has been a pair of bust commissions, one of Iron Man and one of Black Cat. I sat down today to try and tackle the Iron Man bust, and found myself again returning to John Romita, Jr.

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The man's drawn a ton of comics! Man. Really, a lot. Half a Kirby, probably. Anyways, he had a short but memorable run on Iron Man's book in the late 80's. He has also been drawing Iron Man again in on Avengers for the last few months. I hadn't been thinking consciously about JRJR's Iron Man, but once I cracked open his Avengers books for reference (I was unfamiliar with the current configuration of the armor; Iron Man changes armor like I change underwear) I couldn't get it out of mind.

JRJR is a great fit for Iron Man. He really gets the power and eneryg of the character. Iron Man's strength and technology can be really fun to draw and you can see in his work that JRJR enjoys the character. Iron Man can also be tricky at times, due to the fact that the armor's faceplate doesn't really move and so the emotion of the man in the armor is pretty restrictive. JRJR gets around that with angles and shady and other nifty tricks of the trade.

Thanks for the inspiration JRJR!

The Missing Ink!

Get it, the 'missing ink'.

-ahem-

Welcome to another installment of my new and improved art blog. I'm your host Alonso Nunez. It's Wednesday and that means it's time to 'sketch' a nice bit of inking (hopefully a nice bit of inking anyways) over some pencils (usually by another artist but sometimes over my own).

This week's selection is a continuation of last week and comes to us from John Romita Jr. I said it last week, but I'll say it again: He's really good.

....

Really, really good.

Take this piece for example. I talked last week about the compostition strengths and the storytelling, and also the inking challenges, yadda yadda. But look at this thing. JRJR probably knocked this thing off in about half the time that it's going to take me to write this post (never mind finsh inking!) and he's made it rock-solid cool.

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As I started inking this I realized that I wanted to treat it less as something I was trying to finish or complete, and instead treat it as more of an exercise. Romita Jr. is so solid that it's hard to go wrong inking him, but he's so energetic and 'rough' that it can be tricky to really get it right inking him. For my money, the two guys that have most gotten it right when inking Romita Jr. are Klaus Janson and Al Williamson. Williamson was JRJR's inker on a sustained and acclaimed run on Daredevil in the 80's, and Janson has been JRJR's primary inker for over six years. With good reason, in both cases.

Both artists managed to successfully keep the energy and kinetic movement and power of Romita Jr.'s pencils without losing any clarity or story cohesion. I wanted to try to reach for that same energy, but being nowhere near either Janson or Williamson I knew that I'd be losing some clarity or 'polish'. I decided to let that be okay. Omlettes, eggs and all that....

Turnaround Tuesday!

Welcome back to my new-and-improved (or at least consistently updated) blog. It's Turnaround Tuesday!

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 Captain America; not the 'normal' Cap, but rather his momentarily replacement (I'm assuming) Bucky Barnes. This week I'm doing again an iconic hero. It's Batman. But once again, there's a twist.

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Recently in a big, mega-crossover DC temporarily killed off their iconic hero Batman. The subsequent stories were all rather well-done, and part of the success I think lay in the fact that there was an acceptance that the 'true' Batman would be back, good as new, at some point in the future and that this was an opportunity to tell some interesting stories with another character filling in.

The natural choice was of course Robin, now grown up and running around as his own hero Nightwing, Dick Grayson. The costume is more or less the same, though there are some cool stylistic difference, such as a new belt and a slightly different chest emblem and glove and boot design. I wanted though, in this turnaround, to see if I could convey something of the personality of Dick Grayson, who is much less scarred by his trauma than Bruce Wayne. (But then, who isn't?) I wanted a little but more relaxed, 'at ease' Batman.

I think it turned out alright.

(Oh, and not that they need any help, but the aforementioned comics are available online for sale. They're really good.)

Manic Monday!

Welcome back to my artblog! It's the start of week five of my attempt to post every single week day, rain or shine, hell or high water, caffeine or no ca-... No, that's too far.

If I'm out of coffee, and there's none around, all bets are off. You've been warned...

...Or if it's around the Christmas holiday. In which case I'll find myself a handful of days behind in my blogging. I'm skipping Thursday and Friday of last week, chalking it up to Christmas (four separate Christmas's here in the Nunez Family!), which means that right now (Wednesday) I'm... only two days behind. So that's where we are now. Let's get moving! (I'm listing this, when it's posted as being 'on time' (i.e. on the date it was meant to be published, just to keep things in order)

It's Manic Monday, let's do this!
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Boot Camp (exercise variety, not military) is incredibly hard. I'm pretty fit guy, but I am SORE today. And it's rainy outside. Other than Kathy Bates stopping by with a sledgehammer, I think the universe has done everything possible to keep me sitting at my desk today!

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What with the child and all, I haven't seen many movies this year so I'm not qualified to comment on best of the year and all that, but having recently seen "Winter's Bone" I can definitely recommend it. It's a bleak, stark film with nevertheless a glowing optimism at its center. (But man, I never wanna go to rural Missouri now!)

Any recommendations out there? Aside from "Social Network" and "Black Swan"?

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Two of my choices for my Top 50 Songs of the Year: the Glee version of Katie Perry's "Teenage Dream" (seriously, I couldn't, and still can't, stand the original but the drama kids make it very workable and catchy) and "Bed Intruder (Autotune remix)". Seriously. I mean it.

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Starbucks was out of mint syrup today. That is unacceptable.

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Batman, Inc #2 came out last week, and I'll say it again: Yanick Paquette's storytelling is sometimes unclear and his poses can stop the flow of a page temporarily.... but I don't care! His draftsmanship is some crazy combination of Al Williamson, Kevin Nowlan and Mike Mignola and it's so FUN that his ability to entertain far overwhelms his occasional inability to inform.

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Every student of his has known that Klaus Janson is a mad, mad genius. (One mad is for 'crazy', the other is for 'cranky'. You'd be too with some of those students!) And now you can know it too! Check out the excellent pod cast interview that he recently did with the guys over at Sidebar Nation here.

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Last week I published a sketch of Daken, Wolverine's son (and no, that doesn't get any less ridiculous sounding regardless of how many times I type it). It was a good start, but I knew that it needed some tweaking in order to get it to where I wanted it to be. Structural kind of tweaking. Not my strongest suit, so I went a'hunting for some help. Flipping through some Rough Cuts and Back Issue magazines I found it.

Hello, Walt Simonson!

Walt Simonson is a true master storyteller in comics. He's also a very good artist when it comes to laying out a page and constructing figures. Of course, the later two things often intersect or reinforce the former, but they're not mutually inclusive, I don't think.

Take a look at this page here. Simonson's page layouts and figure construction are very geometrical and linear. There's a lot of horizontals and verticals and acute angles, very little curves or obtuse angles. It's a very masculine style, and is at its best for 'masculine'-type stories. (i.e. super-hero, science-fiction, and fantasy) Everything in a Simonson drawing or page really looks like it fits together.

That's what I felt was missing in my Daken drawing up to this point, and what I needed to put in. I was, as I mentioned in my earlier post, going for something a little sexual and decadent in pose, but that seemed to only further necessitate the need for structural cohesion. Nothing less sexy than a body that's falling apart!

Ladies and gentlemen, Daken, step two...

The Missing Ink!

Get it, the 'missing ink'.

-ahem-

Welcome to another installment of my new and improved art blog. I'm your host Alonso Nunez. It's Wednesday and that means it's time to 'sketch' a nice bit of inking (hopefully a nice bit of inking anyways) over some pencils (usually by another artist but sometimes over my own).

This week's selection comes to us from John Romita Jr. He's really good.

Really what else is there to say?!? The man's incredible. Following in the footsteps laid out by Kirby and Walt Simonson, JRJR is incredibly bold and dynamic, and his storytelling is so rock-solid and clear that you rarely even notice it's there. JRJR does, and has done, most of his work for Marvel, but this piece features two characters from DC and Dark Horse, Hellboy and Batman.

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This piece, much like the Kirby piece from last week, is fairly loose penciling. The fun (or challenge, depending on how it goes) is going to be in deciding what to do with the shado0ws and the 'greys' that he's laid out. Here we go!

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As you can see, it's not quite done yet. I had a thought that this might happen. I don't want to rush it, and being two figures I can rationalize it as being a two-day sketch. You okay with that? Thought so!

Turnaround Tuesday!

Welcome back to the fifth week (or second month, if that's your fancy) of my new-and-improved (or at least consistently updated) blog. It's Turnaround Tuesday!

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 ventured into X-men Land, and drew Rogue, but this week I'm jumping into firmly patriotic territory. It's Captain America.

But with a twist.

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Let's see if I can do this as non-nerd and concisely as possible (for those of you out there who speak neither comic nor Klingon). Captain America, we all know him, yeah? Well, he had a kid sidekick a looong time ago named Bucky. Bucky died.

Easy so far.

Well, a couple years ago we 'learned' that Bucky actually hadn't died, and he had been a sleeper agent for the Soviets. He met up with and tried to kill Captain America, but then got all better. Then Captain America died and we were left without a patriotic defender of our great, great nation.

Enter Bucky. (You still with me? Good)

Bucky is now running around as Cap (even though the original recently came back from the dead; but that's another story). He's got the shield, but a slightly different costume and he generally has a gun with him. First the turnaround, then some thoughts:



I like the costume. It works really well in the context of a new, slightly uncertain Cap. The dark colors and the streamlined American iconography reinforce this. There's something intriguingly jarring about Captain America holding a gun too. Like Batman, the image of this hero holding a firearm has almost always had direct connotations about the story. It was designed by Alex Ross, who can design costume pretty damn well.

See ya tomorrow!

Manic Monday!

It's lookin' like it's going to be a Wet Christmas here in San Diego. Maybe, maybe not. Till then, it's Manic Monday!

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I've spent a few hours or days over the years trying to assemble some Christmas music that doesn't suck. Here's a few suggestions for you:

- James Brown, "Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto"
- Sinead O'Connor, "Silent Night"
- Aretha Franklin, "Winter Wonderland"
- Dolly Parton, "I Believe In Santa Claus"
- Queen, "Thank God It's Christmas"

Those are some of my favorites. Anyone have any recommendations of their own?

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I haven't even begun to think about what my favorite books, artists or stories are for this year in the land of funnybooks. I really enjoyed "Blackest Night", but that was mostly last year, wasn't it? "Green Lantern" has been really strong all year, and Doug Mahnke has been doing really strong work on art chores. "Return of Bruce Wayne", "Batman and Robin", New and untitled "Avengers" have stood out (at least on art).... There's a lot to choose from. I'll see if I can whittle it down for next week.

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Over at Comics Should Be Good the guys and gals have been compiling a list of the 50 Greatest Artists and Writers, based on voting by readers. (The master lists for the artists and writers are here and here, respectively)

These lists are obviously going to skew towards more contemporary artists and in addition be more subjective. I know I voted along 'Good Artists That I Like' rather than 'Good Artists Who Are Actually The Best'.

I'll save any more commentary for after the lists are done.

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I've wanted to do a little Christmas gift for a couple of friends and their kid. Just a little something. I decided to go the caricature 'mash-up-with-a-superhero' route.

On that note, here's your art for the day!

Foto Friday!

Welcome back to my artblog, and the end of my fourth week of continuous weekday blogging! I'm your host Alonso. Thanks for stopping by. Today is Foto Friday! Let's do some reference!

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One thing I've noticed about my blogging thus far is that I have a pattern (if you can have a pattern after only a month) of tappering off towards the end of the week. Foto Friday has been thus far a preview of some work I'm doing professionally right now (zombies!), a nice start to a piece (Egypt!) and a look back at some top-notch (IMHO) work I did a few years back (jazz hands!).

I wanted to take this week though and actually do a full piece from scratch, and take you through my thinking and process. This week we'll be tackling Daken, Wolverine's son.

....yeah, Wolverine's got a son. I actually wrote that. -sigh-

Anyways, this is a character that's... really not much more than his dad. A badass. Has some claws. Kills Folks. Bisexual.

Check, check, check and ch-...WHAT?!?

Yeah, Marvel seems to have snuck a bisexual Wolverine clone right under our noses. (That sounds dirty and I don't know why) It's interesting, and gives the character a hook, an amorality that his pops doesn't have. Wolverine's a killer, and "crosses a line no one else will", yadda yadda, but he's still got a concrete set of beliefs and a moral code that he believes in. He's a good guy.

Daken's not. He's out for himself and will use anything to achieve whatever his goal is at a given moment. Including sex. Daken's sexuality is maybe more accurately defined as pan-sexual rather than bisexual, but the result is same, in that he's gettin' it on with dudes and the ladies. This is a trait you can often find in the femme fatale; maybe it's that identification, rather than the sex itself, which strikes me as the most androgynous element of the character.

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Anyways, here's what I've got so far. My sketch of Daken. It's mostly geometry and figuring out anatomy and gesture. My reference for the piece is here. I tried to find a pose that was a little feminine in its gesture and 's curve'... and then I tried to push that as far as I could.

Decent start, more to come...

Inspiration Thursday!

Welcome back to my artblog! It's the middle of week four of my attempt to post every single week day, rain or shine, hell or high water, caffeine or no ca-... No, that's too far.

If I'm out of coffee, and there's none around, all bets are off. You've been warned.

Today is Thursday, which means I'll be pulling something out of my magic art bag that relates to something that's been influencing me. This week is actually a continuation of last week's piece that I started based on Steve Ditko's The Creeper. (You can find that original piece here)

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I've stated before that starting this blog has really made me want to bring pieces and sketches to completion much more often than I had in the past. I think that before starting this blog I might have left the Creeper sketch as it was and moved on. I might've gotten around to it later, at some point, in the future... you know how that procrastination thing works.

Inspiration's a tricky thing, and it can be a deceptive and tricky thing waiting around for it to do its thing. Creation is often a pretty pragmatic and unglamorous process. You've got to sit down, commit yourself to doing something, and then do it. Really do it. No excuses.

This piece is dedicated to all those artists, creative folks and bloggers out there who are doing their thing (whether that be art, family, or blogging). You guys help keep me honest.

Now have some Creeper!

The Missing Ink!

Welcome to another installment of my new and improved art blog. I'm your host Alonso Nunez. It's Wednesday and that means it's time to 'sketch' a nice bit of inking (hopefully a nice bit of inking anyways) over some pencils (usually by another artist but sometimes over my own).

This week I'm taking on The King. No, not Elvis.

Or Michael.

Jack Kirby.

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Jack Kirby is one of those names in comics that is legendary. He's one of those figures, along with perhaps Will Eisner, where the sheer amount of creativity is so vast and so deep that subsequent readers and artists (the later often starting as the former) begin to formulate an psychological image more akin to a natural force or occurrence, rather than man.

Kirby's work is almost always described in these terms. "Power". "Epic". "Electric". His work can seem so impressive, so often that words begin to lose any sort of detail or specificity and we are left with a sense of a baffling consistency to the imagination and creative distance of the work.

But a man he was. An incredible artist. He could march across genres easier than nearly any other creator (save for maybe Alex Toth and Joe Kubert) and his storytelling and panel composition are so consistently excellent that we forget that they're there. I think I've just psyched myself out. Ah well...

Into the storm!

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This piece is a sketch that Kirby did. I don't think it's ever been inked in a publication. The work is of a famous character that Kirby co-created, along with Joe Simon... Captain America. This is great classic Kirby piece. Nearly all the Kirby hallmarks are there. Explosions. A near three-dimensionality. Movement. Wonky Anatomy. Angry faces.

I'm just missing some Kirby Krackle to make it complete. (Yep, that's right. Kirby Krackle gets its own Wikipedia entry. We'll pause while you go read it)

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But how to approach Kirby in inks? Being a huge fan of Kevin Nowlan, and himself being a big fan of Wally Wood, I naturally figured that'd be my most natural starting point at attempting to not embarrass myself. Wally Wood is one of the greatest pencilers, inkers and letterers in the history of comics; and in addition to that he was one of Jack Kirby's greatest collaborators. His inking brought an incredible life and depth to Kirby's already-spectacular pencils. I decided to try to replicate the process that Wood used in inking Kirby.

Sounds good, at least.

First, I blue-line traced the whole thing. Easy enough. (Note: the lead looks really dark here because I darkened it post-scanning to make it easier to see)




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This next step though was something I'd never done before. In reading Sky Masters, a collection of comic strips that Kirby and Wood did together in the late 50's, there's a nice bit where they show Wood's process. He seemed to ink just the contour of Kirby's pencils (not even spotting blacks) and then jumped in and did his wonderful Wally Wood thing. So, I picked up my brush and did a clean ink of the contours. It was tough here to ignore the wonderful linework and not and thick lines and thin lines, but I held back. I just wanted it simple. This was supposed to be the easy part.




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Looks funny, I know. Luckily I still had the blue-line underneath to see where any blacks or different line weights still were. Next, following Wood's lead, I decided on a light source, which was easy enough given the big 'splosion in the background. I let myself ink it mentally for a bit, give myself a roadmap, and then I read a stack of Kirby/Wood collabos to see what the piece should look like when done. A couple hours later, here we are...



I'm happy with how it turned out. Something that often happens with lesser Kirby inkers is that they are a bit too slavish to the pencils. Kirby was doing really raw pencils, and the cohesion and power of the compostion seems like it was a distraction. Kirby's best inkers (Wood and Joe Sinott) really added their own point of view to the work. I tried for something similar.

Man, where's my coffee...

Turnaround Tuesday!

Welcome back to the fourth week of my new-and-improved (or at least consistently updated) blog. It's Turnaround Tuesday!

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 ventured into C-List territory (sorry, Creeper!) but this week I'm jumping into more tried-and-true lands. I think

It's interesting to think about characters that are pretty well known in comic cirlces, but never really make it in the mainstream. Impulse? Beloved in the comic-reading population. In the mainstream? Not so much. This character is an x-man, she's been around for close to thirty years, and she's had a handful of good stories written about her. I don't know that most people've heard of her though. Have You? It's....

Rogue!

My first introductions to Rogue, occurring pretty simultaneously, were as the happy-go-lucky-meets-cheesecake-pathos of Chris Claremont (Rogue's co-creator) and Jim Lee (here) and the reprints of her villainous beginnings (here) She's never really worked for me as a combination of those two depictions, but I like them each individually. Most people know her from her appearances in the X-men films, played by Anna Paquin, but I've enjoyed her being a little older and stronger. The X-men's Wonder Woman, if you will, with a bad streak. Anyways, as with most things X-men related, my Jim Lee influence came out a lot more than I'd expected. But there's certainly worse you can do!

(Oh yeah, this costume's pretty cool. A little busy for my taste, but she's had (many) worse)

Manic Monday!

The Nunez family has their Christmas tree! And the week's started! Hey, ho, let's go!

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Queen's "I Want To Ride My Bicycle" is an amazing song. I don't really have anything more in-depth than that to say.

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike....
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Anyone have any TV/ movie recommendations? We're almost done watching the complete series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I realized that we don't have anything lined up after that. It may be time to finally delve into "The Sopranos".

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Lady Gaga is the new Madonna, and Beyonce (where's that accent go again?) is the new Janet Jackson. But who's Prince? Or Michael Jackson?

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Egypt, Egypt, who wants so Egypt!

Reading all this Ahkenaten and Nefertiti stuff has put me in an Egypt State of Mind. I thought it'd be fun to revisit some old ground. I decided to do a sketch of Hatchepsut, first female Pharaoh of Egypt and the subject that I chose for my thesis project at SVA. I've posted my thesis pages since I finished the project, and I've looked at them and showed them to people. But today was really the first time I'd looked at them in over two years. It was mainly for costume details and face structure, that kind of thing, but it was fun to jump back into that world.

Man, like riding a bicycle.

Foto Friday!

It's the end of the week, and we've got drawings from photos. Get excited!

Having almost been in our place a full year now, it seemed like a good time to actually get organized and go through some old stuff. I'm not a fan of going through my old work. Yeah, I liek to see the good stuff and go "Oh, I like that one!" or "Cool, that doesn't suck."; what I'm not a fan of is going through all of it, unadulterated, and attempt to try to sort through it or take stock.

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One of my classes at the School of Visual Arts was your classic 'Figure Drawing' course, though the emphasis was towards dynamic poses and gestures specifically for comic or graphic work. One of the assignment was a semester-long notebook that we kept of hands and feet that were drawn from photographs. I recently found mine. Some of them are crap. Man, I did not know square one about inking! Some of them though I like; those are all ones done much more photorealistically.

Since today is Foto Friday! (wherein I'll draw either straight from a photo or a picture that draws on photos for poses, reference and landscape) it seemed like a perfect opportunity to post them. I like the way the turned out. I'd generally forgotten about them. I think that has to do with the lack of thought involved. Don't get me wrong, I thought about things like composition, specific photo, yadda yadda. I mean a certain conscious thought which helps it to stick in your mind; what was I thinking, what's my reaction to this, that kind of arty-farty thing.

We've now made it three whole weeks of daily blogging! Give yourself a hand!

....sorry....

First the photo I used for both hands...



And here's the hands... (separate images)

Inspiration Thursday!

You just know that after I had so much fun drawing the Creeper on Tuesday that I was going to have to give him a spin! Let me take this opportunity to talk a little bit more about Steve Ditko, the creator of the Creeper and also of a few other characters you might have heard of.

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Steve Ditko, along with Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are near-universally recognized as the men responsible for the creation of the Marvel Universe in the 1960's. Ditko is the creator or co-creator of Dr. Strange, all his various villains and supporting characters, made contributions to the Hulk and Iron Man books, and, oh yeah... he's responsible for (along with Stan Lee) Spider-Man.

You've heard of him, right? Ditko is easily one the best, and most important, artist in comics history. Spider-Man really embodies that. Let me just list Ditko contributions to his universe, and let that speak for itself.

Spider-Man. Dr. Octopus. J. Jonah Jameson. The Vulture. The Lizard. The Green Goblin. Sandman. Kraven. The Chameleon. Electro. And possibly the most acclaimed Spider-Man story ever, "The Final Chapter" (from issue number 33). Man, the guy's great.

I tend to be drawn (ba da boom!) to artists who's work is more 'illustrative', but Ditko imagination is so pure that it's infective. There's an energy and a passion to what he draws that it almost doesn't seem like drawing; it can feel almost like his imagination is simply transcribed on the page, instantly captured from his mind.

If I've peaked your curiosity (and I've left out big, big chunks of his career) check out the well-done documentary on him. It's free, it's on YouTube. Check it.

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The Creeper is definitely one of Ditko's lesser creations, but still incredibly interesting and fun to draw. I did a loose pencil drawing here of the Creeper, trying to capture a little bit of that loopy, easy 'Ditko jump'. I'm definitely going to ink him at some point.

Hope you like!

The Missing Ink!

Get it, the 'missing ink'.

-ahem-

Welcome to another installment of my new and improved art blog. I'm your host Alonso Nunez. It's Wednesday and that means it's time to 'sketch' a nice bit of inking (hopefully a nice bit of inking anyways) over some pencils (usually by another artist but sometimes over my own).

This week's piece is the former. It's a piece by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, God Among Men. It was originally featured in Rough Cuts, a now-defunct magazine published by TwoMorrows which featured roughs, layouts, pencils, etc. by range of artists. It was basically a chance to see the process steps behind finished and published works. Contrary to much of his pencils, this Superman piece that I've chosen by JLGL is pretty tight. No fuss, no muss. The piece is straightforward enough, but I wanted to talk a second about where it came from for those of you who don't know.

Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez is less-known than he should be because he is so good. Bizarre sounding, I know. But let me explain. During the early 1980's DC Comics (who he's done the vast majority of his work for) had him spend most of his time not drawing comics, and instead drawing the various style guides and licensing pieces that DC would use for commercial clients and products. They basically had him be 'the face' of the company. These style guides are now themselves sought after and very collectible. His output, in terms of art pieces done, is fairly high; however, in terms of issues done JLGL has had an 'under the radar' career. Seriously check out some stuff if you're unfamiliar with the man!

This Superman piece comes from one of these style guides; I think it's from the '85 one. (They were divided by years) They were all originally inked by Dick Giordano, and I wanted to try to keep his clean, crisp inking style in my own version.

Didn't quite get there this time, IMO. Success is elusive...

Turnaround Tuesday!

Welcome back to the third week of my new-and-improved (or at least consistently updated) blog. It's Turnaround Tuesday!

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 ventured into Wonder Woman territory for the first time, excepting a couple inked pieces here and there. (You can check it out on my Deviant Art page here) This week...

The Creeper!

...

The Creeper! Yeah, not quite the 'oomph' of "Wonder Woman!". The Creeper is a character originally sprung from the mad, mad mind of Steve Ditko. He's kind of just crazy, I guess. He's a brawler and very acrobatic, a la Spider-Man or Daredevil, and has a laugh which is physically painful to people. Kinda like The Nanny.

The original costume I can remember clearly from way back, growing up. I had to try to tackle it, and the man under it. I'm cheating a little bit this week. I've been trying (as with my Wolverine and Wonder Woman turnarounds) to stay as 'on model' and contemporary as possible. Apparently, the Creeper has been 'revamped' within the last few years; but, for me, if it's not Ditko, it's not right. I'm sticking with Steve on this one.

HAHHAHHhhahahHAHHa! (Sorry, had to do that)

Manic Monday!

just another manic monday...

Mondays are historically and predictably chaotic, but this one seems to especially be so. Every Monday I spend a little time talking about what's been striking my fancy, mostly on the art front but sometimes not, and then I spend a little time drawing what's on my mind.

This week this challenge seems to be not what's on my mind! There's a lot swirling around up there today (a lot of it having nothing to do with art) but I'll see if I can find some interesting bits to share!

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I've been writing about Egypt recently, and about Joyce Tyldesley's very interesting biography on Nefertiti. I'm about half way through, and the book remains very engaging. Nefertiti is a fascinating character for a handful of reasons. Primarily seems to be the fact that we frankly know so little about her! She's the most famous female Egyptian after Cleopatra, but whereas Cleopatra's been a feature of Shakespearean plays and Elizabeth Taylor movies Nefertiti has remained unexplored in most art.

A great deal of that lack of artistic exploration has to do with the fact that she is just so much newer in the public and creative imagination. Discovered a few decades earlier, the famous bust of Nefertiti was not seen by the general public until 1924. 1924! This is an ancient work of incredible beauty and vast modern popularity but, in terms of 'artistic age', it is contemporary with Picasso and the Art Deco movement, and only proceeds Superman by a decade and a half!

I imagine we'll discover more and more about Nefertiti through excavation and research, but until now she remains a tabula rasa for the world and the arts to creatively fill.

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Thanksgiving is a great holiday, lots of great food and a chance to see family and friends. But, frankly, for me, it has nothing on Christmas. The lights, the celebration, the (now, for me) growing excitement in my daughter's tone... it's awesome. Rock on, Christmas.

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I've introduced my wife to Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the last few months. She's quickly become a big fan. We're in the middle of the sixth season right now. There's a general thought, with which I agree, that television is in a 'golden age' right now. I think that Buffy (at least after the fairly average first season-and-a-half) is a big part of that. Anyone who has seen the show is aware of how layered, emotional resonant and well-crafted it is. If you've never seen the show I can't recommend it enough. Give it enough time to get good (the first seaon-and-a-half aren't bad, but I'd never recommend the show if it never reached beyond that) and you'll be hooked. Promise.

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If two year-olds were given a power ring I think they'd be recruited by either the Red Lanterns or the Orange Lanterns. And yes, I am really intending on at some point drawing Lucia as an Orange Lantern. I'm so serious.

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Well, that wasn't too scattered! Your drawing of the day comes via last week's Foto Friday!, which was a (very) partially completed drawing of Egyptian Pharaoh Senwosret 1. I had said I'd get back to it at some point, but hadn't imagined it'd be this soon. I've been really focusing on gettng work DONE, even if I'd like to spend more time; having, and sticking to, deadlines is feeling like a really important goal recently. Because of that I was feeling an urge to get back to this unfinished work.

Still unfinished mind you, but much closer now than it was. And I still like it!

See ya tomorrow!

Foto Friday!

It's the end of the week, and we're drawing from a photo. Get excited!

Having been getting into Ancient Egypt again, I've been jonesing all week to jump back to that subject. Today is Foto Friday!, wherein I'll draw either straight from a photo or a picture that draws on photos for poses, reference and landscape. Today is going to be in the former.



This is Senwosret I, an Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh from the Twelfth Dynasty. It's a great statue (it's in the Cairo Museum, but I'm pretty sure I've seen one nearly identical in the Met) and the lighting in this photo is perfect.

Photorealistic drawing takes a lot of time, and it's also what I'm doing for work right now, so I didn't have nearly the energy for this that I'd need to take it to completion. I had two choices: either turn in into a study and go over it in marker or darker, sketchier pencil or charcoal, or leave it incomplete to come back to at a later date. I'm happy with how it's coming out so far so I chose the latter.





Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your weekend! Drop a line if you get a chance and let me know what you think, or what you'd like to see.

Inspiration Thursday!

Welcome back! I hope you've been enjoying the blog. When last I left you, just a few wee hours ago, I was having some issues with a Michael Golden sketch I was inking. Not ISSUES issues, just... issues. It felt like something was missing from my inks. A little verve or energy. I think the issue with a tight penciler such as Golden can be the rut of just feeling like you're 'tracing' (insert your own Chasing Amy joke here); I needed some help.

Enter Inspiration Thursday!, a day where I attempt to recreate, or use, or imitate, some part of an artist that's been inspiring me. This week I realized was perfect for P. Craig Russell, an amazing artists in his own right and also one of my favorite inkers (in general, but also on Golden). I pulled some Russell comics, particularly his Elric stuff (check out here and here for examples) and tried to figure out what was going on that I liked and if I could pull from it for my own work.

It's amazing, the misunderstanding that's necessary for artist creation. You can't really think of everything that an artist is everytime you sit down at the board. You find things that fit in with your work, or that inspire you. In Russell's case it was the grace and seeming perfection of his craft. I realized, while looking through his work today, that it's that word 'seeming' that is most important. Look at those pictures I linked to again: there's a grace there for sure, but that's achieved not through an attempt at being perfect, but an attempt at being supremely confident. Choosing the lines and throwing them down. It was that sureness I needed to reach for. I went back to my board and tried to bring that sureness of line to the Michael Golden sketch. I think I approached, if not success, than where I really wanted to be: intent.


Here's your 'Inspiration' sketch of the week!

The Missing Ink!

Welcome to another installment of my new and improved art blog. I'm your host Alonso Nunez. It's Wednesday and that means it's time for 'The Missing Ink'. Basically, it's a day wherein the 'sketch' is a nice bit of inking (hopefully a nice bit of inking anyways) over some pencils, usually by another artist but sometimes over my own. It ranges anywhere from a panel or small sketch up to a full page, depending on my current workload.

This week's piece is a Michael Golden sketch of Ultimate Captain America (by the looks of it, anyways) which first appeared in Modern Masters Volume Twelve. Golden is a great artist, and does incredibly tight pencils; the challenge here was going to be not straying any further than necessary from the tight but energetic draftsmanship. This sketch is from 2007, but Golden has been doing amazing work for over thirty years now. (If you're looking for some of his stuff, check out his Batman Family issues or the work he did on The 'Nam)

I realized quickly that I've done most of my inking samples over much looser pencils. I think that this has been on purpose, as an inker is much more challenged with drawings where many of the decisions haven't been made yet (makes sense, right?). So, speaking of challenge...

This shit's hard! I kid, but really Golden, really? There's a lot going on here. I've exceeded my self-allotted time for completion of this bad boy, but fear not, I'm going to finish it for Inspiration Thursday. There's a reason for that too. To be continued...

Here's Golden's original:



And here's what I've done so far: