This was a fun one. The client asked to see a classic side-to-side, back-against-the-wall 70’s Marvel pin-up with exploitation/B-movie film mainstays Power Man and Iron Fist… but gender bent as females. That’s always fun to do, so the gender-bending was easy. The colors were challenging because of yellow being used in both costumes, so I tried to differentiate IF’s from PW’s in color and tone. I also tweaked various other colors to be more complimentary, and used a dark blue/black for PW’s pants, because I just can’t do that ‘it’s black, but it’s blue in 4-color printing!’ style of inverted coloring from back in the day. I wrapped IF’s breastline with the ubiquitous dragon tattoo in a way I thought looked logical. The biggest challenge in this piece was with Power Woman. I didn’t want to bulk her up like She-Hulk or Power Girl or similar. I wanted her to look feminine. An early draft of this sketch showed an equally muscular female version of Power Man, and I have to say, she looked freaky. But with an athletic, but less muscular, physique as shown, her arm flex doesn’t have the same impact it could have.

But hey, breasts!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series No. 71 – Iron Fist (Joao)
2. TRDL Tribute: Power Girl 2009
3. TRDL Tribute: Power Girl 52

This was another commission for my client stationed in the Middle East, for his science fiction novel. The first was The Admiral, which I shared back in October, and can be seen here.

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OK anyway, this is the Org Battle Carapace, the exo-suit worn by the series antagonist species, the Xartherians. They look reptilian, aggressive and hostile, etc. The original concept for their exo-suit, as drawn up years back by the client’s friend, was more of a chromed, gun-laden battle armor, like John Byrne might have done in the 80’s, or like every Image title offered in the 90’s. My task was to diversify and redesign the suit to give it not only a more sci-fi than comic book vibe, but to carry on the same design language used in the design of his first character commission. We went back and forth on a number of designs for this suit. I pushed for a very exotic, alien design initially, and he wanted it brought back to a more mecha appearance, and we settled here. The last round was working out how he wanted the legs, and this was the scheme selected. It’s probably pretty obvious from looking at this that Masamune Shirow was a huge influence on me when I was younger, as far as some of the design logic goes… and cosmetically, I realized while coloring that I owe a fair amount of unrealized design inspiration from the Zentraedi exosuits (female) from Macross. But anyway. I was quite pleased how this one came out, and felt it delivered the points the client wanted (big armor, big scale, lots of weapons) with a design that looks identifiably Third Rail Design Lab derived.

Hope you like it!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.… Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2012 Series No. 07 – Xartherian Warmonger
2. TRDL Tribute: Iron Man Battle Royale
3. TRDL Tribute: Dazzler

This was one hell of a fun day, boys with toys and all that. First, I got a new digital cable box with HDTV broadcast capable, and built-in DVR. I rigged it up with my (for the moment) digital projector, and slammed soem HD content against the loft wall. Blew my head off. HDTV really is incredible. Playstation 2 and regular cable (and the current TiVo box) are less enthralling at their native resolutions. Sadly, the lightastic skylight is doing more to saturate the loft with ambient light during the day than I thought, far more so than the 20-something feet of glazing at one end of the space. So, unless I rig some complicated shade element for the skylight… which is centered in the space and impossible to get to, let alone operate, without scaffolding… I’m screwed on the projector. Because mid-day, when wifebot might like to lounge and view low-content content… it’s BRIGHT. Which leaves me with plasma, and I have a contingency plan in place on that front.

Next is the new Mac Mini. I started using Macs since the Apple II days. Well, I guess I used Apples. Anyway, it was 95 or so when I switched to PC for CAD software requirements (actually, 3DStudio Max needs, specifically) and this is my first Mac under my own roof since then. 10 years! This Mini sure is spiffy. Got everything installed, configured, running smoothly, for now. Sure is a beautiful piece of technology.

Ah, technology!

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This was done for the This Week Jam. The character is Morrigan from Darkstalkers. Forgive me, anime-fans, if I got that wrong. Anyway, man, what beautiful colors to work with! Almost makes up for having to draw wings out of her… coccyx.

Enjoy!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 No. 3 – Gargoyles
2. TRDL Tribute: Cherie
3. TRDL Tribute: Toni

For those of you not familiar with it already, Chad Halcom has a Yahoo Group called Commission Art Central, designed to be a one-stop shop for folks to come and view samples and rates for artists willing to do private commissions. I agreed to do a cover image for the group’s Yahoo page, based on a poll discussing the most anticipated comic-to-film adaptations on the horizon. The poll yielded a tie between Superman Returns and Spider-Man 3. Since we’ve had a run of Superman-themed projects on my TRDL R3 Forum, I decided to take a swing, so to speak, at Spidey. Now, I’ll warn you, this image involves just one of the many theories floating around about Spidey3 plot points. We know Sandman is involved… but whether Spidey’s black costume appears, and whether or not it’s sentient or not, time will tell.

Hope you like the piece!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum
here!… Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Power Girl 52
2. TRDL Tribute: Golden Age Sandman
3. TRDL Tribute: Superman [Sightblinder Concept]