This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being Cloak and Dagger, from Marvel Comics.

Joao used the costume designs from Alphona’s Runaways run for this pic, reminding me both of how brilliant and sophisticated Alphona’s design work is, and how amazing Joao’s lines are. I was delighted by the diagonal struck by Dagger here, and how Cloak makes up the background in a way that doesn’t actually make you think about his volume, really capturing that ‘Bag of Holding’ nature of his powers.

:::

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: Dagger
2. TRDL Tribute: Dazzler (Joao)
3. TRDL Tribute – Thor [Joao]

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being Dazzler, from Marvel Comics.

Joao went for the classic 70s disco Dazzler, which is already cool to begin with, but he really hit it out of the park with the way he presented the sheen to her glittery pantsuit. I love it! What a standout piece, and an interesting compositional companion to his Cloak and Dagger piece as well.

:::

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: Dazzler
2. TRDL Tribute: Cloak and Dagger (Joao)
3. TRDL Tribute – Steampunk X-Men [Joao]

This illustration was done for the TRDL R3 Illustration Jam, the character concept being ‘pirates!’ this week.

Now, first off, I could draw pirates all week long, and had I the time to do so, I probably WOULD have. But wee Z’s first birthday, and Aids Lifecycle prep, limited my options. However, this was a good opportunity to follow up on a piece I started last month, and finish it for this jam.

The bike I’m riding on Lifecycle is named ‘Crook’, and my ‘ride name’ on my jersey is ‘three-pin’, a play on a weapon (the theme for all of our jersey name iconography across the Team Lope stable) and my love of a certain brand-aware numeral. The three pin (actually the Smith and Wesson Tip-Up Revolver) is a mid-1800s revolver that I quite like the look of, aesthetically. So, I designed a pin-up girl, sort of like bomber girl nose art, for the front of the bike frame, hoping to incorporate the three-pin revolver into the design. The rough for this girl was shown to my lovely wifebot(tm) but she expressed a strong preference for the version of TRDL’s Shanghai Kellie as appeared in our 2009 holiday card series, so I ended up going with that for the bike. But I wanted to keep working on this one, and filed it for later use. And here we are!

I envision this piece of ‘bomber girl’ art to actually be on the side of an iron naval ship. Ole Three-Pin Maria. Can’t trust her! She’ll steal yer goollllllllle!

Please enjoy!

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Process Notes:

Here’s the original rough for three-pin maria, shown on three sacks of stolen bills, which was … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Maria Hill
2. TRDL Tribute: Tula [Pirates of Darkwater]

This illustration kicked off another round of character designs for a longtime client who maintains an original superhero universe for his gaming group. The concept of these two characters is that they are sort of like the children of his world’s evil despot, a cross between Mandarin and Doctor Doom. They are different in personality and approach, but operate together as a team. I went with styling loosely inspired by the previous design he had had done for their father, which is below in the process notes, then from there went on to rationalize a design concept for the armor and clothing. I wanted exotic, Asiatic but not literal… more than anything, I was thinking Mongolian in tone, but post-Chinese Empire-dominance. I liked the juxtaposition of robes and soft cloth with the detailed, gilded armor. Many of the details were described by the client and I just had to visualize a cohesive element. Overall I like how they turned out…

Please enjoy!

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Process Notes:

This is the pic of Emperor Dang as done by artist Storn Cook

This was the pencil sketch the started the piece, loosely establishing the relationship of armor to robes and the basic concept for each character’s look. I gave Jia a set of swords, imagining her as the more melee-combat focused of the two, while Dang Jr is more armored.

As the ethnic origin of the Dang Shui region in the client’s world was not fully defined, we explored both a lighter skin and darker complexion, representing northern vs southern influence in the dynasty. We settled on darker, which actually ties into the Mongolian influence in the armor.

This study was blocking out the … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute – Xartherian Org Battle Carapace
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 39 – Kreg Bennett
3. TRDL Tribute: Iron Man [TRDL Redesign]

This was an interesting and enjoyable project. I was given the task of creating a ‘craving demon’ illustration for a client that had previously commissioned some What I Tole You sketches, as she was quitting smoking. She described the problem that she didn’t want to smoke, and knew this, but when the irrational cravings came, she felt like she was being compelled despite knowing full well she didn’t actually want a cigarette. She wanted to project that craving into an external entity, into something she could point to and say ‘eff you, craving.’… so, I felt a lot of responsibility to do something that would do the design objective justice, and actually WORK. She wanted the critter to be small, weak but charming… the intent would be to put the image on the inside cover of her moleskine.

I played around with some ideas but went in the direction of a large head/small body form, cute but with edgy detail… I was inspired by the kinds of cool superdeformed character and figure designs out of Japan as well as Little Big Planet character modeling. I think what made the creature creepy and effective is the black eyes… originally i had cat eyes but as I worked wth it I wanted it to look less like a feline creature and more like a demon. We went with blue to avoid the obvious parallels with a traditional red devil type. My favorite detail is the belt. See, I was playing with the concept that her craving is an irrational one. It serves no purpose (other than to satisfy that chemical dependency) and it’s out of place int he life she has created. Hence, he’s wearing a belt, but no pants.

Please enjoy!

You can find a larger version here.

You can see … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Commercial Project – Sisters of Rapture RPG
2. TRDL Commercial – BASH Sci-Fi Cover
3. TRDL Side Project – ‘Two Chicks’ Logo

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being Modesty Blaise, the seminal sexy spy heroine from the recently deceased Peter O’Donnell works.

I always jump at a chance to do a pin-up in some sort of genre style, and I very nearly went one of two directions on this one, based on my first few roughs: the classic leather catsuit with pistol and silencer, or the sexy shirted Modesty with an up-do as seen on one of the first published covers (ie. ‘Yogi Berra’n it’) … but as I thought about not only the strip but the books themselves, and looked at a lot of the original covers, I started thinking about all the pulpy work and how they would use an exotic locale as the setting for whichever adventure was in play. That’s how I ended up doing this piece as a book cover.

Please enjoy!

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Process Notes:

Here’s the pose inspiration for the piece, from Vargas (Playboy October 73, my birth year in fact…)

This was the original concept for the cover, and as you can see, I followed it pretty closely through execution.

Classic example of my inking issues. I’m rarely inking in the proper environment, ie. at a desk, good light, glass of champagne, slice of melon… this one was inked IN the Baby Jail with my daughter climbing all over me, after a ride, and while I’m still dealing with my vision changing post-surgery. So, lots of mistakes, and strange things that happen, such as how her jawline and facial features totally changed. I don’t sweat it. That’s what Photoshop is for…

In most … Read on for more awesome…

No related posts.

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being Betsy Braddock, also known as Psylocke, but specifically in her British form.

I learned that I was mistaken in my memory of how Betsy went from being a purple haired sassy goody-goody British lass (as she was in the original UK books before being absorbed into Marvel’s domestic work for X-Men and Excalibur and mutated into a hottie asian martial artist type in a thong. However, it was no less stupefying. Regardless, this jam was about the old Betsy, and for mine, I wanted to do a TRDL pin-up, this time being another propaganda piece. I love how in vintage pin-up ads the sweetie in question is always lounging around the house in lingerie. Because thats what, you know, really happened. Ads don’t lie.

I suppose you have to know your Excalibur/X-Men history to parse a lot of this one, but if you don’t? Well, pin-up girl, yay!

Please enjoy!

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Process Notes:

So this one came about in an interesting fashion. I sketched up a pose, which was Betsy sitting cross-legged and diving into opening a present, but was faced with two obstacles: one, I have drawn that pose a few times, and kept being reminded of my Jenny Quantum piece from some years back; and two, no advertiser wants a pic of someone opening a box and obscuring the product. They want it on display. That’s when I remembered I had a similar concept for one of our 2009 Holiday postcard pics, in which the unreleased TRDL character Synergene was opening a gift and finding a nutcracker in the shape … Read on for more awesome…

No related posts.

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being Cloak and Dagger, from Marvel Comics.

I really liked Cloak and Dagger back in the day. Sure, I was somewhat divorced, due to the naivete of youth, from some of the subtext of the design, the whole inter-racial thing. Looking back on it now, I see some pretty blatant stereotype-stylization in the design, from the dark, mysterious, dangerous, frightening black man to the sexy, sensual, lithe ballet-dancer-type white girl he’s alarmingly enveloping in sexual entanglement. And of course the characters themselves carried a backstory that was manifested in their looks as well, being teens on the run, recovering from drug abuse or whatever. It’s like someone at Marvel was worried their teenage daughter was going to run away with a brother from across the tracks who would riddle her with smack and massage oils, and another guy at Marvel drew this up and said: no, wait! see, it all works out!

Well, anyway, I just liked how they looked. I liked that the characters were bonded, in a loving relationship, devoted to each other. I responded to the pedestalization of the girlfriend, and probably the dancer physique too. And of course, I’ve always been a sucker for monochromatic designs, and loved the simplicity of Dagger’s costume and the dark color blocking of Cloak’s as well.

For this jam, I wanted to do another classic pose, and make it a bomber girl. That precluded the use of Cloak himself, so I snuck his look in with that ribbon decal. There are a few easter eggs in this one, as usual…

Anyway, please enjoy!

:::

You can find a larger version here.

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

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Cloak and Dagger (Joao)
2. TRDL Tribute: Dazzler (Joao)
3. TRDL Tribute: Power Girl 2009

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being the Marvel alternate universe character Spider-Girl (May Parker)…

I actually always liked this costume design, as far as modern takes on the Spidey suit go. I wasn’t into the title or creative team, but thought this was one of the first ‘female spider-man’ takes that worked. I tried to stay consistent with the character model and not deviate too much, though my webbing layout, particularly at the boots, is different.

Anyway, please enjoy!

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Process Notes:

So I had a pretty clear vision how I wanted this one to go. Instead of a pin-up this time, I went with an action shot, and got a chance to fit a certain sweet, sweet wrongTank into the mix there.

For inks I just worked on the figure, as I would trace out an Element later for the finished piece.

Here’s finished colors on Spider-Girl.
From there, I brought in a marketing material shot of my car, faded it to about 15% opacity, and drew and colored over it, then deleted the image. That’s why my vehicle looks like… well, a vehicle for once.

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

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute – Gwen Stacy + The Spider
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 80 – Ultimate Spider-Man
3. TRDL 2011 No. 6 – Tech Spidey [Amazing Spider-Man #656]

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being the late-70′s superfad KISS-tie-in character Dazzler, formerly notKnown as Disco Queen, in the hands of Casablanca.

I never, never, NEVER liked Dazzler. I was born in the early 70s, but I wasn’t old enough to disco or what have you, and so this sort of music had supplanted Cream, the Beatles, the Doors and the Stones as the annoying music piped out of the fraternities across the street from my childhood home near UCLA. Granted, I don’t remember disliking the psychedelic rock particularly, it just made for awkward background music for my action figure action. But the disco? Hated it, even as a kid. So when Marvel was shoe-horning Dazzler into continuity to take advantage of the KISS promo books, I wasn’t having it. Over time the character kept coming back, and was a small component of the greater problem in the X-books when I left comics for awhile in the Siege Perilous years. MEH! Of course, 33,000 hours of studying my Marvel Handbooks, followed by a good run of a Marvel RPG campaign in which I believe she was strangled by Doctor Octopus, helped me at least see the character as part of the Marvel Universe, not just a bad superfad angle. And as an adult reader, I look back on pretty much everything from those days with the same level of wonder and nostalgia, and it doesn’t even bother me anymore. She’s just another attempt to sell books, and who can fault that.

Anyway, OK. This TRDL pin-up was envisioned as a fictitious movie poster. You’ll note I’m not a great caricaturist, but that’s supposed to be Isla Fisher as Dazzler, in full 70s regalia. Probably should have feathered the … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Dazzler (Joao)
2. TRDL Tribute: Classic Rogue
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 35 – Iron Man vs. Batman

Less Current »