This was done for the This Week Jam…

X-23 was created for the X-Men Evolution cartoon, as a way to have more Wolverine with less creepy-older-guy-hanging-out-with-teen-girls action. She raised eyebrows and was soon incorporated into Marvel’s street mutant series NYX, and was the subject of a mildly scandalous cover image (and that was the triple-censored version!) before being moved into Uncanny X-Men, her own mini-series, and now New X-Men (Academy? Whatever the post-New Mutants book is called.)

Seems many readers, particularly of Marvel’s X-staple, felt played out at the fact that they were handed a character seemingly custom-built for fanboy obsession, combining the cool factor of Wolverine, the hip martial arts action of an Asian fem assassin, and the fetish of a schoolgirl. I, on the other hand, was a target market.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This was done for the Domino jam that just wrapped up on ECC (Erotic Comic Cartoons on Elistas.)

To me, Domino has always been one of the X-Men-related characters born from tragedy, and by that, I mean the darkest period in the history of X-Men publication, the early 90’s… specifically X-Force #8, Rob Liefield’s torpedo of misery that seemed custom-designed to sink my euphoria at entering college as a freshman. But hey, she grew on me over time, largely based on the potential of the character and brief glimpses of a mature relationship with Cable we saw in the late 90’s before she was shelved. Like many Marvel females, recent years have seen an attempt to make her more relevant to a post-millennium audience by giving her more of an espionage/ bounty hunter/ assassin vibe, and most recently she was the star of one of Brian Stelfreeze’s infrequent regular sequential art books, the four issue Domino mini-series a few years ago. She’s never looked so good. Anyhow, the tight neoprene spy gear thing is always right up my alley, so I had to take a stab at this one. As you can see from the pic, even exposed, Domino is rarely defenseless.

And, if you’re feeling just a little bit naughty, there’s a fleshier version in my Deviant Illustration Vault. You have to be a member, and request access to the mature viewers usergroup, in order to see this and the rest of my erotic art archive, such as it is, and the adult-themed version of the R3 Member Art Gallery. But that’s all cake, because it’s freeeeee….

ciao, robots!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Heya camerados

So, this was a commission for Dead Dog, who had requested his favorite redhead, Mary Jane Watson, caught in a most unusual circumstance: dressing up as Spider-Man’s, er, menacing foe, White Rabbit. This villain is from the 80’s Spider-Man heyday when light-hearted riffs on Parker’s creature-themed character concept were plentiful. Anyway, this was good fun to do, though plaid coats are NOT fun once, let alone twice.

Enjoy!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This piece was a commission for a serviceman in the US military, currently stationed overseas in the Middle East. He’s been writing a novel about a world he created, sort of your old school space opera, and one of the main characters is an old, battle-hardened ex-military leader named The Admiral, who, as a result of years of struggle and combat, exists now as a human/alien symbiote. The majority of his body has been replaced with military-grade cyberwear, now in disrepair, and what remains of his torso has been fused with his wormlike host. What was most interesting about this design process was working out the right look for this guy: the client’s vision for the character was rooted in the imagery of a mainstream Marvel hero, Cable, and while we went back and forth through the schematic design process, we both found that The Admiral wanted to be less powerful in appearance, less pristine in his masculinity. He became older, more grotesque, with intelligence and experience in his eyes, a man trapped in his own flesh, or what’s left of it, while his cybernetic exo-skeleton has become his lifeline. We wanted someone who looked like a new type of badass: the tough old man who’s done what he had to do to survive, his humanity compromised in the process. Over the course of this process, I really grew to appreciate not only the character concept, but the client’s willingness to consider new ideas, revisit his initial assumptions, and challenge me on revisions to the design in search of the right scheme. It was a challenging, but rewarding, commission.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This was done for the This Week Jam. Subject: Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

Never drew her before, never knew much about her other than that:

a) she’s a popular game character for women because she solves puzzles to move forward in the adventure, and is a positive female role model…virtually…I guess.

b) She’s a popular game character for men because your POV is directly behind her as she crawls and canoodles and twists through her various adventures.

c) She has become synonymous with Angelina Jolie, the only actress on the planet with her physical proportions

So, I took a pass at drawing this character, with a few modifications: I added specs, because I like em. And I added Adidas athletic shorts because I don’t draw jean shorts. Ever.

Enjoy!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Fugue is one leaky, creepy, ghostly freakshow of a villain, who’s probably the most Lovecraftian of the TRDL Universe characters to date.

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

:::

Fugue

Name: unknown
Affiliation: n/a

Attributes:

Melee: 05
Reflex: 20
Muscle: 10
Vigor: 20
Acumen: 30
Observation: 30
Will: 20

Life: 55
Influence: 80

Abilities:

Spirit Form: Fugue no longer physically occupies a human host, though his spiritual essence, as well as his consciousness, remain in existence, a nearly invisible bluish haze of particles that cannot be seen when directly gazed upon, but sensed in the peripheral. His gaseous form is more or less contained within the lead-based radiation suit that he was wearing at the time of the accident. Fugue is technically near-immortal. When his Life is reduced to zero, the armor collapses and his particles disperse into the atmosphere.

Illusion Casting: Fugue’s abilities lie in the inability of human and animal brains to adequately rationalize his presence on a psychic level. Viewing him in his particle state triggers a Yellow Psyche Feat in anyone who sees him, with failure resulting in mental distress. Victims suffer hysteria and madness, and witness horrific hallucinations, images that the man that was to become Fugue experienced in the last seconds of his life before the radiation breach overcame him and his co-workers. The madness lasts 1-10 months, and can be halved in duration with intense psychological reconditioning.

Spirit Vampirism: one of the reasons so many citizens were reported dead after crossing Fugue’s path was that in close proximity, he absorbed their life essence. This effect was gradual and involuntary for either party. In game terms, physical contact with Fugue requires the victim to make a Yellow Vigor Action or begin losing Life, 10 points per turn, until removed at … Read on for more awesome…

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OK

Friends and thos emembers who’ve taken note of my references to this project have asked me about the status here and there, and recently a friend from the other side of the country was hassling me a bit about the imbalance between my commission backlog and my page work, so it seemed like a good time to post an update.

Finit-e is a web-based comic serial. It will be published through TRDL in chapters, and eventually captured in print when done. The first volume is currently planned at 120 pages. It is, however, written to be ongoing, and the structure of the first volume is definitely serial, not bookend. So, quite possibly it will be more interesting online. We’ll see, and that’s a faraway issue anyway.

My time constraints are tough, though. I work full-time as an architect, have a social factor to my evenings, and as mentioned, have a surprisingly healthy commission queue. And I prioritize client work over my own, whether it’s jams or personal drawings or the comic. So, I tend to work on Finit-e in spurts as i can carve out time to do so. Unlike commission pieces, i need several hours at a time to work on the comic, to get in the zone for it. This means that I’m frequently working on commissions all week in the evenings, and then bang out a half day or day on Finit=e on the weekend.

I hope that schedule improves in the near future.

Current state of the project: Chapter 1 is inked and scanned, waiting for color. Chapter 2 is half-way done, though I’m reworking part of it. I decided that there was enough interior panel work that warranted a more formal approach to the design of some of these spaces, since I like backgrounds … Read on for more awesome…

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This was done for the This Week Jam… the character is Thundra, an old tusslin’ partner of Ben Grimm. Actually, after reading her origin again after all these years, I don’t know WHAT to say about this character, other than that, like Luke Cage and US-1, she’s a product of her era. I will also say that while I LOVED doing this pic… I’d chew my left arm off rather than be a colorist on a Fantastic Four book…

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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When I returned from my Honeymoon, one of the pieces I posted, for the Asian Comic Character jam, was a girl/girl thing between Flash and Green Lantern, both in the Tangent Comics versions of the characters. I mentioned that I had enjoyed the character design of the Tangent Powergirl, and hoped to draw it one day. A client, for whom I’m working on a separate piece, ponied up with some cashmoney and challenged me to bang one out as a quick 20 minute sketch, when i had some free time. While inking his piece, I stayed up that night and drew this pic for him. The original design for Tangent Powergirl is a very lanky, flat-chested, wiry looking Japenese Idoru chick, sort of Tank Girl meets Yoko Ono. Not very attractive, but an interesting counterpoint to the mainstream Powergirl’s bodaciousness. Knowing that the client liked a little more uncollated, I compromised half-way, and gave her a bigger chest and more physique than the original design. I also tried to get that cutesy creepy teen geisha look going in the face. She kind of freaks me out. But it was a fun drawing to do, especially to color, and I always wanted to draw the character anyway. If you haven’t seen her before, she’ll probably be a jarring break from everything that’s so well loved about the mainstream version of Powergirl, but I thought some of you might find the pic interesting.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Murder Maiden is the last member of one of my villainous teams of bad nasties, called the Cabal.

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

:::

Murder Maiden

Name: Mika Willower
Affiliation: Cabal

Attributes:

Melee: 20
Reflex: 40
Muscle: 10
Vigor: 20
Acumen: 10
Observation: 30
Will: 20

Life: 90
Influence: 60

Abilities:

Hyper-Accuracy: Willower has always been a natural shot, able to strike a target at impossible range with a variety of means, both ranged and melee. Her ability translates to a selective ordering of Action Dice when making ranged or melee strike Attacks (i. e., Player rolls dice and consults appropriate attack table, and selects the order in which the dice are combined, yielding highest or lowest possible score as desired for that attack).

Weapon Proficiency- Sharpshooter: Willower is an expert shot with ranged weapons, allowing her a +1CS with any ranged weapon used. She has trained extensively with her custom-made throwing blades, and enjoys +3CS to use them, and can take two actions in one turn with no penalty. She can throw blades at single targets for no penalty, or multiple, simultaneous targets with -1CS per subsequent target after the first one. If she studies her foe in combat for at least 3 turns without action, she gains a +1CS to initiative for each turn of study, representing her ability to judge her opponent’s reflexes.

Gymnastics: as a trained gymnast, willower can perform athletic stunts with +1CS to Reflex, and +2CS to resist stun on impacts from falling, being thrown, or slam attacks.

Origin:

Mika Willower was an Olympic-level gymnast who was recruited into the CIA shortly before competing for the South African national team, on the promise of comfortable pay and asylum in exchange for information on a growing anti-American political movement in … Read on for more awesome…

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