The little kid is Akira. That guy behind him is Joker. They’re both characters from Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA.
Author: Fiffe
These here pieces are a few recent commissions I did of my Zegas characters, Emily & Boston. It’s weird drawing commissions because there’s little room for mistakes. Zero room, actually, and so I was super careful in the inking and hand coloring. Considering how messy I can be sometimes, I’m proud at how clean they turned out!
On the flip side, I’ve been toying around with digital coloring these past few weeks, and who better to practice on than the Black Terror? You may have seen this guy around, he’s one of those public domain Golden Age properties. It’s basically the Punisher with a cape… how could I not draw that? The drawing itself is in ink and his gray/yellow suit is hand colored, the rest is digital. Although it looks like the simplest, most rudimentary set of choices, what you see here is me trying to figure this whole coloring thing out.
It was fun, but I don’t know if I’d like to do an entire comic like that. It would take forever. For now, I’ll try to stick to what I know.
Categories
You Look Different Now
The Comics Reporter recently asked its readers to throw in some suggestions for the Five For Friday feature. One of my original proposals was that we list four of our childhood favorites that stood the test of time and one that did not. Not all of us read comics as children, though, and how amusing could our youthful tastes really be? CR modified the request accordingly, and the results came in. Go, Read: You Look Different Now. I’d like to now take this opportunity to give you a run down of those choices that still do it for me:
1. Batman: Ten Nights of the Beast by Jim Starlin & Jim Aparo.
First off, how are you not going to pick up a comic with a cover like this?
Categories
Pool of Inspiration
Sometimes in the middle of a project I come up with a bunch of theories, questions, concerns, and self imposed rules about how to visually treat comics. The solutions are almost always right in front of me, as if I had this backlog of information that I’m subconsciously ignoring. All it takes to unlock this stuff is to actually read some comics. So I want to break down a few of the things I’ve been wrestling with by going through some of the comics I’ve had around, artist by artist, and briefly talk about what excites me about their work and how it relates to my own thought process.
The collected TWISTED SAVAGE DRAGON FUNNIES is coming this July! This oversized, full color, 144 page book will be THE thing to get this summer. Spread the word now, tell your friends immediately, and demand that your local comic shop orders this book! It’s solicited in this month’s “Previews”.
Diamond/Previews order code: MAY110481
This TSDF book not only collects all of the great alt back-up stories that ran for 12 issues of the Savage Dragon monthly title (check out the initial roster of creators), but it has ALL NEW material by a stunning line up of cartoonists. Let’s see, who do we have here…
TOM SCIOLI
BENJAMIN MARRA
My comic ZEGAS is being featured over at MTV GEEK! ZEGAS is the first in line of many other Act-i-vate comics to be showcased over there. Additionally, my art adorned the MTV GEEK site for these couple of weeks (art details shown above and below). Anyway, the comic looks really great and is easy to navigate (via Comixology). Forgive my naive geeking out over the fullscreen option, but the pages look nicer than I anticipated so I’m pretty taken with them.
MTV has split the ZEGAS story “Birthday” into three installments: One, Two, and Three.
Also of possible interest, read this accompanying interview I did which is full of laffs and yuk.
On top of all this, yet another ZEGAS story has been posted over at ARTHUR MAGAZINE! The story perfectly fits the “sidescreen” format and I really appreciate them having it aboard. I’ve been a longtime fan of the magazine, so this is a real treat for me!
Before I close out and lock up the 2010 Art File for good, I thought I’d post a few random odds and ends that never really found a specific home anywhere. Hopefully, they’ll now have a place to rest within your hearts.
I didn’t do to many X-mas cards this year, but I like this one the most.
“SEQUOYAH” is a work-in-progress. It’s written by Nick Bertozzi. We have tons of ideas for these characters. I can’t wait to draw more raccoons.
It’s Kyle Baker’s birthday today and in true celebratory fashion, I wrote about Kyle’s comic art over at the Beat! No, seriously! I go on about digital art versus real ink and all sorts of other good stuff in honor of one of my favorite cartoonists. But over here, I’ve posted a bunch of cool odd and ends from Kyle Baker’s past.
You’re gonna have to trust me on this.
Just click on this here link, JUMPSTART THAT COMICS CAREER!, and do yourself a favor by reading this new article Tucker Stone and I wrote. Don’t just sit there, man… get a cup of coffee and absorb every bit of advice that we have amassed for your convenience. At first, it may seem like a modern “How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way”. Don’t be fooled; we’re all past that stage. What we give you in is an insider’s path to the backdoor to comics. It’s a love letter to all things funnybook. Why did we write this list? Well…
Trust me, I said.
Recently, we all celebrated George O’Connor’s birthday by fooling him into thinking the topic of the day was “unicorns”, while actually drawing something more directly related to him. I opted for his favorite Olympian god Hermes!
Earlier in the week, Drawbridge came up with J.M. DeMatteis Day, in which we all depicted some of our favorite DeMatteis characters. I drew J’onn J’onzz, the Martian Manhunter in his natural state, inspired by the mini series of the same name that J.M. did with Mark Badger for DC Comics. Whatever results from their fantastic collaborations, it comes highly recommended (see Gargoyle and Greenberg the Vampire). I also threw in some Oreos (J’onzz’ favorite) as a tip o’ the hat to DeMatteis’ run on Justice League, and some Dostoevsky (one of J.M.’s favorite). Huzzah!
Also, we all drew characters from the comic, LOVIATHAN, in celebration of its creator Mike Cavallaro’s birthday. I drew Queen Aine, who has a head piece that rivals Jack Kirby’s Maximus the Mad.
On an unrelated note, a couple of weeks ago, The Comics Reporter had their weekly “Five for Friday” ask their readers to “Name Five Members Of A Rogues Gallery NOT Batman’s, Dick Tracy’s Or Spider-Man’s And Don’t Identify The Hero.” I submitted my Top 5 villains as:
1) Ammo
2) Bullet
3) Bushwacker
4) Wildboys
5) Typhoid Mary
In closing, I’d like to show you my drawing of those villains, a sort of warm up sketch I did before that list was asked for. It was meant to be!
But enough warming up. It’s time to go to work.