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!

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You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

Here’s the original rough, done on the same sheet as another drawing. I was playing around with the pose, a pretty classic pinup girl thing but in this case as seen in a magazine pic of Heather Graham:

Here’s inks after I cleaned up and penciled the rough. I have a few options here. For one, I wasn’t sure if I wanted the elevated foot to angle slightly towards you or away. I also drew a second hand.

Inks after commitment to a scheme and some photoshop work including bringing in the alternate hand and foot, digitally cleaning the merge up and redrawing part of the leg, adjusting the angle of her facial features, and some hair tweaks.

These are completed colors. Note at this point I hadn’t put her weird monocle tattoo on her face (I forgot about it and had to recut my final renderings after I realized my omission.) Also, I moved her energy dagger to her resting hand instead of the one in her hair, which had felt awkward. However, after putting it between her fingers, once I brought it into the bomber girl framework, I decided against the dagger altogether. Hard to rationalize it on nose art, at least in this case.

Easter eggs! Look for em!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

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