Saturday, March 21, 2009

THE HERCULOIDS - Concept to Pencil


I have been working a bit at a time on the HERCULOIDS commission I am doing. Gathering references and doodling the characters here and there. Here are the preliminary steps before I transfered the drawing to the board it will be painted on.

Top: These are the three concepts for the commission. It was decided to mixed the movie poster elements of B with the layout of A. These sketches were done in pencil.

Middle: I've enlarged the chosen layout for comparison to the tighten up pencils. There are some changes of course. I changed the stance of main figure in front. At the time I did the rough I didn't pay attention that he wears a skirt/loin cloth/thing. The position of his legs in the original sketch made it a revealing situation. So less action, more heroic, and everything stays where it should. :) Also, with the addition of the logo and credits at the bottom, I had to close up the characters a bit vertically.

Bottom: Here is a relatively tight finish. I may take one more pass at it before I transfer the drawing to the final board. This is done in pencil on a sheet of 8.5 x 11 copy paper. The slight repositioning of some characters were done to keep the viewers eye in the illustration and not wander out. I've added some arrows to the image to show what might not be very apparent when looking at the image.

The next stage will be projecting the image to the illustration board.

I hope everyone is enjoying the first weekend of Spring!

8 comments:

LUD! said...

I always enjoy your step-by-steps, Gene!
Can't wait to see the tightening of the pencils!

Royce Thrower said...

Gene, I always enjoyed the cartoons and can't wait to see this painting develop. Hope the process is shared all along the way until complete. I always enjoy your narrative and the pics of the work in progress.

On a differnet note, I don't know how many Budd Root fans frequent the blog, but some of you may have heard by now that his publisher and best friend Kevin Alsop of Amryl Entertainment is going in for major, major, major brain surgery on Monday in Southern California. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he battles this tumor. I talked with him this morning and he can really use the moral support. I have always found that comic fans typically are extremely supportive and passionate caring people. I know Kevin will appreciate it.

Thanks. Royce

Gene Gonzales said...

Thanks LUD!

Thanks Royce, I hope this one will be as entertaining. Sorry to hear about Kevin's ordeal. I will definitely keep him in my thoughts. Thanks for letting us know, Royce.

Gary M. Peiffer said...

Gene,

Thanks for taking my subtle hint in a previous post and sharing the Herculoids artwork! The person commissioning the piece should be very pleased.

Royce- Thanks for the heads up about Kevin, had no idea.

Gary

Gary M. Peiffer said...

Royce,

Just got the email that Kevin sent out to the Amryl customers. Looks like you will be helping out in his absence, you have a big heart!

Please be sure to continue posting on this blog, I know Gene would miss you :-).

Gary

Royce Thrower said...

Gary,
Really all I am helping with is making sure budd is able to run his auctions when and if needed. But, every little thing is one less thing for Kevin to worry about. Wish there were more I could offer though.

And Gene won't get a chance to miss me, for better or worse, I love coming to this site. Bwa-ha-ha-ha...

Gene Gonzales said...

You're a good man, Royce.

And I am glad you will be sticking around.

Brian Jones said...

This is going to be a fun commision to watch progress I too loved the cartoon as a kid!

I pray the surgery goes well and a speedy recovery for Kevin. All the best to him and his friends and family.