Commission: Athena Voltaire and Wolverine revisited

Today's commission is actually an inked version of a piece I did a few years back. I've uploaded the pencils for the sake of comparison.

I really enjoyed revisiting the piece. I spotted some things that I used to do in my pencils and really want to get back to. Additionally, I saw a few cringeworthy things that I was eager to fix.

I'm a much looser, confident inker these days and was thrilled to slap a juicier line on this than I would have four years ago.

Which one do you like better?!

Tribute to Al Williamson (pencils)

As mentioned elsewhere, my favorite of Al's work was his 13-year collaboration with Archie Goodwin on Secret Agent Corrigan. Over the course of their run, Al and Archie took Phil Corrigan on a bunch of exciting adventures, frequently alternating espionage stories with homages to various stories that had inspired them, including The Lost World, The Prisoner of Zenda, and even Flash Gordon.

In short, everything that Al loved was thrown into Secret Agent Corrigan.

Looking at the progression of the strip, Phil Corrigan started off looking very much like he did when Alex Raymond launched the strip, but as time passed, Phil, like Han Solo after him, developed more and more of a resemblance to Al. You can attribute this to Al using himself as a model, but not everyone who Al posed for ended up looking like him.

I think that Al was going on the adventure himself, like when we played as kids.

For this piece, I had originally planned an elaborate montage spotlighting a few of my favorite Secret Agent Corrigan adventures, but most of my Corrigan photocopies have been lost or are stored somewhere in my studio. Thankfully, the upcoming reprint series from IDW will eliminate my need to find those copies.

Here are the pencils to my Al Williamson Twart (the inks were posted today at ComicTwart).

Rocketeer and Betty pencils

This week's theme over at Comic Twart is The Rocketeer (yes, I'm the one responsible for the theme). My finished inks can be found here.

I initially wanted to do a scene with Betty lunging with the helmet and jetpack, with Peavy, Cliff and Butch the bulldog somewhere in the scene. Additionally, I wanted to do a second drawing, spotlighting Cliff in uniform, flying (and maybe montage elements from the two series in there, like Jonas, Marco, Ham & Monk, the flying wing, etc). However, it was waaaaay too ambitious to think I could do both images, so I added Cliff flying as a vignette in the Betty piece and the problem was solved.

Summit City Comic Con promo piece

Here are the pencils to a promo piece for te upcomic Summit City Comic Con.

Jim Nelson will be inking and coloring the piece. I'm excited about the collaborative effort!

Big Savings on my Sketchbooks at DCBS

The great folks at DCBS (Discount Comic Book Service) have a great deal on my sketchbook this month.

STEVE BRYANT SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS VOL 1
The first collection of artwork focusing on Eisner and Manning Award nominee Steve Bryant features conceptual art for his series Athena Voltaire, as well as commissions of Big Two heroes, the Buffyverse and a galaxy far, far away. Signed and numbered limited edition of 500. Color covers, b/w interiors. Product Code: OCT099003 (Steve Bryant)
Cover Price: $15.00
Your Price: $7.50 (50% discount)

STEVE BRYANT SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS VOL 2
The second volume of Steve Bryant’s sketchbook series showcases more Athena Voltaire work in progress, as well as commissions, samples and a look at the artist’s prep work drawing 24’s Jack Bauer for IDW. Signed and numbered limited edition of 500. Color covers, b/w interiors. . Product Code: OCT099004 (Steve Bryant)
Cover Price: $15.00
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STEVE BRYANT SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS VOL 3
STEVE BRYANT SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS, volume three Steve Bryant’s third sketchbook features more Athena Voltaire work in progress (of course!), as well as commissions, samples and a peek at the artist’s sketchbook studies of life drawings and more. Signed and numbered limited edition of 500. Color covers, b/w interiors. . Product Code: OCT099005 (Steve Bryant)
Cover Price: $15.00
Your Price: $9.75 (35% discount)

SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS VOL 1-3 Set *FREE PRINT*
All three volumes of STEVE BRYANT SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS in one set, featuring Athena Voltaire, as well as commissions, samples and a peek at the artist’s sketchbook studies of life drawings and more. Each volume is signed and numbered limited edition of 500. Color covers, b/w interiors. Buy all three volumes in this series and receive a free, exclusive, limited edition print, signed and numbered by artist/author Steve Bryant.

Product Code: OCT099006 (Steve Bryant) Your Price: $27.00 First time DCBS customers, get additional savings with the order code CGS8!

Commission: Blackhawk

Another quickie commission; this time, it's Blackhawk, DC's swashbuckling aviator. Col-Erase pencil on bristol board, 9" x 12".

Yeah, I was thinking "Bruce Campbell" while drawing it.

Commission: Golden Age Flash & Green Lantern

This one was a lot of fun! I needed something to tie it all together and felt that the Justice Society eagle would make a good graphic element.

I enjoy doing pencil commissions, but always feel that they would look better as finished ink drawings. I may end up printing this commission out as a blueline and inking it anyway.

Athena Voltaire pencils

I realized that I haven't posted this piece before. I drew it in my sketchbook as an exercise and decided to use it as the title page for The Complete Webcomics. I really enjoy working in tone and would like to use the title pages for my trade paperbacks to indulge that interest.

Commission: Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy

Another quickie commission. This time we have Gamora, who used to be Adam Warlock's girlfriend, I think. There can't be a bunch of green girls running around Marvel's cosmic books, right?

...or can there?

More fun with tones! I'm really enjoying working with the Col-Erase pencils and just ordered a batch of them last Friday.

Commission Time: Sgt Rock

I've had some scanner issue of late—which makes it hard when it's an essential tool for doing my job! In hopes of getting enough money to replace both my scanner and my venerable Mac G4, I'm really trying to hit the commissions hard.

When I do tonal work, I have a tendency to try and make everything too smooth! Needless to say, having someone request Sgt Rock was a great way to try and stretch. It was hard to incorporate some of the rough cragginess that flows so naturally from Joe Kubert every time he draws the character, but it was a great learning experience!

More new Athena Voltaire

Here are the pencils to the page I posted a panel from on Wednesday.

I scrapped the plane in panel 1 and drew a long shot of it instead. You can see it when I post the inks...or maybe I'll just make you buy the book! ;)

A (semi) recent commission

The list of interesting commission concepts continues! The Headless Horseman versus (Green Arrow's sidekick) Speedy! I actually finished this up around Halloween. Appropriate.

I kinda wish that I had inked it, though.

Over at the Athena Voltaire blog, I update the mystery project a little more.

Airboy Pencils

After so much preliminary work, the pencils were a joy!

While penciling, I was consciously thinking about which parts would be rendered with a slick, precise line, and which parts would have softer, looser rendering. At this stage, it has the balance I'd hoped to attain.

We'll see how it works out in the inks tomorrow!

Airboy Rough Sketch

I jumped at the opportunity to draw Airboy! Factor in drawing Valkyrie and I'm so there! This piece is an homage to the famous Dave Stevens cover to Airboy #5 (which is an homage to the cover of Air Fighters #2).

Shown here are the early roughs I did. Val starts off too lanky—I mean there's model proportions and there's taking it too far! I took it too far. I shortened up her foreground leg in the second sketch.

I sent the second sketch to Jason Millet and JunBob Kim for their suggestions and applied their thoughts in the final sketch shown here. I also didn't want Airboy to be as passive as I had drawn him originally, so I added a gun to his hand (rather than the "pleading" gesture) to give it a contemporary John Woo dynamic.

I'm pretty happy with how it's developing. Tomorrow: a look at the pencils.

Batgirl!

Sometimes doing a simple headshot can be the most fun. Take this Batgirl commission, for instance. I always felt that the character was lighthearted and am not a fan of what Alan Moore did to her in The Killing Joke. This piece was an opportunity to get back to the spirit of the Silver Age of comics—y'know...happy!

Plus, I needed to work on drawing smiles (still do!)—they're hard!

Take That, Pinko!

Today's picture is part of what could be the greatest commission theme ever.

Ever.

Vic Sage Pummels the Presidents. For the uninformed, Vic Sage is the alter-ego of the Question, a DC Comics character created by Steve Ditko in the 1960s. Ditko, an adherent to Ayn Rand's Objectivism philosophy, sometimes touched upon his views through the character.

Needless to say, when given the choice between the Question slugging William Taft or LBJ, I chose LBJ. How do you think a Randian Objectivist would view the Great Society?

Take that, Pinko!

(Oh, and someone pointed out that the Question's figure kind of forms a question mark. I wish I could say I was that clever, but I'm not. It's still pretty neat.)

Another day, more sketching

Another doctor's trip, more work in the sketchbook.

When I draw with colored pencils, I have a tendency to ALWAYS do fully rendered shading. I made a conscious effort to avoid that on this one.

It was a lot of fun!

More Sketching

Since my dad passed away last December, I've been the "go-to" guy for driving my mom and brother to doctor visits. And lately, doctor's office visits mean sketchbook time.

Here's one of the pages that came from the most recent trip.

Playing in the Sketchbook...again

My mom's been having some trouble walking (pain in her right leg) so I took her to the doctor (and for x-rays). Everything's okay.

Here's what I worked on while waiting. It's from an article on Olympic gymnists in ESPN Magazine. I swiped the magazine in hope of finishing the picture (her extended hand is wrong and I need to fix that!).

Tightening up the pencils on the ghost

Again, this page is the first time that we see the ghost in the story, so I want it to be right. Granted, a few things (like glowing red eyes) will be handled by Jason in the color stage of the page, but this page still really needs to sing on all levels.

At this stage, it's starting to develop...

Inks tomorrow.