Turnaround Tuesday!

(Intro if you're new: 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. The fact that you're drawing them in three fairly static poses means that the defining elements of the character have to be displayed in small, subtle ways. And they're fun!)

This week's turnaround, as I mentioned yesterday, is from the Green Lantern section of the DC universe. His name is Saint Walker, and he is more or less the diametric opposite of the last character I did one of these for, Larfleeze.

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I wanted Walker's turnaround to work in a juxtaposition with Larfleeze. Open arms holding nothing instead of a closed grasp of a power battery. A slight smile instead of a sneer. That kind of thing. I think that my version looks pretty 'on model'; the original design (I think by Ethan Van Sciver) was a little complicated, but was then streamlined by either Doug Mahnke or Ivan Reis. It's a good costume, though I wish there was a greater concentration of the blacks of the costume on his lower half instead of upper. Just a personal preference, but I feel like the blacks on bottom would help the character look a little more weightless.

Maybe. I could be wrong. Hope you like it. See you next week!

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Manic Monday!

It's the middle of the French Open, it's Memorial Day (formerly Decoration Day; who knew?) and I've got a lot on my plate (most of it art related, which is great). Let's do this!

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Speaking of the French Open, I was watching Novak Djokovic the other day and I started thinking about comics. (Know me long enough and it's bizarre combination I'll often find myself making) Novak Djokovic, for those of you that don't know (and why don't you?) has been on a tear in tennis lately. 'Tear' actually doesn't do it justice (it's been five months now) and that's not the part of it that's intriguing to me.

It's always interesting to me when athletes, musicians or artists make what seems a leap in their progression. Steps are so often incremental and invisible, much like trying to notice a child growing. Sometimes though there's a point where you go, "Man! That guy's different from last week!" Just interesting.

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Summer in San Diego is like the museums, events and art in New York. You pay for the culture in New York City (and do you!) and in San Diego you pay for the weather (sweet, glorious sunshine!) Having a kid makes me value the later in a way I haven't, ever.

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Have you been over to Giant Fire Breathing Robot yet? Awesome-ness.

What? Why yes, I am writing for them. And yes, I'm still totally impartial about their awesome-ness. Completely.

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Lady Gaga's "Born This Way" is an amazing albums. Not without its faults, of course, but a great work of art. I think I'm even going to do a full length post on it. Kinda rambling, kinda fun, kinda Jesus, kinda Madonna.

Later this week.

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I'm working on some pages with Supergirl and Batgirl right now, which I've loosely adapted from an old 70's story where they fight Cleopatra. Yeah, pretty awesome. Anyways, here's a couple pages of roughs till I get something more substantial going.

Egyptian Thursday! (Hetek)

Here's a piece that I've finally finished inking! (It wasn't that long ago that I penciled it, but it slipped down the list of priorities a bit when it came time to finish the damn thing!)

The lady's name is Heket (Ms. She Who Hastens The Birth if you're nasty) and she was the head midwife of Ancient Egypt. Interestingly, one of her titles was 'I Am The Resurrection' and this led to her being at least respected by early Christians; they often used amulets depicting that phrase and her image.

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This piece started off pretty clear in my mind. I did a little, and very rough, thumbnail in my sketchbook but I more or less knew exactly how it was going to look. I don't know if any of it's clear but heres it is.

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At this point there's kind of two options I give myself in dealing with photo reference for something like this. I can either find something close and adjust the picture and composition accordingly, or I can allow for a greater amount of time looking for a photo that looks 'just right'. I decided to go with the second option here. I'll lean towards the former in cases where I feel like my idea isn't all the way there; the improvisation of a change in my layout can be exciting. This time though the image was so solid in my mind that I decided to stick with it.

First I found a couple images and cobbled them together to get the body. The lighting in the photo on the left particularly appealed to me.



Next I needed a frog model. Haha. It did feel a bit like casting. Normal when you're using people, but a little...weird... when you're dealing with a frog.



And then of course, frogs. Lots. Of. Frogs.

Then some more.

(I'll leave those off, there's too damn many of 'em)

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I penciled, and then inked the piece. Here's what she looks like.

I'm officially over frogs! lol No, I'll end up using them (and her) again.

I'll need to to justify all the reference I dug up!

Manic (Not) Monday!

It's Monday! Er... okay it's not, it's Friday. But I'm trying to get my blog something like on schedule. It's beautiful outside, Go, Diego, Go!'s on in the background, the peoples are running around for Memorial Day and the coffee's brewing. Let's do this!

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I've got a new computer! It arrived a couple weeks ago now. It's one of the new iMacs. I'm incredibly excited. I'm going to start dipping my toe into the digital production end of comics. I'll let you know how the experiement goes. In the meanwhile, here's a book recommendation: The DC Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics. I know, not the most catchy title. But everything else is great about this book. It's a huge resource of how to create comics digitally, and also on how to adapt a traditional (pen and paper) workflow to something somewhere in between traditional and digital. Written by Freddie Williams II and priced at a little over twenty bucks, it's a great investment.

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I'd seen such a wide range of opinions on the new Thor movie that I had absolutely NO idea how the movie will actually be. After seeing it I'm very in the middle. Many things were done really well, some were done not so well, but there was plenty that was closer to the former and that makes me happy. Oh, and this.

I think I'll have something more of a review soon. Maybe.

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What's that? I haven't talked about "Genius, Isolated", the new book about Alex Toth, yet? That's because I already have, suckers. Go read my review over at Giant Fire Breathing Robot, where I'm a regular contributor (at least until they kick me out).

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Speaking of which, Alex Toth inked by Vince Colletta is the most bizarre idea anyone ever had. But it happened! In Hot Wheels #3 (1969). I don't know what's more amusing, picturing Dick Giordano (who was editor) when he realizes what's about to go down, or Toth, when he (I'm positive) stormed into Dick's office, demanding Vinny never touch his pencils again.

Man. Comics, everybody.

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I'm busy at work on my next turnaround. It's a recent character, and another one from the Green Lantern universe.

A preview:

Turnaround Tuesday!

(Intro if you're new: 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. The fact that you're drawing them in three fairly static poses means that the defining elements of the character have to be displayed in small, subtle ways. And they're fun!)

This week's is definitely fun. A little while ago I drew Lucia as an Orange Lantern. I had so much fun with that one that Lantern I figured I might as well continue the trend! This week's turnaround is Larfleeze, the original Orange Lantern. Man, he's fun. He's basically an id gone wild, gluttony and appetite and greed and obsession... really, pick any two of those things and you've got a fun-to-draw character. He's only been around for a few years now, but there's been a few artists who have drawn him already. My favorite, by a margin, is Doug Mahnke.

Doug Mahnke is the artist on Green Lantern right now, and the man is a stand-up example of consistent quality art. He's done the vast majority of the last two year's worth of issues on the book, all while keeping a (more or less) monthly schedule. His work has a slightly grotesque or macabre feel to it, which really works with the strange creatures he's called on to draw. His Larfleeze is bizarre, comical, scheming and melodramatic. Milton's Satan with a power battery, basically. (Here's some Mahnke goodness)

I wanted to keep that energy going in this piece. I got pretty close IMO. Check it.

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Manic Monday!

It's an amazing San Diego day and it's hard to stay indoors right now. Let's get through this Manic Monday, manic-lly!

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I have seen paradise and it is Genius Isolated, a book just put out by IDW. It's about Alex Toth, and yes, know I've posted about it before, but I just got my copy in the mail and dammit I'm excited! Really, it's amazing. It's bigger and thicker than I thought ("That's what she said") and the production value of the thing is astounding.

I can't recommend the book more. Well worth it. (The link up there is to its Amazon page, where it's only thrity-two bucks right now)

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Beyonce's got a new single out. "Run This World (Girls)" is classic Beyonce. And by that I mean, awesome, ass-shaking and just bizarre enough to keep you engaged through the coming years. Her discography is seriously aging well, better than most wines. Honestly I think she tacked the parenthesis-Girls-parenthesis onto the title to be nice. We all know who runs the world, Miss B, but thanks for extending the royal hand.

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I've got another, semi-serious writing gig coming up. I've just, just started, so I'm going to keep it light and not jinx it. I'm excited about it. More to come soon!

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Progress on my Egyptian Frog Goddess has been made! Not quite done yet, but the inking's moving along nicely. Here ya go!