This is a pic of Power Girl from DC comics. I was never very clear about her origin, whether she was Supes’ cousin, what the hell happened to her history after Crisis… and after reading this account [ http://powergirl.metrocity.com/history.htm ] I am apparently not alone. Very convoluted. But anyway, she’s essentially a big, buxom, flirty, confident cipher for Superman… but with anger-management issues. I have always had trouble with the design of this character: the oversized breasts, the simple costume design that borders on ‘undesign’, and the way she is often portrayed as the fantasy dominating blonde bombshell that some people seem to crave. I did a drawing of the character a few years ago, and a redesign attempt, both of which failed miserably, I think because I just didn’t get the character, and was trying to change her into a personality I preferred.

When this character was selected for the This Week jam, I realized that it was time to just treat her as she was designed, a playful, powerful, sexually overt, super WOMAN. And so I did. Big breasts and all.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This was the latest pair of commission pieces for Tom Andress, an avid Poison Ivy fan, for his dedicated original art collection. Though we are just a tad early, the pair of pics here celebrate 40 years of Poison Ivy. The first represents her first appearance in Batman #181, with garish 60′s colors in full effect. The second is a contemporary take on the same encounter. I hope Batman and Poison Ivy fans enjoy these illustrations as much as I did doing them!

Seethesein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This was a special commission for R3 member Pinapoe, who has literally spent years on a fanfic novel, Waking Ami, involving characters from the popular Sailor Moon anime series. Pinapoe’s request for this piece was very specific, and offered new challenges for me in translating the look of anime or manga characters into my own illustration style. Garoben, the larger demon-like figure holding Ami in the pic, is a new kind of androgyny for me personally, apparently starting in the form of a female schoolteacher and then transforming into the not-quite-female beastie you see here. The relationship between Garoben and Ami I understand to be a complex one in Pinapoe’s novel, so the intent here was to capture longing and sadness on Ami’s part, defensive confidence and protectiveness on Garoben’s part, and without an overt sexual subtext. We went back and forth on some of the details to get it right, and in the end, I think it worked out well. My favorite part of the whole process was probably coloring Garoben. The maroon skin tone took awhile to find, but I’m happy with the color.

To read Pinapoe’s Waking Ami novel, follow this link:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1426855/1/

You can see the full version herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This is a TRDL original character, a villain called Blood Sensei. He is a member of a Pacific Rim team of enforcers freelancing for various underworld factions that have carved the region into an uneasy alliance of territories. The short story on his posthuman capabilities is that he has the ability to cause massive hemorrhaging with his physical strikes, a fancy way of saying he wails on targets who suffer surprisingly fluid bleeding wounds, which shocks the hell out of them, allowing him to more efficiently land strategic blows to vital areas. Otherwise, he’s just an accomplished martial artist, and also proficient in torture techniques. For manga fans, it should be obvious this character was inspired, many many MANY moons ago, by the Fist of the North Star manga… and though I have provided Marvel RPG stats for him below, his power exceeds my capacity to rationalize fantastic abilities into some sort of scientific explanation. I didn’t even try. He kicks you and your blood vessels burst at the surface with high pressure. Ha.

:::

Concept and Art: Thom Chiaramonte
Abilities and Origin: Thom Chiaramonte

:::

Blood Sensei

Name: unknown
Affiliation: [Wind] 風

Attributes:

Melee: 40
Reflex: 30
Muscle: 20
Vigor: 50
Acumen: 30
Observation: 30
Will: 20

Life: 140
Influence: 80

Abilities:

Cardiovascular Disruption/ Martial Arts Proficiency: Blood Sensei has the unsettling ability to cause massive internal and external bleeding upon violent physical contact in melee combat. Each of his attacks do damage based on the type of strike: arm, hand and fist attacks do 10 points of damage, while kicking attacks do 20 points of damage. Beyond the damage inflicted by the physical strikes themselves, Blood Sensei can control the relative depth of his control over the target’s circulatory system, choosing between internal and surface strikes. Internal strikes … Read on for more awesome…

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This was done for the This Week jam, the subject this week being Dick Grayson, formerly Robin and currently Nightwing. One of the joys, which offsets the deadline pressure, of this jam is the fact that it often involves characters I’ve never drawn but have had in the queue, hoping for time and inspiration to do so in the future. While Nightwing himself was never really on my list, one of his rogue’s gallery nemeses HAS been: the Cirque du Soleil turned bad girls, Double Dare. I read about them in an interview with a Nightwing writer a few years ago, and thought they were a neat take on Grayson’s own origin story, and frankly, it’s a pair of hot acrobatic thieves in yellow. So it seemed only natural to pair them up against Nightwing in this pic, and it was fun putting it together. My only issues with the way this turned out are that by showing the first girl grabbing Grayson at the neck and jawline while punching him in the face, I drew his face strained, scrunched up in a grimace, as he’s being pounded. While it looked right to me when drawing it, I look on it now and think it distorts one of the key aesthetics about Nightwing, that he’s a very handsome young man. He always had that vibe of how Batman might have been without all the pathos, and enjoying the hero thing a little more. SO the expression, while technically understandable, makes him less hunky. Also, I chose to show one of his batons in motion, having been whipped away by the second girl, prior to being kicked over. However, since the whole image is in motion, I should have made the other baton static, not blurred.

See this pic here in … Read on for more awesome…

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This is the second of two commissions done for Blackhawk…

Blackhawk’s got some pretty cool original characters under his belt, used in his own superhero-based RPG campaigns, who’ve surely been the envy of his players. This is one of them, Blackhawk, a “Where does he got those wonderful toys?!” type.

“BlackHawk works for the Brotherhood of the Hawk, a secret society that can be traced all the way back to the 17th century. Their purpose? To combat the Black Triangle, another secret society, this one with roots that go as far back as the Roman Empire. The Triangle worships an ancient evil that will one day destroy the world. The Brotherhood of the Hawk is out to stop them.

BlackHawk has no super-powers, relying solely on gadgets and his fists. His helmet contains both communications equipment and multi-purpose optic lenses. The “bracers” on his wrists function similarly to Batman’s utility belt, containing various gadgets and gizmos. They also contain, much like the bracelets worn by the Black Widow, a blaster in one and a grapple launcher in the other. His utility belt with pouches for larger equipment, also functions as a jet belt like the one worn by Wonder Man in the old-school Avengers days. The cuffs on his boots are also like Batman’s utility belt, a place to keep bits and pieces of small equipment. The beauty being, if captured, people expect equipment in a utility belt and they see the blaster cuffs working, so they may get confiscated, but no one expects gadget storage in boot cuffs.”

So, I had a blast with this one. Not many of my own TRDL designs use an iconic chest symbol, so it was entertaining trying to capture the right level of ‘iconography’ with the symbol, which Blackhawk had already designed. I … Read on for more awesome…

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This is the first of two commissions done for Blackhawk, a member of the R3 forum and several of the art groups of which many of us are members.

Blackhawk’s got some pretty cool original characters under his belt, used in his own superhero-based RPG campaigns, who’ve surely been the envy of his players. This is one of them, The Patriot, who’s of the bad-ass nationally-branded fighter style. His description:

“The Patriot is an homage to Captain America…with a slight tweak. A highly tuned fighting machine, the Patriot is often underestimated by his opponents who believe him to be nothing more than a normal guy running around, carrying a fancy “trashcan lid”. However, the Patriot’s secret weapon is his ability to (in game terms) summon up all of the potential damage from all of his available attacks into one monstrous single punch. It’s called a “Super Power-Punch” in the Heroes Unlimited game system, and it does a devastating amount of damage. The Patriot works for an outfit called “the Directive” which is a quasi-governmental/quasi-law-enforcement organization with roots that go back to the 1950s. The Patriot is the latest in a long line of super-agents.”

I actually really dig ciphers of classic characters, conceived as homage but taken in different directions. In the underrated B. Clay Moore book Battle Hymn, [ http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/ ... gi?id=3962 ] about an Invaders-style superteam put together by the government to kill Nazis and look good in the papers, the original Cap cipher, the Proud American, is soon laterally promoted and replaced by a meaner, more aggressive doppelganger, echoing the U.S.Agent situation in Marvel’s books. I like the design of this character, both versions actually, even more than I do the Ultimates Captain America, because it captures the feel of the Marvel character, but with a more … Read on for more awesome…

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This question was posed by Hopp E, a frequent poster in a few of the art groups I frequent online. It involved how much photo and costume reference I use in my illustration, and how much my general comic-reading fanboy memory serves the work I do. This is what I responded, but I thought I’d post it here and see if some of the other artists on the forum will weigh in with their own processes:

:::

In truth, my general working habit has always been to draw from memory and without reference. It’s only been the last few years that I’ve wisened up and started to keep ref files for pose and anatomy. Truthfully, I rarely draw FROM a visual reference, for form or pose or whatever, but I do now look for things I want to learn, throw them in a file, and then pull them out and draw from them a few times to try and train my hand. I have a sketchbook full of what you’d see in an Anatomy for Artists ook: pages of backs, legs, heads, etc. so that when I DO sit down to sketch something out, I have at least some muscle memory of how some lines might look, and the proportions of things. The more I have proportion charts on hand, the better my work would be, because if there’s a clear weakness in my eyes to many of my pics, it’s proportion errors in certain angles. It’s easy to forget the x # of heads rule, etc. when you’re forshortening and drawing weird poses. So I’ve started this year carrying some proportion guidelines in the front of my sketchbook I use when out and about. But as for sitting down and drawing, not too often am I looking at something.… Read on for more awesome…

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This pic here was done for the This Week jam, the subject being member Flicker/Taskmaster’s namesake, Marvel’s Avengers-foil, Taskmaster. I chose to give him a little bit of berserker combat to deal with in this illustration, which made it twice as fun to do, because I hadn’t drawn either character before. I hope you enjoy it.

As always, see the full pic herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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