Tentacles

Photoshop CS4.

Sergeant Dan - SPACE RANGER!

Here's another painting I found lurking on the hard drive - an imaginary Pulp cover for a character that never existed. It was a lot of fun recreating the painting and typography style of the old pulps. Hope you dig it!

On another, more timely note, Fantastic Four #585 is in stores today! Look for the Alan Davis cover pictured below.




Have a great Thanksgiving holiday everyone!

Druid

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There's no story behind this one. It's just an old speedpaint from the archives (also known as my hard drive) - some sort of Druidy guy out for a stroll. Have a great weekend everyone!

Sci Fi Scene

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As I mentioned in my last time, I have a few more warm up/speedpaints to post. Most of the time when I start these, I have no idea what they will turn out to be and I just make it up as I go along. This one ended up as some sort of Science Fiction Blade Runner riff. Definitely a change of pace from the various knights I've been painting (although I have another one of those waiting in the wings).

Knight 2

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Another quick warm up painting from earlier this week. I've got a few more I'll be posting next week.

Face Time

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I wanted to try to get one more post in for this year, so here's something I did a while back to practice painting faces. Have a great 2010 everyone!

Frankenstein

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It's a little late for Halloween, but hopefully you'll enjoy this shot of Frankenstein's monster anyway. Not that it means anything, but this is the first painting I've done in Photoshop CS4. I haven't noticed a whole lot of difference from CS3, other than the rotate canvas feature which is completely awesome (even though I don't think I ever used it on this particular piece).

And just because I kind of liked the way it turned out, here's a detail of the face:

Spanish Conquistador

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I found this on my hard drive while looking for something new to post. I don't think I've ever put this one up on the blog. I remember doing this one afternoon - probably spent 2-3 hours on it. Done in Photoshop CS3.

Knight

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A quick doodle this afternoon just for a change of pace - and a chance to try out some new brushes.

Green Girl

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Just for fun I did a very quick copy of a Jack Faragasso painting. The original has a great painterly quality I wanted to try to emulate digitally. I also love the unexpected color choices. It reminds me of something Harley Brown says - that if you get the values right, the eye will accept the unlikeliest colors.

Victorian Detective

I know you're all waiting breathlessly for the cover process step-by-step I promised, and though I am working on it, it's not done yet. So in the meantime here's another old concept painting I did that is either Sherlock Holmes or Simon Archard (or maybe a little bit of both) -


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Boba Fett!

After ending 2008 with a total hard drive meltdown, I'm back up and running for the new year. I didn't lose everything, but I did lose quite a bit of non-critical data that I was lazy about properly backing up. Lesson learned (the hard way). Anyway, here's a Boba Fett painting I did about a month ago to kick off 2009. Happy New Year everybody!


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Alchemy Space Lizard!

In a previous post I mentioned Alchemy - a free sketching program that is geared toward spontaneous visual experimentation, and since then I've spent the past several weeks slowly transforming an Alchemy sketch into a finished painting. I say slowly because as usual, I only work on stuff like this a little bit at a time - usually 10 or 15 minutes in the morning while I'm trying to wake up.

Here's the initial Alchemy sketch. It's not totally arbitrary in that you can get certain shapes to go in specific directions as you draw, but a lot of what happens is completely random. In this case it is supposed to represent some sort of armored soldier -


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I used this as the starting point for the painting below and as you can see, quite a bit of what was in the initial sketch survived to the finished piece.


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What's cool is that there are dynamics with the shapes and how they interact that I would have never come up with on my own and I think they add a lot of visual interest. On the other hand, none of it looks very practical and I would hate to have to attempt to draw that armor over and over and from different angles.

Also - Alchemy Space Lizard would be a kick-ass name for a band.

Overpass Assault

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Another dopey speedpainting done over the course of the last week or so. No story behind this one - it was just done for fun and as a warmup before painting some covers.

Now I'm going to tempt fate and again attempt to show you an animated version that condenses the 2 hours or so of painting time into about 15 seconds. It didn't work out too well the last time I tried this, so let's see what happens today.


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Two for Tuesday

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First up, a quick one from this morning. I had timed myself so that I wouldn't spend more than 45 minutes on it, so there's not much detail. I kind of like the mood of it though.

The second sketch is a commission for Steven Gettis' awesome collection in which he has artists draw their favorite literary figure, author, or character. I'm not going to post my contribution here, because I want you to go to his site and browse through the amazing array of talent he has commissioned over the past decade. You can see it by clicking the link below-

Hey Oscar Wilde! It's clobberin' time!!!

Tank

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Just goofing around trying some new brushes and new techniques. When I first started painting in Photoshop, I wanted to replicate the feel of traditional media as closely as possible, partly because that's the look I wanted for the Captain America covers I've been painting, but also because some digital paintings look sterile and artificial to me. However, there are things that Photoshop can do that can't be done any other way. I've been consciously avoiding these digital techniques on most of the published work, but I'm doing more and more of them in the speedpaints.

I'm not sure where (if anywhere) this may lead, but I'm having fun experimenting.

By the way, I didn't reference any tank when painting this. It's completely made up, so try not to laugh too hard at how impractical or stupid it looks.:)

Red Sonja and Dean Cornwell

Okay, so my earlier post had to be nuked due to technical difficulties. I'll get it all sorted and repost it in the future. Hellboy will not be denied!

In the meantime, here's a Red Sonja speedpaint (done for fun) and a copy of a detail from a Dean Cornwell painting.

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My hope when doing things like the Cornwell copy is that by studying in detail the techniques of other artists, I'll look at my own efforts with a more open mind to different approaches. It's too easy to get comfortable doing what has worked before over and over again.

Sketchblog: Year One

Today marks the first anniversary of the ol' sketchblog, and since August 21st is Hellboy day (at least on this blog) here's a quick sketch-


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Well, I said it was quick. Just trying to keep the tradition alive.

Thanks to everybody who drops by here on a regular basis, and especially to those of you who take the time to leave your feedback. Your comments are greatly appreciated.

In other news, Captain America #41 came out this week featuring the penultimate chapter of the current story arc, or as Ed likes to call it: "The Death of Captain America Act 3 - The Man Who Bought America: Part 5".



Here's a little behind the scenes stuff - some graphics I made in Photoshop during the production of the art for this issue. The first is a sign for the Diner that appears on page 2-

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- and the second is a series of little campaign posters I made for a single panel on page 20-




I have no idea who snuck in the Colbert poster that appears in the printed book.

See you in year two!

Spider-man

Very quick sketch in Photoshop-


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Dave Stevens (1955-2008)

Rocketeer creator Dave Stevens passed away earlier this week.

I never met Dave, and I don't have any funny or interesting stories to tell about him, but I loved Rocketeer. I loved the pulp inspired sensibilities and the ultra cool avaitor's outfit topped off with an Art Deco inspired streamlined helmet. I loved the criminally underrated movie that had a perfect cast. I loved the image of the Rocketeer atop the observatory with a Mauser in his hand (that he'd just taken from a KO'd Nazi naturally), American flag waving behind him. It felt to me like a character that had been around for decades, right along with the Phantom, the Shadow, Tarzan, and the Lone Ranger - an instant classic.

It's quite a tribute to Dave Stevens' talent that a character who only appeared in a handful of comics (five? six?) had such an impact, at least among comics fans. I know the general public probably couldn't pick the Rocketeer out of a line up, but he endures as an icon in the comics universe as far as I'm concerned. Even as I type this I can see the 3" high Rocketeer figure that has stood on one of my bookshelves the last 15 or so years - standing guard with his hands on his hips.

Click here to read a nice remembrance of Dave.