This illustration was done for the R3 Jam on TRDL’s R3 Forum. Artists can participate in any open jams by heading here. The subject this time: Cheshire, from DC Comics.

I like the character of Cheshire, though not so much the costume, with all the green on green semi-swashbuckler details and very 80′s headband and one-sleeve action. But She reminds me, in tone, of where Viper could have gone but didn’t: fast-acting poisons, extreme martial arts skills, and most interesting, the babymomma thing. I tried to give her a mixed-ethnicity vibe in her face and skin tone, reflecting the vietnamese-french background. I like how it turned out.

This is also the first piece with the new trade dress for Third Rail Design Lab. More to come!

Please enjoy.

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Process Notes:

OK, so here’s the piece that inspired my work, a great Teen Titans cover that captures both Cheshire’s ethnic blend AND funky retro styling. What a great face and Farrah haircut…

Here’s the original pencils. I was drawing at a strange angle and trying to be very quiet, and as is often the case, had proportion issues largely based on the angle of my view. But not to worry…

I often identify the errors as I go, to remind myself, as I often zoom in while working digitally later and lose some of that perspective. Here, I noted the feet were too small for the legs. Now the legs were too long for the torso by a bit, but I knew I’d scale that later. But I wanted to fix the boots right away.

Biggest issue was a problem with this arm. I was looking at a cute pin-up pose in my ref files I’m finally starting to use, but there was a strangeness in how that image was captured that seemed to artificially foreshorten the arm, and I exaggerated the problem further in mine, requiring what i knew would be some serious surgery to repair.

I took a stab at it in the physical work, but it was more of a guideline for the digital correction. I could see that the curve of the forearm was distracting as well.

This was how it stood in inks. Much work left to do.

Told you I was working in difficult conditions.

Starting to make digital edits on the arm here. You’ll see I ghost parts of the drawing, do digital inks on new layers, then bring them back together and do clean up edits to merge it all again.

New arm meant new bust as well.

Getting close, starting to merge…

The figure is mostly complete at this point, so it’s time to work on the scabbard.

I do much of this kind of thing digitally, and then bring in hand-drawn detail and stitch it up… takes a long time to get a fairly simple result.

OK, inks done, ready to get to colors…

Here’s skin, done first, as usual for this sort of illustration. I changed skin tones a bit as I went, to give it a more fusion flavor.

Face and hair, done. Some of my less common eye shadow here.

I LOVE rendering chunky gold detail…

This is a detail some might not like. She’s a seasoned fighter. That means, in my book, she’s been sliced up. I’m not a fan of the superhuman melee combatant that never gets touched. In my book, they just don’t suffer kill strikes, and live to fight another day.

Done, ready for the final composition. As you may have noticed, this is the first pinup using my new refined trade dress. I’m scaling back the familiar TRDL header imagery, making it into more of a eastern chop, and using a crisper, more streamlined presentation. This will be seen in other work and the site itself in updates to come, but for now, just here in the TRDL pin-ups series.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

Related posts:

1. Third Rail Thrills 43 – Dr. Girlfriend Pin-Up
2. Third Rail Thrills 41 – Golden Glider Pin-Up
3. Third Rail Thrills 45 – Lady Mechanika Pin-Up