Loki - Canson Portrait

Loki © Marvel Entertainment

I have no idea why Loki came to mind when it was time to draw this piece. Or why I went with a simpler, bolder line. No idea. It could be his fault. He's mischievous that way. ;)

This is Post #1091

Captain Cold - Canson Portrait

Captain Cold © DC Comics

For this Captain Cold piece, I was trying to get the look of someone who is really cold. Not that he is uncomfortable with the cold. In fact he loves it. But still, the human body would react a certain way no matter what. So I thought about the skin and what it would look like. Almost a mummified look. Okay, I way over thought this one. :)

This is Post #1090

Lex Luthor - Canson Portrait

Lex Luthor © DC Comics

I don't normally add color to the gray paper pieces, but the high light glow of green krytonite was something I just wanted to do. :) This is my take on the silver age Lex complete with prison grays.

This is Post #1089

The Spectre - Canson Portrait

The Spectre © DC Comics

I hope no one minds, but I will be doing this type of art over the next couple of days. Today we start off with The Spectre. I remember buying those really cool, creepy and ultra violent issues drawn by Jim Aparo in the 1970s. Great stuff!

In other news: For the first time, in a very long time, I do not have any commissions. How about that? I can probably take a few requests, so if anyone is interested just send me an email with "Commission" in the subject line.

I will be out of town on business for the next few days. Don't worry though, the blog will go on! One of the cool things about this trip is that it takes me nearly to the doorstep of DIARY OF NIGHT creator/writer Will Allred. I'm going to get the chance to hang out with Will, his lovely wife Stacy and their twin boys tomorrow night. Then it's day full of meetings. And then back Thursday. Quick trip to Arkansas and back. Stacey told me to pack a jacket, that it's in the 40s up there. Yikes! Guess I won't be wearing shorts.

This is Post #1088

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 

Justice Legion of Aliens - Final

Below is the final art for this commission. The top photo shows the line art with the overlay of logos. One difference in the line art from yesterday is I have added black to each side of the board. This makes the spotlight stand out much better. In the original cover, a dark color was used for the background and yellow for the spotlight. But since this piece will not be in color, it lacked some weight. I think the added black gives it that weight and makes the over all image really pop.

The overlay worked out nice. I had to redo a couple of elements because of the new black background but that was easy. Below is a digital version of the cover where I placed the logo elements I created in the same file as the line art. 

And just for fun, below is a tease of the next one I am (re)creating.

The Legion of Super-Heroes © DC Comics

This is Post #1086

Justice Legion of Aliens - Inks

I finished the inks today and and I think they came out pretty nice. In case I didn't mention it, Dawnstar has been turned into salt. That is why there is a difference in the inking and texture on her figure.

Legion of  Super-Heroes © DC Comics

With the inks done, I scanned the art and placed it in Adobe Illustrator so I could create the logos and size them to my needs. When I was done, I printed them out on Epson Photo Paper on my Epson Stylus Photo 2200 color printer.

I've cut down the acetate for an overlay and placed it over the finished art. The next step will be cutting the logos and other objects from the print out and glueing them down to the acetate overlay. A second sheet of photo paper was used for the other cover objects not shown in the photo below.

More tomorrow!

This is Post #1085