This week’s randomly-pulled selection for our jam is ‘Evil Versions of Heroes’. I interpret this to mean either:
a) characters, like Bizarro above, that are negative images of their superhero ciphers
2) your own design of an evil variant of a hero
d) heroes that BECAME villains, ie. Parallax from Green Lantern.

Have fun!

All TRDL R3 Forum jams remain open indefinitely, so feel free to visit and contribute to any of our several hundred previous jams!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Arisia [Green lantern Corps]
2. TRDL Tribute – Brotherhood of Evil Mutants
3. TRDL Tribute: Resident Evil

This illustration was done for the R3 Jam on TRDL’s R3 Forum. Artists can participate in any open jams by heading here. The subject this time: Cheshire, from DC Comics.

I like the character of Cheshire, though not so much the costume, with all the green on green semi-swashbuckler details and very 80′s headband and one-sleeve action. But She reminds me, in tone, of where Viper could have gone but didn’t: fast-acting poisons, extreme martial arts skills, and most interesting, the babymomma thing. I tried to give her a mixed-ethnicity vibe in her face and skin tone, reflecting the vietnamese-french background. I like how it turned out.

This is also the first piece with the new trade dress for Third Rail Design Lab. More to come!

Please enjoy.

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

OK, so here’s the piece that inspired my work, a great Teen Titans cover that captures both Cheshire’s ethnic blend AND funky retro styling. What a great face and Farrah haircut…

Here’s the original pencils. I was drawing at a strange angle and trying to be very quiet, and as is often the case, had proportion issues largely based on the angle of my view. But not to worry…

I often identify the errors as I go, to remind myself, as I often zoom in while working digitally later and lose some of that perspective. Here, I noted the feet were too small for the legs. Now the legs were too long for the torso by a bit, but I knew I’d scale that later. But I wanted to fix the boots right away.

Biggest issue was a problem with this arm. I was looking at a cute pin-up pose in my ref files I’m finally starting to use, but there was a strangeness in how that image was captured that seemed to artificially foreshorten the arm, and I exaggerated the problem further in mine, requiring what i knew would be some serious surgery to repair.

I took a stab at it in the physical work, but it was more of a guideline for the digital correction. I could see that the curve of the forearm was distracting as well.

This was how it stood in inks. Much work left to do.

Told you I was working in difficult conditions.

Starting to make digital edits on the arm here. You’ll see I ghost parts of the drawing, do digital inks on new layers, then bring them back together and do clean up edits to merge it all again.

New arm meant new bust as well.

Getting close, starting to merge…

The figure is mostly complete at this point, so it’s time to work on the scabbard.

I do much of this kind of thing digitally, and then bring in hand-drawn detail and stitch it up… takes a long time to get a fairly simple result.

OK, inks done, ready to get to colors…

Here’s skin, done first, as usual for this sort of illustration. I changed skin tones a bit as I went, to give it a more fusion flavor.

Face and hair, done. Some of my less common eye shadow here.

I LOVE rendering chunky gold detail…

This is a detail some might not like. She’s a seasoned fighter. That means, in my book, she’s been sliced up. I’m not a fan of the superhuman melee combatant that never gets touched. In my book, they just don’t suffer kill strikes, and live to fight another day.

Done, ready for the final composition. As you may have noticed, this is the first pinup using my new refined trade dress. I’m scaling back the familiar TRDL header imagery, making it into more of a eastern chop, and using a crisper, more streamlined presentation. This will be seen in other work and the site itself in updates to come, but for now, just here in the TRDL pin-ups series.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Dagger
2. TRDL Tribute: Classic Rogue
3. TRDL Tribute – Thor 2010

The character for this weeks jam is Cheshire from DC Comics. Let’s see what you can do!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire_(comics)

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. R3 Jam: Cable
2. Third Rail Thrills 36 – Cheshire Pin-Up
3. R3 Jam: Ghost Rider

You may have seen a few of these that I’ve posted in the past, but I’ve been slowly developing a series of illustrations, portraits of close friends and family, done in a cryptohistoical style. These are long-format printed works, done in poster style.

This one was done for Twowingsmambo (pat) and his mega-awesome wife Deina, for their wedding in late summer 2009. The approximate time period should be apparent from the costuming and text, but there are some other details:

- Deina’s dress is blue, because I find her refreshing. Well, it WAS, before the sepiatone.
- That’s a very old, but very real, bike. I have to dig up the references. But I chose it because the riding position is tall and upright, and it suits Pat, who is tall and upright.
- They live in Vermont
- They have a chicken coop.
- They are Landscape Architects

Please enjoy. Hell yes!

Here’s a larger version of the poster itself, so you can see the detail…

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You can find a larger version in TRDL Trade Dress here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

I don’t have a lot of material for this section, as I wasn’t capturing stage process pics at the time I was developing this illustration, but here we have:

Original Pencils

Blueline push of the same pencils, for which to ink…

…Thusly….

This might be of interest, though. Here’s the original colors on this piece. i tend to work in full color, even If I’m going to push monochrome later (and then punch certain values as needed) … I like the chicken tails.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Black Mary 2009
2. TRDL Special Project: Team Lope AIDS Fundraiser 2010
3. TRDL Commercial Project – The CraveDemon

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being Starfire, from DC’s Teen Titans.

Here’s Joao’s recently completed and 100% minimum awesome Starfire. SMOKIN, and I don’t just mean that hair.

Please enjoy, hell yes!

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Starfire
2. TRDL Tribute – Thor [Joao]
3. TRDL Tribute – Steampunk X-Men [Joao]

This illustration was done for the R3 Jam on TRDL’s R3 Forum. Artists can participate in any open jams by heading here. This time, it was the Outsiders, from DC..

I’m not going to lie: the original Outsiders gave me hives. But I’m a Marvel guy. I just could never get my head around Batman, even the goofy yellow and powder blue and pale grey high-eared Batman of the day, would leave the Justice League and mentor a bunch of punks. That said, there was more than enough ridiculous crap that like going on at Marvel (I mean, Defenders? WHAT?) but anyway, just wasn’t my thing. BUT I do remember this: I was all wound up about a new character I had created called Katana: she was this Japanese bad ass martial artist hottie with, you got it, a katana (actually two) and man she was ra—- and boom, my friend pointed out the Outsiders and there we were. So, I always sort of resented that character. "Huph! DC named that stereotyped Asian character after her own weapon! MEH!’ Even though I had done the same, in all my 5th grade brilliance. Anyway, of course I had to return to Katana for this jam. The DC version, mind you. I chose a more recent iteration of her look. I was really delighted by how incongruous her dark gray gloves are in that costume, so i think that’s what drew me in. Sometimes it’s the most random thing, I guess.

There’s a film nod in this one, too…

Please enjoy.

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

Here’s the version of Katana that inspired me:

Onto my progress pics…

I started with two versions of the right foot. No sword. Rag to the side.

I was still unsure about that foot, but I was leaning against the cocked-in one. It’s a very Japanese pose but not very pin-up classic. The alternate straight foot needed redrawing, so was digitally redone anyway.

Very little skin showing on this iteration of Katana. I was kind of impressed.

I really responded to the colors on this one.

Here’s her wipe-down rag, off to the side. This would be digitally inserted after the sword was drawn.

Ready for ad comp. I noted in the model sheet that she’s not actually holding a katana. Kind of funny. Anyway, the digital sword and working in the rag, then showing the blood, the clean portion of the blade, and the stained rag, that was all a lot of fun to throw together. I also threw in a film nod. Come ON you know it!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. R3 Jam: the Outsiders
2. TRDL Tribute: Poison ivy
3. TRDL Tribute: Nariko

This illustration was done for the R3 Jam on TRDL’s R3 Forum. Artists can participate in any open jams by heading here. This time, it was Amy Wong, from Futurama.

When I first started participating in online illustration jams, one of the groups in which I became involved did a lot of cartoon and anime characters in their jams. I discovered almost immediately my only interest was in drawing these properties in my own style, not mimicking the style of the animation or what have you. Flash forward to today, it’s the same here with Amy Wong, one of the secondary characters on Futurama. I treated the character as a model sheet for my own costuming, and went that route, Asian girl, pink bare midriff sweatsuit, etc. However, I did give her very stylized locks of hair to nod back to the cartoon, and I kept the big clunky boots off to soften it as a pinup girl. The aircraft fuselage graphics are supposed to be saying ‘robot killers’ but one never really knows with Google Translate. Ha.

Please enjoy.

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

Here’s the original cartoon version of Amy:

Onto my progress pics…

The original pencils

And the original inks. Not much change!

I was deliberate about keeping the hair looking stylized, like sheets of rubber.

Face and hair done, onto flats and shade. This is a simple color piece so the color of the sweatsuit will be brought into the fuselage lettering as well.

After highlights, I liked the tone of the pink. I was anticipating lots of tint/hue adjustment but it worked well, especially with the color of the head in her hands. Poor Bender.

The completed illustration, ready for nose girl application. This time I used a fuselage shot of significant perspective so I followed suit with Amy and the lettering. It took some work, getting the lettering below her to work because it’s coming down at an angle in the image, then has to be skewed into place on the perspective.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mad_house_ … otostream/

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. R3 Jam: Amy Wong [Futurama]
2. TRDL Tribute: Lashina
3. TRDL Tribute: Ada Wong

This TRDL pin-up was done for R3 Army Lt. Akua, holding out in our R3 EEEEEEAST Coast operation, in Japan. Akua posted this awesome pic to her Deviant Art page awhile back that really struck me so I decided to d a homage to that pic, and send it to her as a surprise. I kept pretty close to the model in her pic, giving it the propaganda art treatment for final composition.

As you can see, it made it safe and sound!

Please enjoy.

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

So here’s the original piece Akua did that inspired this homage:
http://akua.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d2pijf9

My Progress pics begin with inks.

On this one I threw down the color in blobs in all the relevant areas, because I was zoomed out and looking for the color balance between her hair, skin and that red blouse, since the stark whiteness of the coat would make the choices of the other colors stand out with more contrast.

Even though the nurse is wearing old-timey garters, I did the full shiny skin treatment anyway, despite the fact a lot of that detail gets hidden by the nylons. She eats her vitamins.

Here’s flats. I settled on these colors and went to work.

The hair is in browns and this, along with the skin tone selected and the features of the face, suggest this is a western nurse abroad in Japan, just like our Akua. Who is not a licensed nurse, so don’t let her perform ‘exams’ on you.

The original shoe color was a blackish brown. I knew that if the nylons went to the nudes/browns, this would have to change, though if they were black, the shoes would work. Since the piece is a classic pin-up, I had a feeling it would be the former. Black nylons and light skirts are the purview of today’s glamazons mimicking 80s bad choices anyway.

Sure enough, I settled on the nudes.

So the shoes required recoloring.

A nice chocolate brown worked out just fine.

Here’s the finished illustration, ready for propaganda art assembly.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Zoe Jones
2. TRDL Tribute – Ultimate Hawkeye
3. TRDL Tribute: Modesty Blaise

This week’s randomly-selected jam subject is The Outsiders, formerly of Batman & the Outsiders. Flex your classic DC muscles or do one of the newer iterations of the team. Have fun with this one!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsiders_%28comics%29

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute – Katana [Outsiders]
2. R3 Jam: Sage
3. R3 Jam: Ghost Rider

This TRDL pin-up is actually a modification of an erotic commission done for a client. Here’s the thing. I love Jean Grey. She’s Marvel’s original schoolgirl with super mega number one good powers, crazy red hair, and several deaths to her name. But my previous attempts to draw her were pretty weak. When I did this piece, commissioned as Jean with her signature Morrison/ Quitely era ribbed top on, and nothing else (what we call, around these parts, ‘yogi berra’n it) I discovered I drew a Jean Grey I actually really liked. Since TRDL is a family affair, more or less, I threw her tights on and made her a pin-up. So there you are!

Please enjoy.

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

Pencils! (Edited to be more general audience friendly, for science)

Inks. The client requested bigger longer hair, as you can see. I actually quite like the straight hair, but that’s going to have to wait for another day and another drawing.

Flats. The skin needed to be a warmer, peachier tone to play nice with the dark charcoal of the top.

Here’s skin and eyes, done. On to the hair…

I made a number of edits to the inks in the curls of the hair. My TRDL partner in crime, Joao, does these amazing hair curls, and I’m trying to mimic his skill here.

I did the ribbing of the turtleneck in gray tones instead of inks.

Fuselage pic credit: 7E55E-BRN!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute – Jean Grey [Paper Doll]
2. TRDL Tribute: Jean Grey
3. TRDL Tribute – Ultimate Hawkeye

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