TRDL News and Reviews » Comic

TRDL 2012 Series No. 11 – Emma Frost (TRDL Redesign)

TRDL thom — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:12:14 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 11 – Emma Frost, X-Men First Class Version [TRDL Redesign]

The TRDL R3 Challenge this week was to redesign a character from a comic adaption show or film that you specifically didn’t like. I chose to do Emma Frost from the X-Men: First Class film. Setting aside my frustration with how January Jones either played the role, or acts in general, depending on your opinion of her I guess. I’m focusing here on the costuming. They were after a 60′s influenced version of Emma Frost’s well-known duds, generally being white tall boots, long gloves, and white undies and corset, like an S&M maven inverted. What they delivered, however, was confusing to me. Now, I now full well from my experience as a designer that editorial changes can push a great design into dubious territory fast, but I was lost on this. Big furry shoulder puffs at the perimeter of a white cape, OK. Kind of a snow queen russian thing happening there. Then, a plain brazier (which looks like a bra), bare midriff, a plain white miniskirt, and thigh high boots with makeshift garter attachments. I don’t know if the costume execution failed or the concept as a whole. This is my take on what I’d have done.

I liked the massing of the shoulders but I made them glittering crystal, to allude to her ‘secondary mutation’ as we saw in the film, transforming to diamond. The cape is actually a draping over the arms that falls long but split open at the bottom. I used a white corset with lacing, and a blouse matched to the cape. I have briefs instead of a mini-skirt, and I used a silver ring detail for the garter attachment points as well as to affix a silver necklace from either side of her chest. The cape and blouse fitment is secured by hoops under the arms, like a backpack.

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

Artists, come join us on R3 and submit to the jams! The R3 Illustration Jam offers new characters weekly, but all jams remain open so you can contribute to any that you like, here:
http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com/forum … m.php?f=27
or in the TRDL-R3-WeeklyJam group on DA, here:
http://trdl-r3-weeklyjam.deviantart.com/

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Background:

Here’s the film version of Emma Frost’s costume that I responded to.

For a loose pose reference, I used this gorgeous image of Maggie Q. For posture, not frame, as she is scary thin.

Even a hand model. A very handsome hand model.

The original pencils for the piece, shown. I actually drew in a cold wisp of icy breath but since the top of the submarine-yacht scene wasn’t arctic, it was too on the nose.

Original inks

Rendered for color

Here I digitally redrew the rings and other small details in the inks.

Flesh, very pale but not unhealthy.

The crystals on the shoulders were a ton of fun. I can imagine this looking pretty rad on film.

I noticed that the thigh was too short, over-exaggerating a foreshortening inaccurately. A new layer and a guideline for fixing ensued.

The leg was redone digitally under the guideline, like so.
From here, on to creating the yacht guardrail and so on.

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 10 – Nightcrawler [TRDL Redesign]

TRDL thom — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:06:50 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 10 – Nightcrawler [TRDL Redesign]

This week’s TRDL R3 Challenge is Nightcrawler, from the X-Men (found here and here, always open for entries). He’s currently deceased, but you know how long that sort of thing sticks in comics. Anyway, I chose to do a TRDL Redesign (not a Blank Slate Redesign, but just a facelift) which focused on the aspects of the character I liked best as a younger guy: hiding in the shadows, ambush attacks, and weapon proficiency. Essentially, I looked at him as a tactical weapon, such as might conceptually be used in X-Force (the hit squad version) or some other black ops type mutant team. I know sometimes my redesigns, especially on fighting characters, skew perhaps over-realistically to black. It’s hard for me to put on that redesign hat and rationalize much color in the outfit if they are meant to evade detection. Anyway, that’s certainly the case here: I gave him a simple, body-hugging tactical suit, like a thermal neoprene kit, with arms and half the legs exposed. Bare hands and feet, because I never really grasped how someone with the mutations allowing for agile acrobatic maneuvers and hanging/swinging/climbing capability would dull their tactile ability with gloves, or use gloves and boots with grip in lieu of their own mutation. So. Also, forearm bracers contain throwing chits with nerve toxin lacing, and the two swords (in this case I used a more vaguely eastern style weapon, like a pair of even-length katanas, rather than a rapier, so that he would have an edged attack as well as the stabby business of a sport rapier) do criss-cross deliberately to give us a familiar ‘X’ motif without having to emblazon it on his uniform.

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

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Background:

Nightcrawler’s very well known as a character design, so I won’t belabor it beyond pointing you to the TRDL R3 Challenge page for this character, which has many references. But I did have to look up how different artists have interpreted his teleportation smoke.

Here’s the original pencils. I wanted it to be one of those deals where he teleported right on top of his foe and is descending down on them. I figured he’d most likely be upside down, since characters with agility I like to show not having that tenuous upward axis rigidity.

Here’s the original inks. I like how they scan. When I convert them for render, you definitely lose something in the conversion. I may have to continue experimenting with overlaying the original inks using a pass-through layer.

Here’s the renderable inks. As you can see, more streamlined. You lose some of that sense of physical media, obviously, as the scan picks up deformations in the paper and ink flow which my process smooths over.

I started with his skin. For this one, I would be doing something uncommon for my pics: back-lighting, as coming from the teleportation cloud flash behind him. It also gives me a chance to play with that fun aspect of his mutation, that he blends into shadows… I always imagined it as a pigmentation shift. I know that’s not canon, though.
I use a dark blue for his skin, pushing to black.

I new his tactical suit would be largely monochramatic and dark, but wasn’t yet shure if it would be black-black or have a different tint to it. I often start in a warm gray palette, and then experiment with colors. I use warm gray vs proper gray because it has a bit of color in it to be tweaked, where true cold grays do not.

In order to render highlights on very dark images I drop opacity so I can see my comings and goings.

Here’s the figure, completed, sans digital tail and teleportation cloud.

I originally just had the tail curling in a wide arc, as you can see in the pencils. As I was preparing the final image, I realized it was another opportunity to play with the character’s abilities: he is very dexterous with that tail… so here, we have it curled around a grenade, handle depressed, with the tip in the ring. I love this detail.

Here’s the first render of the cloud. It was too soft. Like porridge.

To get the effect I went with, I used ‘Accent Edges’ in Photoshop and played around. I really like the result!

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 09 – Baroness

TRDL thom — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:58:17 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 09 – Baroness [GI Joe]

This was done for the 2nd Cobra Art Jam Projecton the #Cobrafanclub group on dA. In this case, the jam is an aggregate of all the art submitted in a line-up. We got to pick who we wanted to draw, and frankly, while I have no time for extra projects right now, I can’t get Baroness out of the midbrain, so i joined the project. This also, sort of as a stretch, but was included in the Assassins Challenge on the TRDL R3 Forum.

My task specifically was to draw the black uniform version of Baroness. I was thisclose to drawing her classic cartoon version, but as I worked, I just felt like embellishing it in a more custom manner. The colors skew to the blues to allow detail to be seen, but I think it’s obvious it’s not the blue uniform she sometimes wore which is you know, technicolor blue. For action figure sales. Big gun too!

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

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Background:

Who among us is unfamiliar with the Baroness? Even if you weren’t of the age to see her in the old cartoons or have the figures or read the comics, as I was, the GI Joe mythos has been revisited many times in the decades since, and thanks to Sienna Miller’s swagger in the film, and Adam Hughes’ everything else, the younger generation know all about her too. For my money, i do appreciate the jet black, shiny leather version as Hughes’ drew. However, I didn’t go that route for this project because the nature of the assembled jam pic is that it will be a very long image with small characters shown, so detail will be hard enough to see as it is. I didn’t want to completely wash her out in black and shine.

Here’s the original pencils. Again, as it has been for years now, apparently, I was drawing half asleep with a newborn on me. The challenge was that I wanted to give her a weapon that evoked the cartoons to me, ie an energy weapon that never hits a living target. So while she does have a pair of pistols in holsters in the small of her back, and carries a big knife, I gave her an oversized shoulder-mounted Big Energy Gun. For science.

It was immediately clear that her brow was too high. I do that every time, when a bangless hairline is used. Crazy. Thanks to Photoshop, all is not lost.

Here’s the processing for render. Two things may be clear: I didn’t hardline the hair as it would go to jet black in the colors; also, I’ve been playing with a smaller line based on some feedback over at Outcast. Not sure yet if I’m going to keep toying with this or not, as it’s not as pleasing to my eye as a somewhat thicker line (though we’re only talking about a 0.05mm difference, nominally).

Here’s the face, and some adjustment in the brow. Further would be required The head is too long.

Here’s the basic colors. You’ll note the head has been considerably refined, and the colors, which had shifted around as I worked, trying to find the right balance between them, have settled down. From here, the Cobra logo was added, which involved about 10 minutes of Warp adjustment to build the curve of the décolletage. Slight darkening and we’re done. A Transparent GIF was sent off to the group.
Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 08 – Wonder Woman [New 52]

TRDL thom — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:09:04 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 08 – Wonder Woman [New 52 Jim Lee Design]

This was done for the TRDL R3 Challenge this week, the subject being the New 52 version of Wonder Woman.

When I first saw this design (Jim Lee’s concept art specifically) I felt that the detailing was overwrought and the redundancy in the little gilded W’s everywhere was distracting. However, what I DID like about it was that he used silver instead of gold detailing, which was something I’d done myself when redesigning the previous Jim Lee redesign (the jacket one) so there’s that. Since this design was released, it was hacked up in public view, by other artists drawing off-model as well as by editorial decision, and we ended up first with a simplified version of the costume and later with no pants, apparently responding to the demands of fandom. I think I’ve found something to like in each design version, the longer I looked at them. Anyway, I chose Jim Lee’s first version of the New 52 redesign to see if I could make sense of the detail in the bodice and leggings and such. Wasn’t as painful as I feared, but there’s a lot going on!

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

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Background:

This is the version of Jim Lee’s design that I approached. Ribbed bodice, multi-seamed ‘wonderpants’, star cutouts in everything, multiple W motifs in the silver, ribbed lower legs, and in general, a younger woman with bigger hair. More aggressive, more contemporary as according to DC editorial.

Compare that to this version we next saw leaked to comic news sites, with a streamlined version of that design, roughly. The outrage over pants continued.

And the design they seemed to have settled with, with no pants, long hair, more retro-styled boots, and so on.

My original pencils. I found them troubling. First, I was going for that sort of vague action stance you might find on a cover or splash page, not so dynamic as to obscure the figure, but not as static as the standing figure drawings I like doing. So she’s sort of galloping at you. Pencil issues with the face and a few other places due to dull lead tip and an infant on me.
I posted this Work in Progress to R3 and the Outcast Forum for comments, and got some good feedback, including increasing the hand scale, decreasing the head, and working on the right arm musculature.

Here’s inks…

…and processed for render. Well, something went terribly wrong with the inks in the face, that’s for sure. Photoshop to the rescue.

First edit, based on eagle-eyed Outcaster comments: I increased the definition in the right arm biceps and pushed the rotator cuff into more obvious extension to make it clearer that this arm was pulling back a bit.

Next up, head. Though the head size is another indicator of approximate age intent, I did want to reduce it so I dropped it by about 10% and worked on the hair. That also allowed me to fix some issues with neck placement and detail. I also reduced the volume above the forehead and adjusted the headpiece.

Here’s the skin I used. I often draw WW with a darker skintone, falling somewhere between stylized greek and stylized islander. But the New 52 is very much a white white white WW, so I gave her a much lighter skin tone this time.

Here’s the red bodice. I used a slightly more saturated red than the reference pic, but not too warm.

I started with a much lighter blue and blue-gray for the costume in order to have some clarity in the coloring, but I’d be definitely darkening it.

Instead of a white silver, I went more titanium with the metal, to be honest. I think it looks better, personally.

Here we are, ready for some color tweaks.

I went very dark with the pants and blue overall, but not as dark as the reference, which seems to be almost blue-black leather with a lot of shine to it.

For the lasso, I actually freehanded the arcs. I wish I was proficient enough in Illustrator to build a path like that, but I played with this for awhile and liked the result. My favorite detail is the shine on her legs.

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 02 – Admiral Hamilton (Time Traveler)

TRDL thom — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:49:12 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 02 – Admiral Hamilton [Time-Traveler Version]

Admiral Hamilton is one of the creator-owned characters I’ve helped one of my longterm clients design and flesh out for his universe of stories and comics. Think space opera, but with a decidedly personal tether back to cultural experiences of the author. So, Admiral Hamilton, one of maybe 12-14 characters I’ve done for Al Hobbie, was already worked out last year or so in his middle-aged adult persona, which can be seen in the process notes below. The challenge this time, and I have to say one of the hardest ones to suss out as a designer to date, was to send him back in time, into the 70′s Projects somewhere in the hard inner city, but wearing victorian dress. Also, he was to have aged considerably, and wield a technologically-enhanced walking cane. And have a cyborg lower half. With ROM style feet. But not be pantless. And he was to look either angry or crazed, depending. He’s trying to get back home, etc. As you can imagine, it was a journey reaching a design that realized the client’s vision and made some visual sense. More on that in the notes! But it’s always fun working with Al, and I’m in this for precisely this reason: finding a design solution to the images in a client’s head, even when they are hard to nail down.

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

:::

Background:

This is Admiral Hamilton in his middle-aged adult form, designed previously.

This was my first pass at pencils. I didn’t yet understand he would have a cybernetic body that was visible and out of place. At this point, I still thought he was IN the Victorian Period, and trying to blend in, a la Star Trek Away Missions involving idiosyncratic time travel. Hence the android parts shaped and faceted to look like clothes.

Here’s the revised pencils. Now wer’e coming at the viewer, more obviously emotionally charged. The cane is more techy. The concept of a bot bottom end is now happening. I new I wouldn’t want this guy waltzing around with a long coat on top and bare robot physiology below, because he’d read pantless. Which is only going to happen in a SugarDVD search. So I’d draw in pants later, digitally. I envisioned them as being tattered.

Original inks…

Ready for render. Again, digital pants.

The skin work was based on the original character design I did, with a few tweaks. I like playing with skin tones, and he is one of the darkest african american characters I’ve done. For the new aged version, I weathered him even more, darker skin by a hair, and more pepper to the hair. Which is receding. Nothing wrong with that.

I did the colors for his top half first. I was tempted to work in blacks but I fell in love with some brown/grays along the way.

Hey, digital pants! I faded the work on a layer group beneath so I could see what’s what.

Colors for said pants.

And the figure is complete!

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 01 – Starfire (Happy New Year)

TRDL thom — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:53:28 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 01 – Starfire [New 52]
Third Rail Thrills Pinup No. 73

This was done for the TRDL R3 Jam this week, the subject being the New 52 reboot design version of Starfire from DC Comics.

I used this week’s jam selection as an opportunity to roll out our TRDL Happy New Year pic, which was a lot of fun, despite my general dislike for this character (going back to my childhood, frankly, but even with the reboot, I’m failing to understand the design logic of chaps slash thigh high flare pants over boots paired with impossible brazier business the likes of which even Quitely’s Emma Frost couldn’t pull off). That all said, half the fun is doing the superdeformed (well, thats how I knew them, from my youth; they are referred to as chibi these days) character for the new year’s baby. Last time I did MODOK, in 2009-2010′s Rogue pic, and this time we have the New 52 version of Darkseid. Anyway, I tried a few things out with Starfire’s energy fire hair, and tweaked her colors in her skin and outfit to have a bit more saturation and harmony to them. Otherwise, it’s the reboot design. So, Happy new Year (Western) from Third Rail Design Lab!

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

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In addition, here’s the familiar Third Rail Thrills series variant of the same pinup. Say, I mentioned this in another post, but let me know if you like the sepia background on the more recent ones over the gray background I was using previously. Which works better over the course of a series of images? I want to be consistent.

You can find a larger version of the TRT variant here.

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Background:

Here’s the New 52 redesign of Starfire, but as drawn by dA artist legend Kazeki, with much improvement over what you would find in the funny books.

And here’s Jim Lee’s design for the new Darkseid.

Here’s the pencils, done on New Years Day in fact. One handed. Difficult.

Here’s inks, ready for processing. Not too bad.

Flats for Starfire, done all at once in this instance rather than just focusing on the skin. I did it this way because I was tweaking the colors to fit more nicely together in my mind. Note also I fixed Starfire’s pupils, which were inked but are now gone. They technically still exist in terms of color shift, but no longer inked distinctly.

Skin, rendered.

The clothes, rendered. Still can’t wrap my head around this costume.

Here’s the base hair color, prior to energizing the ink work, so to speak.

The hair inks now color shifted and glowed.

Various bits of the final composition…

Here’s flats for lil Darkseid…

Final render for Darkseid. Love that grin.

The rest was composited in the image container, including crafting the banner and such.
Dedicated to my dear friends at the Comic Alliance comment squad!
ha

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL Featured on Comics Alliance

TRDL thom — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:32:17 +0000

Outcast and dA member Aoste sent me a note the other day that my Third Rail Thrills series was featured on Comics Alliance. You can check it out at the link below:

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/12/2 … n-lab-art/

That was a nice surprise! The comments on CA are pretty polarizing, but that’s to be expected with such a large site, but hey, if even a few click through and see the main body of my work, especially the creator-owned TRDL Universe stuff or the Finit-e comic, then any press is good press! But all the same, a great way to end the year!

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TRDL 2011 Holiday Con Sketch – Blue Devil

TRDL thom — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:37:43 +0000

Next up in my holiday con sketch series: Blue Devil, from 80′s DC Comics, for Tropiko.
Happy holidays dude!

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TRDL 2011 Series No. 87 – Pixie

TRDL thom — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 21:21:06 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 87 – Pixie [Uncanny X-Men]
Third Rail Thrills Pinup No. 71

This was done for the TRDL R3 Jam this week, the subject being the use of wings in the illustration.

This time, I chose to do an X-Men member that seems pretty awkwardly used in the pages of the title book, but well characterized in earlier books like New X-Men. In Uncanny, Pixie looks like any other Greg Land supermodel, grinning and acting fabulous and posing, with virtually no personality from the script bleeding into the art. But my impression of this character is one of teen insecurity, playfulness, exotica, and independence. In, I suppose, some sort of subconscious response to how Land’s work paints her as a 6′ tall anorexic sex object, I chose a reasonably demure classic pinup pose that doesn’t show you much of her womanly business, hides her skin under the X-Men uniform, and showcases two aspects of the design I really like: her pink/purple hair, ears and black eyes, for the face, and her translucent gossamer wings. So, I hope that was successful. I wanted to show her as being pretty and feminine without being overt.

You can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

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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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Background:

I couldn’t bring myself to post one of Land’s illustrations, but her eis a slightly more reasonable cover art pic showing Pixie center-stage.

Here’s my favorite pic of the character, by Joe Pekar. Love this piece!

Here’s the original pencil sketch for this piece. I’m pretty sure I was holding my newborn son in one arm and had my toddler daughter hanging off my other. Still…

Inks for the piece. Kind of minimal since the wings would be done digitally.

I originally had sort of a lift in the forward facing leg showing more rear end definition, but I decided there was no point to it, and eliminated it.

In my mind’s eye Pixie has skin of a pinkish hue. But all the references I could dig up showed normal caucasian skin with pink hair. I settled on more pinkish hue than i normally use, but still ‘normal’.

Ah yes, I knew I had forgotten something: her elven ear!

I did the yellows of the costume first, then dropped black in to the remaining parts and dropped the opacity so I could see what I was doing. I didn’t want the bluish black of some X-Men uniforms, but I wanted a little highlight too, but soft, like neoprene.

Here’s that soft highlight.

The figure completed. From here, I brought her into the Third Rail Thrills container, and did the wings digitally.

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2011 Series No. 85 – Enchantress

TRDL thom — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 01:03:56 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 85 – Enchantress / Executioner [After Robert McGinnis]

This was done for the TRDL R3 Jam this week, our 2011 Annual Vlad Fiks Memorial Noir Jam.

Here’s the sneak WIP I posted to Tumblr earlier in the week.

The concept of my piece this year is to pay homage to three or four aspects of my relationship with the dear, departed Vlad Fiks: love of lighting, classic Marvel, pulp novels and a commission. You see, many years ago Vlad commissioned me to do a Marvel U babe, this being prior to my modern pin-up series work. I chose Enchantress, and drew her in her original costume. He liked it, but it was a flawed piece, and over the years I felt I could do better, and drew a new piece, which you can see here and below in the process notes. I sent it to Vlad as a surprise, framed. That week, we learned he died. I never knew if he got the illustration, but I was glad I had done it, even if the timing was chilling. So this time around, I did this illustration as a nod to a classic Robert McGinnis pulp novel cover for Kill Now, Pay Later (by Robert Kyle), but featuring Enchantress and her longtime lover/minion, the Executioner. The concept is that Skurge the Executioner has raised the stakes and seized the throne of Asgard… but without the Odinfire, the realm is eternally dark. His manipulator and seducer, Enchantress, sits with her face in shadow. It’s a hollow victory, the sort of rewards such skullduggery yields in pulp stories. Anyway, this was for Vlad, and I hope he’d like it if he could see it today…

You can read more about the process on this pic after the jump…

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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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Background:

This was the new commission piece I had sent to Vlad, the same week he passed.

Here’s a reference piece of painted work, showing the pair of characters I used. I don’t have an artist credit at this time, but when I find one, I’ll add it.

Here’s the cover I was referencing, by Robert McGillis. He is better known for the James Bond work, but this one spoke to me.

My original sketch for this piece.

The pencils, refined from the sketch and drawn pretty tightly. Oops, her head is too big. Or is her torso too tiny? Hmm…

Ok, so the problem was mainly this: the original piece showed the femme fatale hunched over, so you saw her back, her extended arm, but not must of her chest. In mine, I have some arch, but mostly chest (sounds like a SugarDVD search)… so I needed to pull the trigger on one of the two.

Lots of digital refinement.

The axe handle was drawn digitally along with the throne and a lot of details. Vlad worked almost exclusively digitally, and was a real inspiration in that regard. I wish I had the tools and interest in this area then that I have now.

I reduced and tightened up her head by about 10%.

Skin and hair for Enchantress. It’s always tough to choose a blonde hair color that is less artificial yellow than comic standards, but bit so realistic that it looks like hay.

My original piece for Enchantress above used very dark greens. Here I was trying for something much more saturated like a modern look at classic comic color choices. It ended up being too much and getting tweaked later, but this was where I started.

Enchantress, done and ready for Executioner.

Now we’re done and ready for the throne and background, all digital.

Thanks for reading.

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