Art Reversal

With my wife having inked my work recently, we decided to go for a little reversal. What if she drew an image and I inked it.

After tossing around a few options, we decided on a Superman piece. Not just any Superman piece, but a Jim Lee Superman. My amazing wife can do anything. From drawing in the style of Jim Lee to shooting top of the line fashion. Nothing is beyond her. She is a constant inspiration to me. There is nothing she cant do.

A week after inking my Gambit, she decided to lay down her pencils on Superman. Scrappy and I would be out of the house, so she would have the house all too herself to draw. Drawing in isolation is my preferred method of drawing. My love's line work was very strong. The piece had quite a bit of cross-hatching (a Jim Lee staple) so it was a difficult piece to both draw and ink.

Below is the third consecutive collaboration between my wife and I. I was little heavy handed in my inking (as is my style), so a lot of the intricate line work my wife created was lost. While I feel this is still a strong piece, I think the pencils were stronger than the inks. This marks the first time I've ever inked someone else's work. I'm sure the next time around will be better.

Family Gambit

Early in May, I dragged my wife to see the wretched X-Men Origins: Wolverine. While not nearly as bad as X-Men: The Last Stand (which is one of the worst comic movies in recent history) this movie was pretty bad. Liberties were taken with the source material (Paul Jenkins great Origin, Barry Windsor Smiths equally great Weapon X) to the point that the story was ridiculous, to the point of comical. The special effects were also pretty subpar. The scene were Wolverine pops his claws in the bathroom of the Hudson and cuts through their sink looks amatuerish. I feel like I could've put together better effects on my Mac. Deadpool was ridiculous as an amalgamation of mutants... he was much better as the wisecracking mercenary from earlier in the film. I will gladly pass on his solo film. Besides Iron Man (and the Incredible Hulk to a lesser degree) Marvel has been on a pretty bad streak of movies. Hopefully this changes soon. In what has been a good summer movie season, this easily stands out as the worst movie I've seen so far.

With all that said, The Wolverine movie inspired comic great Jim Lee to have a Gambit challenge. On the WildStorm blog site there was a video of Jim Lee pencilling and fully inking an image of Gambit in under 8 minutes. 8 minutes... are you kidding me. Not only did he draw it quickly, but he drew it amazingly. He is a true genius in the comic art medium.

With my comic idol drawing and inking a Gambit that quickly, I figured I would try and draw a Gambit image as quickly as possible. The below image was pencilled in 17 minutes (or twice as long as it took Jim to draw and ink). While I had to run some errands with my daughter the next day, my wife gamefully handled the inking for me. The inks took her a little over an hour and are distinctly her. They have a softer, lighter touch to them. The affect of the inks give the finished product a sketchier feel. While my pieces tend to have starker blacks when I ink them this piece serves as a nice change of pace. Another collaborative piece we can both be proud of.