Digital Penciling - Color

Artwork © 2010 Gene Gonzales

Just a little bit of additional color added to this piece. Not much time for anything else today. The weekend was full of family and work. Going into this week I will be completely slammed until the following Monday. I'm exhausted thinking about it. Whew.

This is Post #1142

Any Landing You Can Walk Away From?

Artwork © 2010 Gene Gonzales

This is just a quick sketch of a idea. I drew it in my sketchbook and slapped some color on it in Photoshop.

This Post #1141

Black Canary

Black Canary © DC Comics

I had this in my mind for a couple of days and finally put it down on paper, digital "paper" as it were. Just a fun exercise with color and shapes done entirely in Photoshop.

Have a good weekend everyone. :)

This is Post #1140

Mr.Tawny - Canson Portrait

Mr. Tawny © DC Comics

I'm a big fan of the Fawcett Comics run of Captain Marvel, Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel, Jr. When I had a comic collection, I owned quite a few Mary Marvel, Wow Comics, Whiz Comics, Marvel Family, and Captain Marvel Adventures. And most of the early run of SHAZAM! that DC Comics published in the 1970s. The Marvel Family had some really fun supporting characters including our subject today, Mr. Tawny, the talking tiger. And yes, Mr. Tawny predates Tony the Tiger.

Mr Tawny first appeared in Captain Marvel Adventures #79 in 1947. Created by Otto Binder and C. C. Beck. (Otto Binder also co-created the Legion of Super-Heroes years later. Funny how this blog almost always comes back to the Legion.) So with Mr. Tawny, they placed a funny animal character in the middle of a super-hero comic. And it works. Several of those stories were reprinted in the SHAZAM! 100 Page Giants in the 1970s. Not cheap but they are a fun read.

This piece was something I was playing with today that ended up becoming a fully realized Canson piece. Not planned, but I'm happy with it. And it marks the first time I have drawn Mr. Tawny.

This was done in ink and color pencil on an 11" x 17" sheet of Canson Mi-Teintes paper.

This is Post #1139

Digital Penciling

Artwork © 2010 Gene Gonzales

Just trying some digital penciling using the Conte Pencil brush in Photoshop. I like the texture of the line. I put some basic color to this piece that I will try to finish up later.

This is Post #1138

Sketchbook Tuesday - Canson Paper Sketches

Artwork © 2010 Gene Gonzales

More sketching of some familiar looking guys. The sketches above were done on a sheet of Canson paper using Col-Erase pencils and white acrylic. Some of the color was done in Photoshop. I am trying different approaches for how I draw. I really would like to work on my own projects but I am not very interested in inking everything. There are several european comics that I follow that seem to print straight from pencils. Tight pencils that have been colored in a neutral shade. There are no stark black lines on anything and it looks really nice. I like the roughness and energy of pencils. Ah well, until I have time to actually devote to my own stuff, I will continue to play.

I have picked up another big project from a terrific client that will be a bit of a rush. I am working on one project for the same client and this one will tie into it a bit. I will be flying to Arkansas the first week of December and possibly late January as part of all this work. Needless to say, I will be pretty slammed through the first week of January.

My commission list is closed until February. I have taken on five Canson pieces and that fills my list. Whew! But these are going to be really, really fun!

This is Post #1137

And now for something different...

I've wanted to share these for a while and since the movie is out on dvd and Blu-Ray I figured it would be okay to share with all of you now.

Back in the spring, I was asked to join a small team of artists working for DC Licensing to do artwork for the JONAH HEX movie. I haven't seen the movie but I believe these were to be used for the opening credits. I was given very, very rough sketches done by Eduardo Risso and instructed to ink them in Adobe Illustrator, matching his style and using my best judgement to finish areas not sketched in. I poured through a lot of his work, studying what he does and why. And here are results of three of six that I did.

Another challenge to these pieces is that various elements had to be done on separate layers. For example, in the first one, I had to do the trees in the foreground in one layer, Hex and the horse in another, and the background in yet another layer. But here is the tricky part, everything you cannot see that is blocked by the foreground trees still had to be drawn out. This is where some pieces got trickier than others but it also gave the studio the chance to do limited animation with each piece.

It was a quick turnaround project and I did six of them. I'm pleased that the only change I was asked to make was to make the grass in the top image a bit fuller. My first pass at the grass didn't look as good.

Jonah Hex © DC Comics

It was a fun and I hope to be involved with more projects like this one.

New artwork tomorrow.

This is Post #1136