I have hordes and hordes of not-ready-for-prime-time illustrations in files at the loft. Some, thanks to the forethought of my dear mhom, have survived my childhood and are fun to look at from an, I don’t know, anthropological sense. Others, from my pre-teen and early teen years, are awkward and puberty-fueled (but not in the way an experienced adult might draw girls, but the way a teen might draw girls processing the awesome existence of girls in the first place, and doing it wrong). Some yet, like these below, are merely drawing exercises on a whim.

In this first set of three, I was warming up to the idea of redrawing mainstream characters what I tend to call the ‘TRDL way’ these days. I wasn’t there yet. It started by me just drawing characters standing around. Any reader of the TRDL site or the sourcebooks knows I am a huge fan of the Marvel Handbooks and DC WHo’s Who and similar projects, so I actually quite LIKE drawing people standing around, vs. super punching. Anyway, at this point, I was not yet drawing them with my own design style. I was literally drawing the costumes as I saw them. Later, I would learn to either draw the literal costume from the comics, but do it in my WAY, such as detailing and texture of material, etc, or to redesign the costume altogether. But at this point, which was probably about 1991, I was just at the ‘draw the character’ stage.

Also, I should mention, I was choosing to draw characters and designs I didn’t like. This was an offshoot of something I had been doing with music, in high school and college thereafter: I’d identify a style I disliked, and then force myself to listen to it until I could … Read on for more awesome…

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This character was designed for a repeat client of mine, John, who runs a superhero based RPG online. He has a host of character concepts and stories that have been developed for the game and used in his campaigns. I’m slowly working through some of them, giving them the TRDL design treatment. One of the design objectives of this series of character designs is that I employ the TRDL style in the designs, to design them as if they were original characters set in the TRDL Mythology. I don’t have a lot of traditional spandex in that stuff, relying more on neoprenes, woven meshes, bodysuits, slightly more practical looking gear, and simpler costume designs. So throughout this process, part of the challenge is to capture as much of the fantastic classic superhero imagery that John imagines, while employing my stripped down design model. Good stuff!

Aero’s concept description: "A classic superheroine…Aero is a human-looking android who can ‘shift’ her powers to a number of areas, like flight, eyeblasts, a force field, super-strength, etc. She’s tall and impeccably toned, has long blonde hair, a small domino-style mask and an orange and white costume that doesn’t reveal much skin, but does fit her body like a glove. …She was kind of frumpy looking before, and is still getting used to her supermodel looks and robot senses (which never turn off — she can’t look at a piece of pie without analyzing it chemically). Quote: "I had no idea my husband was a breast man… but, well, obviously he was."

We went through several iterations of this design. John pushed for a more bodacious, exaggerated female figure, which I struggled with because i drew the piece with more realistic proportions initially, and as I enlarged the breasts I kept trying to do so … Read on for more awesome…

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DD’s press release:

Riding on the success of a Hollywood agreement to bring comic book property HACK/SLASH to the silver screen, Chicago comic book powerhouse Devil’s Due Publishing, Inc. unveils its next two projects in development, DRAFTED and MERCY SPARX…and announces a talent search to find illustrators for the exciting, upcoming series.

“The triumph of HACK/SLASH has really opened the doors to homegrown projects like DRAFTED and MERCY SPARX,” says Devil’s Due President Josh Blaylock (G.I. JOE, HOW TO SELF-PUBLISH COMICS). “And what better way to launch an exciting, unknown property than with fresh new talent?”

ABOUT THE PROJECTS –

• MERCY SPARX, Blaylock’s own creation, tells the tale of a devil girl stuck between Heaven and Hell. After being denied entrance into paradise, Mercy is contracted by Heaven to hunt down three rogue angels who are giving the rest a bad name. Succeeding in their capture might just be Mercy’s key to the Pearly Gates.

• When a benevolent alien race arrives on Earth, informing the people of the world that they must be recruited into an intergalactic war or be destroyed by invaders, will humanity rise to the challenge? DRAFTED, created by Mark Powers (AFTERMATH, X-MEN) and Josh Blaylock, follows a young man named Gabriel Contreras as the entire world changes around him, and he is led down the path of heroism and sacrifice. Will Earth survive the war to come?

“We’re only looking for artists in for the long haul,” Blaylock adds. “We want the best and brightest artists, ready to break into the professional comic book industry, capable of keeping up both brisk pacing and consistent art quality. But we also need artists excited over the material. If you’re submitting to our talent search, make sure to choose the concept that you would most enjoy illustrating.”… Read on for more awesome…

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Oni Press is engaged in another talent search and who knows, YOU could be the next Oni star! Certainly won’t hurt to look through it, and it beats going to cons with your portfolio cold. It ALWAYS helps to know your audience.

Here’s the press release from their site:

” Following the rousing success of 2005’s Oni Press Talent Search, the boys and girls here at W.H.O.O.P.s (World Headquarters Of Oni Press) are at it again with an all-new storytelling challenge! With Comic-Con International just around the corner, Oni Press is pleased to announce that we are once again giving artists an opportunity to show off their skills. In order to have your portfolio reviewed by an Oni Press editor at Comic-Con you will need to illustrate one or more of the three scripts found on this page. Realizing that different artists are geared towards different subject matter, four different professional writers have developed three different five-page scripts, each one using a different genre and showcasing a different personal scripting style. The genres and authors are: (click the genre to download the script PDF for that story)

• “Noir” by Jen Van Meter (JSA Classified, Hopeless Savages)

• “Romance” by Nunzio DeFilippis & Christina Weir (Past Lies, New X-Men)

• “Comedy” by Jim Massey (Death Takes A Holiday)

Last year’s Talent Search was a gi-normous success! With Oni Press examining hundreds of different artist samples, we were lucky to find several who were ready for a shot at comic book stardom. Joe Infurnari, resident of Brooklyn, NY and artist of the recently released graphic novella Borrowed Time, with writer Neal Shaffer, was one such artist who came to our attention through the talent search. Halifax, Nova Scotia’s own Mike Holmes was another. He’s collaborating with writer Ian Shaughnessy for a … Read on for more awesome…

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Hi, gang!

One particular question that NEVER seems to be addressed is of comic book page rates. Most companies don’t make them public and probably each professional artist has his own deal according to his contribution, reputation and the nature of each particular project. It makes sense that an artist like Alex Ross has a different page rate from Gary Frank -not saying one’s better than the other, only that they do different things and have different levels of popularity and recognition, but… there must be some standard? Opinons? Comments?

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

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For those of you who seem to have a steady stream of commissions going on, I’m curious as to how you go about securing those commissions. Is it word of mouth? Ebay advertising/posting? Paypal links?

I’m thinking about putting either a Paypal donate button on all of my forum-related art work (like the “This week” jams) or possibly adding a Commision request form somewhere on my site (database-driven, of course).

I’m also thinking about collecting all of the ones that I have done and creating a mini-comic book I can either sell relatively cheap or hand out as a promotional item at the few conventions I am lucky enough to attend each year.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?

-Chris

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

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This was another commission for my client stationed in the Middle East, for his science fiction novel. The first was The Admiral, which I shared back in October, and can be seen here.

:::

OK anyway, this is the Org Battle Carapace, the exo-suit worn by the series antagonist species, the Xartherians. They look reptilian, aggressive and hostile, etc. The original concept for their exo-suit, as drawn up years back by the client’s friend, was more of a chromed, gun-laden battle armor, like John Byrne might have done in the 80’s, or like every Image title offered in the 90’s. My task was to diversify and redesign the suit to give it not only a more sci-fi than comic book vibe, but to carry on the same design language used in the design of his first character commission. We went back and forth on a number of designs for this suit. I pushed for a very exotic, alien design initially, and he wanted it brought back to a more mecha appearance, and we settled here. The last round was working out how he wanted the legs, and this was the scheme selected. It’s probably pretty obvious from looking at this that Masamune Shirow was a huge influence on me when I was younger, as far as some of the design logic goes… and cosmetically, I realized while coloring that I owe a fair amount of unrealized design inspiration from the Zentraedi exosuits (female) from Macross. But anyway. I was quite pleased how this one came out, and felt it delivered the points the client wanted (big armor, big scale, lots of weapons) with a design that looks identifiably Third Rail Design Lab derived.

Hope you like it!

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

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