Return of the CCG

I just relocated my passwords for the CCG. I knows its been forever since I posted. I've been placing all my artwork and thoughts socially on Facebook, twitter and instagram, but I always enjoying the longer form blog for giving more background to my art and my process. I will be reposting art I have put together over the past year with some recollections about their creation. Here is a Becky Lynch piece I put together. Becky has been a bright spot in the WWE Woman's Division for almost two years now. Before that she was stand out on NXT. I wanted to put together a piece on Becky but wasn't in love with any of the source material I was looking at as inspiration. I then found this older promo pick of her, and decided to add in some steam punk/gear type elements behind her as that is part of her WWE presentation. The pencils and inks on Becky herself where pretty quick to put together. I used my standard Dixon Ticonderoga 2 and 3s for line work and shading, I then inked it all with Sharpies. The gear motif in the background took quite sometime, and to be honest, I had a lot more of it planned, but tapped out about midway through. I enjoy the final product, but still feel like I may go back into this one and add in some more gears. The best part of this piece was that after I finished it, I tweeted it at Becky Lynch who was having a match on SmackDown. Shortly after her match, Becky no only liked my tweet, but retweeted herself. That was pretty cool.

60 Days of Art... round 2

I missed last years 60 days of art by roughly 2 weeks. I'm going to try and officially complete it this year.

I started July 30 with this version of Adam West Batman doing the Batusi. It was inspired by the great Mike Allred. Pencils were pretty quick, with the inks taking far longer (that seems to be the case more and more lately). Let the 60 days begin. I'll try to post art weekly, as we all know I'm not really going to post every day.

New Art... Rorschach

I love Watchmen. I love Rorschach. I also loved Before Watchmen. Great comics, great characters, great pieces of art.

Another piece from last years 60 days of art which went un-inked for roughly 7 months. Believe or not, the words on the wall were a huge struggle for me. I just don't illustrate text well. It's easily one of my favorite pieces.

New Art... Hellboy

It's been forever since I posted anything here. Work and family take up just about every second of my time (sports watching and video games take up the rest). When I do have time (be it at my desk at work, or at home) I still like to pick up the pencil and doodle.

Here is a Hellboy picture I drew last year during my 60 days of art. I never inked it, and then felt like a failure after only hitting like 45 days in a row. I had free time back in December at my desk, took out piece, and laid the inks down.

Pencils were done pretty quickly, inks were pretty laborious. It's definitely a piece I'm happy to finally have up.

Wolverine

One of my best buddies in the office celebrated his birthday October 30th. I was already in the midst of craziness for the Maxim Party (more on that in a later post) which meant I was already drawing and designing like crazy for it. I had decided I would gift him a picture of his favorite superhero, Wolverine. Of course in making that promise, I didn't realize that I wouldn't hand off this piece until January 26th... craziness.

I finished up the pencils in early January. It probably took me about 2 hours to get the full composition and the background down. The inks were a full on other story. Inks were probably another 1.5 hours done while my very pregnant wife was coloring the Patron wall for the Maxim Party (again, a later post, that piece deserves a post all it's own). I'm surprised I wasn't thrown out of the room because of the Sharpies smell. After inking I added in some grey tones with my trusted Dixon Ticonderoga's #3 Hard. My buddy loved the piece, and I was thrilled to add another Wolverine piece to my collection.

New Art... Spider Jerusalem

OK, so it's been forever since I last posted. I've never taken a break this long before. There has just been too much going on. Birthdays, holidays, an expectant wife, new schools, work (work and more work), and just general overall life have made me way too busy to post.

Anyway, I've been drawing a ton of late, I won't be able to share what I've been drawing for a little over a month, but I will post lots of images once that project is wrapped up. With lots of work art needed, I've been trying to do some personal warmups which also double as holiday art.


Here is a piece I put together for my fellow art director here at Maxim. She was a huge fan of Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan. This piece took about 15 minutes of pencil time, about 30 minutes of inking (all done at the office, score) and then 5 more minutes of grey toning. All in all, a little less than an hour. For a slowpoke like me, thats practically a record breaking pace. I was pretty happy with the piece, the perspective was interesting, and Spider Jerusalem is a character I've never drawn. A win all around.

Beavis & Butthead pitch

At work, we were coming up with a pitch for Beavis & Butthead. With the idea being Beavis trying out to be in our magazine. It was a fun idea, but it had no art. I decided I could take the work home and put it together, then finish it up in the office the next day. Here is the finished piece with pencils and ink.



After I bought it into the office and scanned it, I passed it along to my co-worker who perfectly added the colors and banner. As the deal is not closed yet, I removed the text. I'm pretty confident this will sell, and once it does, I'll put up the final piece.



All in all, from brainstorming meeting to sketching and executing to delivering the client... less than 24 hours.

The Juggernaut

It's been quite a while since I posted a new piece of art. While I've been drawing pretty steadily, this is definitely the biggest piece I've drawn. You see, I've taken to drawing pieces on post it notes. Not the little teeny tiny ones, but the larger 3 x 5s. That, is a story for another day, or at least another post.

My buddy HK has a huge head, no, literally. He's also a really great guy. With his birthday coming up, and the knowledge that he is a huge Juggernaut fan (I think it has something to do with that huge head) I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to stretch my art muscles a bit and do a large piece.


This is my first oversized piece since February, plus I only gave myself a few hours to get it done. The pencils took a little over an hour. The inks a little over an hour and a half. No extra grays were added, nor did I get to ink the brinks as I originally intended. The whole piece was pencilled with a #3 Hard, and the inks were done in various weights of Sharpies. I was thrilled with the finish product, and HK loved it as well.

Punisher & Batman

It's been forever since I posted some art. In fact this piece is so old, it's a piece I created for my brother for Christmas.

I wanted to try a new process for this piece. I was going to forego the pencils, and draw straight with inks. If there ever were two characters were this could work, gritty urban vigilantes like the Punisher and Batman would be perfect subjects.


I wanted to create them in the style of Gary Frank. While his pencil work is intricate and fluid, I wanted to try and capture his style while forgoing pencils entirely. I originally also wanted to add in a brick wall behind the two of them, but ran out of time and had to frame it without the brick wall. After the illustration was done, I went in and added some extra grays for some shading and depth.

While the face work on the Punisher was a little rough (I still thought it worked, because Franks face should be a bit weathered), I loved the detailing on Batman's costume. At the end of the day it was a piece I was happy with. Plus, I feel more comfortable drawing with straight inks as opposed to having to pencil everything first. When I'm a famous comic artist, and doing the convention circuit, this marker art will come in handy.

Wonder Woman... New Costume

From ADW 60
I wanted to draw a picture for the cover of this very patriotic (not so much) issue of the Dubbs. I mean it’s the 4th of July issue (or a few days after). I thought about recycling the Captain America pic I drew and colored for my brother for Christmas. Than I thought of another character that is an icon of patriotism. I thought about Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman’s costume, originally created by the Amazons of Themyscyra, was supposed to gain her easy entry into the land of man (the Americas). Hence they emblazoned her outfit with stars and in the colors of the American flag. There she could learn their ways while teaching them the ways of the Amazons. Once here she fell in love with our land and decided to become the full-time ambassador to man’s world. She also decided to become an ass-kicking heroine.

Wonder Woman is hands down the most iconic (and best) female super hero ever created. She can go toe to toe physically with Superman while also being able to match mental wits with Batman.

While Wonder Woman has basically had the same costume for 70 years (save for some white jumpsuits in the 60’s and a hideous bra and biker short combo in the 90’s). The status quo changed last week when DC unveiled the brand new costume and direction for the character. I expressed my displeasure with the costume last week (this week, we have Madeline’s counterpoint). After hearing Madeline’s defense (and reading the actual comic where the new direction debuted) I decided I would be more open minded and give it a shot. I decided I would take an iconic Wonder Woman pose, and draw it, with her wearing the new costume. After I did that, I decided it wasn’t enough. I dropped it on the American flag background and colorized it. The final result lives on the cover of the Dubbs this week.

Wonder Woman can still be a patriotic, feminine icon while in black tights and a jacket. Maybe she doesn’t have to be in star spangled undies. While less patriotic than its predecessor, the costume is starting to grow on me. Save for the choker which I omitted from my rendering, I still think that blows.

Supergirl & Streaky

My daughter loves Streaky our cat. Whenever she's over, Streaky is generally with her.

I wanted to put together a Supergirl and Streaky piece for her to be able to color and play around with. The lines had to be open and clean. Not a lot of shading (again, a departure for me as I love my shading). I came up with the above piece. The pencils on this piece were pretty quick. About 30 minutes or so. Inks about the same. After drawing these months ago, I just got around to printing a few for her to color. I'll post what she comes up with next week.

The Super Family

I haven't drawn as much as I've liked in 2010. It's been a pretty busy year so far (as I noted two posts ago). With that said, I haven't been completely un-artistic. I've done a few pieces. One of which is the Super Family which I drew for my daughter in the style of Art Baltazar's Tiny Titans.

That book is amazing. If you ever want to forget about Seige and Zombie Lanterns and simply enjoy comics like a kid again grab an issue the next time you hit a comic store. The best part is they are completely age appropriate for the little kiddies as well. Art's simplistic art take is brilliant. He gets right down to the essence of these characters with round heads and simple bodies. Pure genius.

My Super Family contains Superboy, Supergirl, Streaky the Supercat, the mysterious Cupid, with Superman and Wonder Woman in the background. Pencils on this piece took about 30 minutes with inks taking maybe another 40 or so (you have to be careful not to break the line on really long lines). All in all a piece I had a blast creating.

Holiday Art 2009

I didn't put together a lot of holiday art this year. I think I actually may have done more pieces for myself than for anyone else. Here is one piece I put together for my sister, on request. After drawing pictures of my younger nieces and nephews, she asked "Why haven't you drawn a picture of Joe". I took that as her request for a gift. I had to completely fabricate this piece of him as action shots of him playing basketball were pretty hard to come by. While I'm more of a comic artist that a portraitist, I happen to think I captured his likeness pretty well. The piece suffered a little when I went to inks, but it worked overall. Stay tuned over the next few days as I post some of the other pieces I've worked on recently.

Adi Iron Man

About a month ago I posted an image of a Jack Kirby inspired Iron-Man. Realizing I didn't have a modern Iron-Man of my own (I had done one and gifted it to my buddy Steve the last I saw him) I had to rectify that.

While I think Salvador Larocca is a brilliant artist, my favorite Iron artist is Adi Granov. Adi is quite possibly the most influential Iron artist of all-time as his work has been used as the prototypes for the movie version. He draws very tight pencils which he renders beautifully with digital inks and colors.

The pencils on this piece were pretty quick. Around an hour. The inks were pretty quick as well. I actually worked on this while my Cowboys were beating the Saints, I was really nervous about that game and needed something to do in the second half of the game. After I put down the inks I thought the image was a little flat so I added in some gray tones and voila... the piece came to life. I love it.

I put together a few other pieces around the holidays which I'm hoping to toss on the site over the next few weeks.

SuperMen

I worked on this piece of art back in September. I finished inking it back in October and it saw print in ADW shortly thereafter. I put this together right before my son was born. I wanted to do a piece that had both Superman and Superboy. I was naming my son after Superman, so I wanted to do a piece that had both the man and the boy.

Right around that time the art for Adventure Comics #1 hit. It was drawn by Francis J Manapul and had Superboy flying through the middle of Lex and Superman. I simply cut out Lex and voila instant Superman/Superboy image. The pencils took me a little over an hour and a half. The inks about 2 hours. Needless to say I'm extremely thrilled with this piece.

On the subject of being thrilled, I wanted to talk about how much joy my son brings to my life. A simple smile or stare absolutely makes my day. It is absolutely the best feeling. I love that little guy so much.

Iron Art (Kirby)

I'm a huge comic book fan. In fact for most of my life when asked what I wanted to do, I'd reply "I want to be a comic book artist". If you asked me the same question today, I'd say the same thing. Although I'm way to slow to ever truly be a comic artist, it still is a dream of mine.

One of the reasons its a dream of mine is the early Marvel work of Jack 'King" Kirby. He is simply put the godfather of all comic artists. He changed the game with his composition and dynamic poses. Characters jumped off the page and interacted with readers. You would generally see the characters hips cocked toward the reader in a dramatic stance. He also introduced U.S. audiences to speed lines as well as created the oft-copied Kirby bubbles.

When I found this Kirby piece of Iron Man, I instantly knew I wanted to recreate it. Iron Man was not a character commonly associated with Kirby so I was automatically intrigued. Then my co-worked and I spoke about doing a collaboration where he would drop a background and mural on a wall behind Iron Man.

The pencils took me a little over an hour. Inks were about the same. It's a piece I was thrilled with. So thrilled that I put together another Iron Man piece right after it... i'll post a more modern take on the man of iron tomorrow...

Incredible Art

One of my favorite hero movies of all-time is also one of my favorite family films of all-time. Disney Pixar's The Incredibles. Simply put, it's one of the best superhero movies ever made. A much truer depiction of the Fantastic Four than anything Marvel put together with Tim Story and Jessica Alba. The characters are beautifully rendered and amazingly written. The story is a multi-layered tale of family, heroism, being true to oneself and redemption. A true masterpiece from the hit makers at Pixar.

This piece is inspired by the comic series of the Incredibles drawn by the amazing Sean "Cheeks" Galloway. I love Cheeks pencils. He has a very unique style. Loose and cartoony but still incredibly structured. Pencils took me about 1 hour. Inks took me about another 45 minutes to an hour. This picture doesn't show it, but I went back in and added layers of gray for added depth.

Lack of Posts

There have been a severe lack of posts lately. I'm thoroughly enjoying being a Dad again, and am slightly sleep deprived, so I havent had a ton of time to dedicate to the CCG. I have 5 more Top 20 Toys of 2008 (while I'm starting to prepare my 2009 list) as well as two new pieces of art to post (both family/comic related). Stay tuned to the CCG it should be a good week.

BlueJays Redesign

An article on ESPN.com sparked some interst in redesigning awful sports uniforms and logos.
In this aticle, ESPN went on to list the 10 worst logos and uniforms in all of sports. On this list was the uniforms of the Toronto Bluejays.
The main complaint of the writer of the piece was that the Blue Jays current uniform (below) has little to no blue and does not embrace the Canadian heritage of the team. I thought this could be a quick and easy fix, so I threw together these redesigns.
I’ve always been a fan of the sleeveless uniform (kind of like a sweater vest) So I created a sleeveless look which would have a blue trim, as well as be worn with a blue t-shirt underneath. The Jays current logo (which I like a lot) would run across the front of the jersey. I also added a maple leaf with the player’s number centered within. Th back of the jersey was kept clean. Simply a players number with a slight gray drop shadow, I detest names on the back of baseball jerseys, so I left them off.
The hat has a modified logo on it. I ket the BlueJay head with the letter J and placed it within the maple leaf. I also left the front panel of the hat white while the rest of the hat would be blue.
The pants have a simple blue belt, with a blue thin stripe down the leg which leads to the blue high socks.
For the logo itself, I really wanted to incorporate the Maple leaf. It’s a minor change to the logo, but one I think helps play up the fact that this is Canada’s only MLB team

Heineken party

I lifted this piece from ADW (only the most amazing publication on the market... you don't know about it, you should) it was written by my lovely wife.

With my brother-in-law’s Heineken themed 40th birthday party looming on the horizon, my husband and I wondered what do you get the man who’s failed to install your dishwasher? Then it hit LV: An Andy Warhol-style pop art piece featuring Heineken.

LV is convinced I know how to paint because of the finesse I showed with a Crayola watercolor paint brush four years ago. While I actually have no idea how to paint, I was up for the challenge. It seemed like a good chance to exercise these fantasies I have about how the nursery will be decorated. One day. When I get around to it.

After some online research, a purchase of a six-pack and some acrylics, a few photos, and some changes to the hue in Photoshop, I set to work. (I didn’t know it was necessary to say “Brewed in Holland” so many times on one bottle.) Two days later, LV loved it. His brother loved it. And I have now painted.