This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Illustration Jam, the subject being NOIR, in honor of our fallen friend Vlad Fiks, a regular fixture on the R3 Forum and frequent TRDL collaborator. I wanted to do a piece that reminded me of him. He was always one of the biggest supporters of my old timey, stylized work under the TRDL banner. If I drew a vintagy pin-up or a scene from another period, he was first in line to comment. I miss him and can only hope that he would have enjoyed this illustration as well…

Process notes:

Original pencils:

Color progress:

This shows how much of the piece was digital. Vlad’s silhouette was hand drawn, not shown here. Also, you can see I changed her expression and gaze to meet him.

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You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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1. TRDL Tribute – Robin (a Noir Jam Piece)
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For those that follow the TRDL Twitter feed, we DID get hacked, and it’s been resolved. As a general rule, if you get a link from my Twitter account, it probably wasn’t me. It’s not how I use that network.
Sorry for the inconvenience!

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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being Mulan. Not just the Disney version, but any interpretation of the classic Chinese lore. I haven’t seen the cartoon, but I liked the design work I saw of it, so I picked a version of her costuming from movie stills, and went with that. Granted, I armed her in one of her casual non-combat costumes, but whatever. It’s hard to include a cartoony, zany sidekick creature when I work in my usual style, but I gave it a shot.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Process notes:

This was my original sketch rough. But Torsten put up something similar and very cool, so i went back to the drawing board…

Inks:

I was laying around quite a bit with the face. Lots of photoshop edits.

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I’ve been intending to start this series for over a year now, but to be honest, I’ve found the bike drawing component pretty daunting. Despite riding, taking apart, fixing, putting back together, admiring, lusting after or just thinking about bikes every day, I find them tough to draw. Tough to get the proportions right, as well as the perspective.

The idea behind this series was to draw fro real life, though frankly, it’s really drawing from a mental image. But it’s based on people I see on my rides. Granted, there’s some artistic license, both in making up for details unremembered or for design continuity. Anyway, this girl rode past me in Mill Valley. I was struck by how she seemed genuinely happy, grinning at me as she passed, wearing jeans, a flannel shirt, a puffy vest, flip flops, and a bowl helmet with a star on it. Most noticeably, it was the freckles and braided red hair. Cute!

Spotted on Miller at Camino Alto in Mill Valley!

Forgive the drawing errors in her fixed gear. At least I have a working drivetrain…

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Process notes:

Here you can how much I rely on Photoshop to build up the bike side of the equation!

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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being Disney + Marvel mash-uppery. This was, of course, big news in comicdom and on the supernet. Mickeys with Wolverine Claws were rampant. Would Marvel properties be family-friendlified and diluted in Disney marketing and merchandising blitzes? Would creators be burdened by executive mandates like DC has seen over several years, most famously at Wildstorm? But you know, we hate it when our favorite band becomes popular.

The disney/marvel mash-uppery is a great theme, and there are SO many opportunities there. I’ve seen several that rocked my socks, especially Pluto-lacticus. For me, I wanted to push in my cryptohistorical ephemera series direction, and do another historical interpretation of a character, but merge the Disney and marvel sides together in the process. This is Snow Stark, a forward-thinking engineer in a man’s world, working on her less oafish automatons who aren’t so limited in their appreciation of her awesomeness.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.
[img]http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com/promo/twhip_grey.gif[/img

Process notes:

here!… Read on for more awesome…

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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being Baroness, the evil.. well… whatever it is she does… in Cobra, from the G.I.Joe series of comics, cartoons, films and toy related products. I’d like to say that Baroness became my favorite character over time because she is interesting and dynamic and well-designed. In fact, i really DO respond to modern interpretations of her look as much or more so than I did back in the day when I would stare at the figure. But I have to say, the real kicker is that she’s sort of the amalgamation of so many awesome fetishes: librarian-tease, latex, dominatrix, international mystique, accents, guns, heels, black hair, etc etc. Anyway, suffice to say, I could draw a Baroness a day and never get tired of it. This was probably my favorite attempt at the character. But you know I like monochrome…

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Process notes:

I’m really stoked on this one.
I initially sketched her with an extended leg, but realized it was too close to my drawing of Cryptonomicon’s Amy Shaftoe. SO I tried a few variants: one extended, one in the position you see here, and one brought in but not crossed. Those studies are shown below…

As you can see, I was trying out leg poses in that old timey pinup style. The extended leg would require some proportion adjustment. The pratfalls of drawing at a severe angle with a baby on your face.

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1. TRDL Tribute: Power Girl 2009
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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being Power Girl from DC Comics, probably the best known female character from that publisher behind Wonder Woman, and ahead of Bat Girl or Bat Woman or Super Girl or whomever else. And knowing today’s readership, they’d prefer they be in that order, in an elaborate 3D bondage orgy. Anyway, Power Girl is known by some as being Kryptonian, others as being Atlantean, and everyone as being what I can only assume started out as a gag on the popularity of oversized breasts in superhero comics that became what it was mocking, before slowly being wrestled back into ironic territory again. If not ironic, at least knowing territory, thanks to Amanda Conner. So, I’ve drawn this character several times, though not often by personal choice as the costume design and colors, the breasts, and everything else just didn’t appeal. But I was always annoyed that I couldn’t draw an appealing interpretation of the character. Until now! I think this is the first time I’ve drawn Power Girl and liked the result!

Process notes:

Inks:

I was playing with the hand off to the side, and liked that one better. Also first sketch of what would become the Third Rail Industries logo going on these Propaganda Art pinup pieces…

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You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This was done for the R3 Illustration Jam, the character being the 90′s good/bad/wtf grrl heroine, Magdalena. I’m not going to mince words: I strongly disliked a lot of the stuff that came out of ALL of the publishers in this era… the art drove the writing, the designs were cluttered, fan-driven and poor, the rendering techniques overwrought, and the basic art education seemed to be lost. It was the first time since childhood that I was driven from my local comic shop, and stayed away for quite awhile. (probably a year, but that’s like 13 years in comic publishing)… Magdalena is one of many characters with solo books from the period that I couldn’t parse. I mean, looking at it only casually you can tell it’s a Warrior Nun rip-off. Plus, the design is just insane. I use design loosely. I got a headache just looking at the reference material. I did my best, though…

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being the DC villain Lady Shiva. Shiva has a long and sordid history in the Batman Mythos, and among other things trained Batman to be more of a bad ass than he already was, and introduced the awesome character of the mute Batgirl, before they messed with it. However, I found very few examples of Shiva’s design that I liked. DC stuns me sometimes, how important, supposedly insanely skilled or powerful characters may languish with a droll or half-assed costume because no one sat down and designed something fabulous and made that kind of effort. You couldn’t pick Shiva out from any number of asian warrior chicks (even non-asian warrior chicks) in a lot of these instances. I took the most compelling costume i found, and darkened and harmonized the design a bit into a dark blood clot red and sort of a bronzy gold. Another fun pin-up, however.

Process notes:

Here’s the costume I used for inspiration:

Pencil sketch:

Inks:

On these pinups I like to use Photoshop to help build the repetitious background details. Were I really cool, I’d use Illustrator. Not that cool.

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You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being Maria Hill, former head of SHIELD following Nick Fury going to ground. I’ve said it often enough, but I like regular humans in superhero stories that are compelling enough to follow in the timeline. I like when they stay normal, and don’t get powered up like this is the necessary inevitable result of them playing in a superhero sandbox. DC pushed Crispus into the Spectre role and Rene Montoya into the Question mask. Even Marvel recently even if temporarily, powered up Pepper Potts. So far, former SHIELD director Hill has just been a smart, skilled and flawed… human. I love the character and her ability to stand up to some pretty powerful personalities without being pigeonholed as a bitch or a control freak or an idealogue. And her whole Bourne Identity fugitive thing in recent Iron Man issues rocked.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Process notes:

Another photoshop heavy rendering for the background detail. I also eliminated the gunfire in the original sketch to make it more static.

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