Marvel Masterpieces Round 3: Silver Surfer, Galactus, and Dr. Strange

I've decided to start posting some of my MM's artist sketch cards.. I've already finished them all, but I didn't want to throw them all out at once.

I'll be posting a couple of new one's each week.

*edit* I just realized how badly my monitor is calibrated. I fixed( as best I could) and cleaned up the colors with some levels and curves.

Quick Sketch

Nothing more to say. but it wasn't actually a quick sketch.. I really noodled at this over the past week and a half.. I was inspired after looking through Massimo Caneavale's website( he does the cover art for Northlanders).

that's all.

Cover for proposal

I finished out a proposal job with this final mock-up of the cover.

Artifacts for White Wolf

I got the go ahead this week from my Art Director at White Wolf to put up some small illos I did for him back in December.

This was an interesting project, because it took me back to my industrial design days when I rendered a lot of projects.. The project went surprisingly quickly, and I tried out a "different" techniques.. I usually like to do my BW work in watercolor and gauche, but this time I used markers( which was/is the instrument of choice in product rendering)

The markers came out surprisingly crisp and I took the BW renderings into photoshop and put color on them using a lot of adjustment layers.

I've posted the thumbnails as well. For the Hieroglyphics I reveal my cheat.. Create a textured BG and then paint on a new layer that is set to bevel and emboss.. Adjust the setting so that it creates a shadow and then a highlight. Then on another layer, color in the shapes using with the layer set to "multiply"..

Okay here's the art.

Final Cover

I put a lot of sweat and tears into this final cover.. I kept tweaking it to get the right "polish" or feel that I wanted.. I finally figured that I needed the backlighting to be ver strong and almost flat..

One of my issues when I paint is not having enough value difference between my shadow areas and light areas.. I battled with the idea of which light source was stronger, the blue one coming from the box or the yellow one coming from the over head lights.

I finally realize that the back light had to win out, and I think the picture finally came together from therer.

It interesting how when you render "honestly" you sometimes get results you aren't totally happy with, but you know is right. I wanted the girls face to look much "cuter", but when I rendered the lighting correctly/honestly( as best as I knew how) It looked right, but the "cute" wasn't there as much as I wanted.

But I'm happy with the forms I created and I feel that they create some good forms on the characters.

that's it.

Cover for Ringslingers

I'm on the road to finishing the final cover. I'm posting the final inks and flats right now.

White Wolf: Immortal Sinners

Here are some paintings I did for the White Wolf Immortal Sinners Book. It just came out recently. I did 4 images in the book, and I have to say I particularly enjoyed doing them. I made a point to do them mostly non-digital.

I did a bit of color touch-ups to get them more desaturated( I used to using a lot of color, and the whole vampire motif calls for a feeling of lifelessness) I'll post scans of the originals, without any photoshop magic in the future.

I decided to take some excerpts about the characters and put them with the images. I really think much of the interest in the images come from comparison to the character's description.

T-shirts!!!

As many know I'm a part of Studio Revolver with Georges Jeanty, Dexter Vines, Jason Pearson, Tom Feister, John Christopher, Casey Edwards, Kevin Stokes, and Bernard Sheppard.( Check out the studio website here)

Well we made some t-shirts for ourselves, but Yes, You Too Can Own your Own T-shirt for 19.95!!! Actually we're only charging around 6 dollars, but this price might increase a whopping 4-5 dollars if we use a different vendor. Pre-Order your tshirts here.

Well, get your own..

Cover Crazy

Here are some concepts for a cover I'm working on currently. It's taking some time to create some final art that feels as good as te sketch.

Sketchies

Just some skecthins.. One I did this morning. The other, well, I made a big collection during a training class I did last year.. You may or may not believe this, but I can listen better when I'm sketching!! no kidding.. luckily my old boss, and artist/designer himself, believed me and made no fuss.

Mechanical Golem

Done for another ArtOrder weekly sketch entry.. I did this one in about 3-4 hours.. too long yeah.. But I wanted to go from pencils to finish with little/no digital.. I had to clean it up a little in photoshop, but everthing is pretty much done on paper..

I'm trying to find my analog roots again lately. I'm not totally happy with my results from doing things digitally.. I find that I can't do some brushstrokes and other spontaneous things when working on the computer, and I feel like it keeps me from finding my "voice" at times because I have to find workaround to those limitations.

Plus working analog make me think a lot further ahead..

EDIT--
Okay.. I got this pic into my studio and worked it over in a bit more in Photoshop. So much for that analog stuff I was just talking about.. Photoshop is like bacon.. It makes everything better!

Cowboy prelim

Here is a prelim for a image I did for White Wolf.. The book should be coming out in the next few weeks. It's called Bloodlines.

Garreth for ArtOrder

Another weekly sketch for Jon over at www.ArtOrder.blogspot.com

I put this on in late, so we'll see if it's included in the round-up.

I was working on this one, and kinda just kept moving.. I like how it was developing, and it would be a great comp for a final pic now.

Here is the original descriptions:
Everyone knows the standard fantasy races - elves, dwarves, orcs, etc. Few people are aware of the Garreth - a race of tiny humanoids that populate the desolate region around red dragon lairs. They live off the charred remains of unfortunate adventurers, stealing away with trinkets that are too small for the notice of the mighty red dragon. These trinkets are used for trade, and to fashion their clothing, armor, and weapons. The Garreth have also been known to barter services with the red for higher end trinkets... such as scratching that annoying itch the red can't reach, organizing the gems and coins, or tricking adventurers into rushing after the Garreths - into the lair.
What do they look like, how do they live, what is the latest fashions around the lair? No one has survived to tell. Help me flesh out the details, and have a little fun in the process.


And here is my interpretation:

My Garreth:

These Garreth reside directly below the Dragon's Den.. They are gatherers and collectors.. They take the weapons and armour of toasted adventurers. They all have collections of trinkets, and they keep their bling on necklaces tied around their necks mainly, but they will affix them to anything that will show off their collections. They are vain, and as a society elevate the possession of these trinkets to a religious level.. They believe you have to purchase your way into a prosperous afterlife. They are buried with their collections.

Hierarchy in the society is dependent upon the amount of bling that you have, kinda like rappers. The more trinkets and jewelry, they more important you are. You get more by catering to the dragon more- They highest level of the clan would be the one that can best interact and bargain with the dragon, without getting fried to a crisp.

They also do the service of keeping watch for the dragon, alerting him/her to would be warriors in search of fame and glory.

More Character designs

These next two flush out the main characters for this project.

Character designs

More from the same project.

Current Project

Currently working on this project with a client.. I just finished a sample double page spread for this job.

Twice is Nice

I meant to post the Wolverine yesterday, so I guess I'm doing a little catch up( I'm trying to post every day or at least 5 times a week, even if not daily.)

Today.. Just a quick sketch..

Fresh Ink

I pencilled this Wolvie for the sole purpose of handing it off to my studio mate, and the newest addition to Revolver Studios, Unshay Sheppard.

Can you believe he just started seriously inking a month ago?!

I was pretty happy with the results.

Monster Mash

This is a submission I put in for a weekly sketch blog over at ArtOrder.blogspot.com. It's a great blog to read if you're an aspiring illustrator. It's hosted by Jon Schindehette, senior art director of D&D.

It was a fun sketch and into a realm I don't step into very much. Creature Design.. That's why I wanted to take a stab at it- I don't get many opportunities for this, and it's pretty fun, because everything you do is right, as long as it makes sense.

Happy New Year.. Ahem

Wow.. It's been a while since I've posted.. WhatCanISay.. I've been doing a lot of stuff, but a lot of it is NDA( non disclosure) So.. I can show and tell. But that's just an excuse.. I have done enough to share, but mostly in the vein of sketches and fun stuff.

Heres a piece I put together specifically for the purpose of showing to an Art Director with the goal of getting some work.

If you don't know what a Drow is.. I didn't before I read the D&D illustration guide.. It's an evil elf basically.

I painted drow and now I'm sharing the step by step.

OH.. and I hope you're having a great new year so far.

later.

Good times and Fun Cards: Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Haven't been around for a while due to the holidays and just being darn busy. I'm updating my design portfolio and spent all last week photografin' brochures and flyers and stuff.

I'm also working on quite a bit of stuff that I just can't show right now.. So, things have been a little light..

But... I did finish a Buffy sketch card commission that's pretty interesting.. So here it is.. with no further ado..

Star Wars Minis

Over a full year ago I worked on a fun project for WOTC( Wizards of the Coast/ Hasbro) doing figure designs for their Star Wars Miniatures line.

Basically I had to create simple turnarounds for my given characters. These drawing were then used as guides for the sculptures to work from. I think all of the sculpting and production is done in China.

Well, it was fun( How can you work on Star Wars and not have fun?), and now that it's finally out I can show some of the designs.

You might notice my fellow studiomate Georges Jeanty as the model for the Human Mercenary. Well, if you think of a mercenary as a "freelancer", then it's quite appropriate.

The only thing is that it's hard to find images of the Star Wars mini's right now, so these two images are all that I can muster up right now.

The next batch of mini's WOTC produces, I did much more interesting characters on those, so hopefully I'll see the finals soon.

Bomb Queen

Bomb Queen commission. I used the technique I learned at B.Stelfreeze's watercolor workshop.
I did this along the lines of a Petty-esque pose in mind.. He always had the women doing something cool with their hands.

Cyborg done for a commission at Heroes Con last summer.

New SketchCards: Red Skull & Wonder Woman

Here are a couple of new ones.