Sunday, September 26, 2010

Justice Legion of Aliens #60 & 1000 Days Later

No, 1000 Days Later isn't a sequel to a zombie movie. It means that I have been posting here on this blog for 1000 consecutive days. Day in and day out. Nice little milestone. I have to wonder if any other artists have done this. I know I make it sound easy to maintain and truthfully it is. At this point it has become part of my day. The tough part for me is hoping that the material is worth your time. I hope so. I do appreciate everyone who takes the time to visit. I don't have any plans to stop doing this blog. I did have plans for seeing it become something a little more interactive, but with my work schedule this year, it just couldn't happen. Still something I would like to do, it just may take a bit longer to get it going. I guess the next milestone will be the three year anniversary on January 1, 2011. Let's keep our fingers crossed. Oh, and if you do enjoy what I post, tell all your friends and neighbors to check it out. But if you don't enjoy what I post, well, don't tell your friends and neighbors that part. Just tell them to check out the blog. :)

Okay, on to the reason for the blog: Artwork!

Here is the second Re-Legion commission for Aidan. I didn't bother with process photos for this one because it would have just covered the same ground that the other cover did.

Below is a photo of the art with the overlay in place. On the original cover it was Batgirl who the Queen Bee is directing her JLA minions to destroy. Aidan asked that Supergirl take the place of Batgirl, swap Emerald Empress for Queen Bee and that Lana Lang, Insect Queen, be part of the Empresses "winged warriors". It wasn't until after I did the the first layout that we both agreed we needed another Legionnaire with Supergirl. It was left to me to decided who to cast and I went with Lightning Lad. After looking at the revised pencils, Aidan really liked the idea of adding Brainiac 5 to the mix. The connection to Supergirl really made that idea work. So I moved a few elements and added Brainiac 5. Now it looks like a showdown! To see the difference, look at yesterdays post.




On the production side, the "Justice Legion of Aliens" logo had to be done again from scratch. Yesterday's post has a logo that varied just enough that I couldn't use it on this piece. So I created the logo, the title, the price (different again) and the date/issue number in Adobe Illustrator. Next, print out the logos, trim, paste on the overlay and it's done.

Below is a digital version of the artwork with all the text elements placed on the art in Photoshop. And we now have two silver age Legion stories that never were. Or maybe Aidan is channelling stories from Earth-A(idan). This kind of thing has happened before. Hmmmmm. ;)

Legion of Super-Heroes © DC Comics

It was fun going "old school" creating logos and doing the paste up on the overlays. Thanks again to Aidan for thinking of me for these two commissions. I had such a good time doing them and I hope he enjoys them for years to come.

This is Post #1087 

9 comments:

John Beatty said...

Congrats on 1K, Gene!~

Royce Thrower said...

Even better than the first one! You continually amaze Gene! Congratulations on the milestone. I can't think of another artist who even comes close to your dedication in posting. We all feel a great sense of gratitude knowing that we can simply call up a bookmark and feast on new Gonzo artwork day after day after day after day after ....

Gene Gonzales said...

Thanks Lisa!

Thanks Big John! Good talking with you today. Nice to catch up.

Gene Gonzales said...

Thanks so much Royce! Glad you enjoy visiting! :)

Brian Jones said...

Wonderful posts this week Gene, but more importantly...Congrats on your 1000th post! CHEERS!...cant wait to see what the next thousand posts hold :)

Patman said...

Congrats on the milestone, and great job on the execution of the concept of "JLA" cover.

Little John said...

Congrats Gene! Keep the sketches coming.

Craig Zablo said...

Huge congrats. My guess is you're the first to do it...

Gary M. Peiffer said...

Contests! Looking forward to the next 1000!

Gary