It’s about half-way to the deadline, so if you haven’t started your Friends of TRDL gallery project piece, now’s a good time! Thanks to everyone who have sent me their stuff already! Here’s the details:

Welcome to Third Rail Design Lab’s first ever ‘Friends of TRDL’ gallery project!

The concept is simple: we’re ramping up for some new releases this year, including new editions of the TRDL worldbuilding sourcebooks, a site gallery facelift, and a sequential art release. In the meantime, we’ve had a number of friends produce original art pin-ups based on various characters in the TRDL Universe, and they’ve blown us away. So, we decided to make it a thing.

For the next 33 days, we are holding our first ever open call for original art set in the TRDL Universe. The promotion is open to everyone: members of the R3 Forum, art collaborators we’ve worked with in the past, friends from outside of the comic genre, artist associates, you name it. As in keeping with the tradition of the art jams on our forum, any medium, and any skill level, are welcomed. We want you to pick your favorite TRDL characters and draw em up with 100% minimum awesome.

The Particulars:

What: The 2010 Friends of TRDL Gallery Project

When: 33 days, ending on 13 February 2010

How: Draw your favorite TRDL characters in pencil, pen, color; digital, colored pencil, Pentel, Prismacolor, oil canvas, whatever. The context of this project is comic art, so certainly color comic-style art is recommended, but anything goes that inspires you will work.

The Goods: Everyone who participates will have their work featured in Third Rail Design Lab trade dress on our main illustration site as a special gallery. In addition, we will select favorites from the pool and they will be … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. Announcing the 2010 Friends of TRDL Gallery Project!
2. Update: Friends of TRDL Gallery Project
3. TRDL Special Project: Team Lope AIDS Fundraiser 2010

This was done for the ‘Redheads’ jam on R3. I was all set to draw Hope, who may or may not be Jean Grey or Rachel Summers or who knows… but at the last minute, I read the latest issue of Detective Comics and was inspired to draw Batwoman. J.H. Williams III is doing such wonderful work on the title, and it’s an excellent read. On this piece, I’m most proud of details hanging properly, in general, like the belt and cape and hair. It was one of those pics I was pretty sure was going very wrong until it wasn’t.

Process notes:

Pencils:

Color work:

I did quite a bit of digital rendering for the background, and some compositing with the burglar, too…

:::

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!… Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute – Batwoman
2. TRDL Tribute: Rogue [New Years 2010]
3. TRDL Tribute – Thor 2010

This was done for our annual New Years Celebration Jam, and doubles as our second TRDL holiday card for NYE. I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw it. It’s not that Surfer is anything other than perfectly drawn and awesome in every way. It’s that Galactus is… smiling. Nice work, dude. And give me some of that champagne. Looks like a good brand!

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!… Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Commission – Silver Surfer and Stardust
2. TRDL Tribute: Silver Sable
3. TRDL Tribute: Silver Samurai

This was done for one of the jams in the R3 Forum. I can’t even remember which one at this point. X-Men? Cover resdesign? Anyway, wow. Those are tough pencils to compete against, when you are drawing a version of such a classic cover, but I totally worship his skills here, which are both mad and displayable. Colossus and Storm own it.

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!… Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute – Colossus vs. TRDL’s Bellicaust
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 55 – Uncanny X-Men #173 Homage
3. TRDL Tribute: Colossus

This was done for the Princess Jam on R3. Joao totally nailed this one. I love the pointy cape ends and the materiality you get from how he rendered the cape itself. The bodice and skirt look fantastic too, and it’s one of his best female faces. I love it.

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!… Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute – Steampunk X-Men [Joao]
2. TRDL Tribute: Hellcat (Joao)
3. TRDL Tribute: Dazzler (Joao)

This was done for the ‘Golden Characters’ jam by TRDL’s Joao. I was really blown away by this one, which he managed to complete despite long hours at the office, and lots going on at home. I’m not that familiar with the character, despite being a Marvel Zombie (the space stuff was a little obtuse for me growing up, especially without psychedelics at hand) but man, I don’t think he’s looked better.

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!… Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 3:33 2011 Series No. 5 – Warlock
2. TRDL Tribute – Doctor Octopus
3. TRDL Tribute: Wonder Woman Golden Age Revisited

This was done for the Hellcat jam by TRDL’s Joao. I love the claws, whiskers and generally feline details. Plus the hunch, like she’s about to spring onto your spinal column. Watch out!

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!… Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Hellcat
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 83 – Dr. Strange and Clea [Joao]
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 82 – Phoenix [Joao]

Welcome to Third Rail Design Lab’s first ever ‘Friends of TRDL’ gallery project!

The concept is simple: we’re ramping up for some new releases this year, including new editions of the TRDL worldbuilding sourcebooks, a site gallery facelift, and a sequential art release. In the meantime, we’ve had a number of friends produce original art pin-ups based on various characters in the TRDL Universe, and they’ve blown us away. So, we decided to make it a thing.

For the next 33 days, we are holding our first ever open call for original art set in the TRDL Universe. The promotion is open to everyone: members of the R3 Forum, art collaborators we’ve worked with in the past, friends from outside of the comic genre, artist associates, you name it. As in keeping with the tradition of the art jams on our forum, any medium, and any skill level, are welcomed. We want you to pick your favorite TRDL characters and draw em up with 100% minimum awesome.

The Particulars:

What: The 2010 Friends of TRDL Gallery Project

When: 33 days, ending on 13 February 2010

How: Draw your favorite TRDL characters in pencil, pen, color; digital, colored pencil, Pentel, Prismacolor, oil canvas, whatever. The context of this project is comic art, so certainly color comic-style art is recommended, but anything goes that inspires you will work.

The Goods: Everyone who participates will have their work featured in Third Rail Design Lab trade dress on our main illustration site as a special gallery. In addition, we will select favorites from the pool and they will be included in hardcopy published work as a bonus section. In addition, everyone who enters will be given a promo discount towards upcoming TRDL merch. But we hope it’s about the fun of an art project … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. 2010 Friends of TRDL Gallery Project: 1/2 Way Point Reminder
2. Update: Friends of TRDL Gallery Project
3. TRDL Special Project: Team Lope AIDS Fundraiser 2010

This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being Dr. Who.

I had virtually no real Dr. Who experience on which to draw from for favorites. The new eleventh doctor coming up next year looks like one of the most boring looking actors yet, and didn’t move me at all, especially after I quite liked the look and sound of the tenth from what I saw of him. But I do like me some Amy Pond. So!

I freely admit this isn’t one of my better ones. It was the product of several issues: I was drawing sick, in near-dark, with a baby on me. Worse, because I’ve done others in those conditions with better success, I just wasn’t familiar enough with the designs to do them justice, largely from memory. In fact, the fact that these even look like Daleks at all amazes me, given my memory sieve. But worst of all, I don’t even stay on model. The Daleks all have different proportions, and even the geometries are all effed up. But I couldn’t afford more time to correct all the pencil work, so I applied what they call, in the parlance of our times, lipstick on a pig. But hey.

Process notes:

Original art:

Yeah, those Daleks were a mess to begin with. Amy Pond wasn’t.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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

No related posts.

This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being ‘Golden Characters’ from comics, TV and film. I took this opportunity to try my hand at another of these excellent concept art designs for the apparently terrible Iron Man Adventures cartoon. I haven’t seen the cartoon, but the designs are GREAT: well-harmonized between classic looks and modern takes on all these characters. Madam Masque has been one of my favorite Marvel villains, because of the basic premise of a hard, emotionally twisted terrorist mercenary wearing a mask because of an assumed disfiguration. I think in recent years she was shown to actually BE disfigured, but I always interpreted it like that old Twilight Zone episode: she might look normal or even pretty, but believes shes hideous. Anyway, one thing I’ve never liked about the character is the basic design. It’s hard to take a terrorist seriously in a leotard. Full body spandex I can handle, but LEOTARDS over tights… not even extraneous utility belts can save that look. Especially in two-tone blue. The redesign for the cartoon pushed most of the costume into blacks and dark grays, with a touch of orange/yellow to relate to the mask. I took some of the design literally, such as on the abdomen, hips and neck, that may have been intended as highlights in the original sketch. But it looked good to my eye. The original design has a great Sphinx thing going on at the eyes, with opaque optics, but I let my version come back some to the classic look for Madam Masque. Not that I don’t love the concept art version of the mask, because I do. For my illustration, however, the pose suggested a false modesty (while preparing to draw) that I wanted more human expression in the … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Madame Masque
2. Third Rail Thrills No. 65 – Iron Masque [Nemesis Jam]
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 35 – Iron Man vs. Batman

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