TRDL News and Reviews » Film

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/

:::

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.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

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.

:::

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.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

TRDL 2011 Series No. 79 – Catwoman Redesign Variant

TRDL thom — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:22:52 +0000

I got some pretty strong feedback in favor of this version of my Nolan Batman film universe Catwoman redesign, so I thought I’d post it in case you didn’t see it in the process notes for the main pic. Where in the final version I had used a blue monochromatic effect overall for the mood I was going for, in this one she’s in ruddy colored steel with a similar background tint, which folks said allowed them to see more detail and balance the figure. So, here you go!

Original version here:
http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com/blog/ … -redesign/

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

TRDL 2011 Series No. 79 – Catwoman Redesign

TRDL thom — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:39:23 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 79 – Catwoman (Nolan Batman Universe) [TRDL Redesign]

This was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being a speculative design for the third Nolan Batman film’s introduction of Catwoman.

We’ve seen, at this point, some images and video from the shoot showing Anne Hathaway in a plain black jumper with, at some stage, silver high heels and at another stage, a set of goggles that when flipped up look like ears. These could be real, or maguffins, we just don’t know. But the design challenge was to present our own concept of what Catwoman should look like in that film’s universe.

Much like my first Catwoman redesign in January of this year (a comic character blank slate redesign, so different) my image of her is an athletic, stealthy burglar performing heists. I gave her a tactical suit with a tool belt and copious quantities of rope, with the very upper arms exposed merely for cooling and frankly design style. She wears a full head cowl with an open face area, and a pair of low-light imaging goggles with slit lenses, giving her a cat eye appearance. I gave her cool Egyptian style cat-eye makeup as well, for science.

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

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Background:

Here’s the worst-case scenario of what we’ve seen of the film costume.

My inks over pencils, done a few days before we went into the hospital to bring my son into the world…

Where it languished until last night when circumstances allowed for completion. Here’s the skin and face. I noted immediately changes required in nose placement and the left eye, but I wanted to wait and do it in the final pass.

Flats. Not surprisingly, black. However, I used blue tones to give it some flavor.

As I showed in the Batgirl WIPs, I drop opacity on colors when I’m shading dark color because it allows me to see. Especially when sleep deprived and delirious.

Highlights. Possibly the first time I’ve used pink lenses?

Here’s that face correction.

Now, I originally did this pic’s full background in two variants: blues to match the figure, and reds for contrast. But while the reds looked cool, the blue actually had a gotham bridge feel, which I was going for.
Here’s that variant:

Thanks for reading.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

TRDL Commission – Glue Junkie

TRDL thom — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 17:11:56 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 67 – Glue Junkie Commission

Note: Hi-Rez version here!

OK, this one requires some ‘splainin. This was a commission done for Nicholas Frank, who has an Etsy shop called Glue Junkie. He has produced all of our TRDL and Team Lope vinyl, many of them on very short notice turnaround before events. Awesome guy. So, I did this piece to thank him for all of his work. I was given a very broad set of parameters and the opportunity to ignore them if I wanted. He had the idea of his girlfriend as the 50-foot-tall woman fighting a giant mecha. They have two dogs, and he gave me a bunch of interests and details for each of them to inspire me. From there, I cooked up a TRDL Cryptohistorical Redesign, one of these long format old-timey poster prints I have been doing when I do illustrations of friends. Here, it’s an ad for tickets to an oratory by survivors of the REAL reason London burned: Evil Doctor Lola, a mutated terrier, kidnapped our hapless engineer’s dame, supersized her and by controlling her mind with his remote, sent her on a rampage through London, forcing Nick to build a giant steam automaton to pilot in an attempt to stop her and free her from Lola’s clutches. And such.

Process notes below, including some of the easter eggs in this piece.

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

PROCESS:

So I don’t really do likenesses when I draw friends and real people, but I take their look to heart when building the illustrated version of them. Her’s Nick and his girlfriend before a jump.

Here’s Lola, one of their pups. Not evil.

I had the mental image pretty clearly, once I decided to set this in the Industrial Age, so it was just a matter of laying down pencils to help organize the composition, since much of this would be digitally constructed on the Cintiq.

[img][img]http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com/rimages5/2gluei.jpg[/img][/img]
After pencils, I scanned them all in, composited them roughly how I wanted the close-ups of the adversaries (Lola and Nick) and then set it to blueline to print out for inking. It was hand inked from there as you see here.

The inks were fun. So much so that my toddler, Wee Z, got up IN there when I was getting her some milk, and adorned the piece with her own embellishments. This is the first time she’s gotten to one of my commission pieces. Not to worry, that’s what digital ink correction is for!

For Lola it was about building up the layers of color in the hair. Man, animal hair is tough. At least the terrier hair’s bristly looking fibers made it somewhat easier to render. I had to play around with the color of the outfit in order to make it play nice with the rest of the composition as planned. The steampunk remote with the transistor on top just cracks me up.
Note the hat has an owl pin. That was one of the easter eggs.

Nick was fun because I wanted to capture some of his contemporary look, ie. the short hair and the under-lip stud, but I wanted him to have that young science hero thing going on. I love all the steam filling up his cockpit from the broken valve.

So, here’s our main adversaries, ready to go. The frames that contain them as border elements were fun too, and each is slightly different. Nick’s had an angel halo in the top little embellishment, though you can’t see it now, and Lola’s is a skull. Good vs. Evil! Huzzah!

I knew that the contrast color was going to be key on this piece, because the city and the coal smoke and the darkness of the mecha would be very heavy. I decided on playing with shades of violent and indigo. So laying out the colors for Nick’s girlfriend’s clothes was pretty fun, using different variations on those colors. Usually for pin-ups the goal is to get a cheesecake vibe going on, which can be challenging when you do Victorian era clothes. You have to get randy with a lifted skirt or what not (as with my League of Extraordinary Gentlemen piece). Here, though, the goal wasn’t cheesecake. I wanted her to look proper and elegant for the day, jut under someone else’s control. And huge. Originally, I envisioned her dress in tatters, barefoot (in homage to the B-movie film) and smudged with coal. But I decided to present this as a first moment of the encounter thing, so she would be easier to read as someone that may be an adversary, but not evil. Kind of an interesting aspect to it: she is in these violets and such, clean, fresh looking, really a focal point, yet she’s the crisis point character. And Nick’s steampunk automaton is dark, sooty, rusty, alien looking and would seem to be the bad guy, right? But of course, looks are deceiving.

Her scarf is an easter egg, by the way. Nick’s girlfriend loves an orange scarf she wears all the time, so i gave her one here too, just muted in color to match up closer to the bronze in the mecha and to avoid clashing with the purples.

Three flowers on the hat, you’ll notice.

I wasn’t sure what color the automaton was going to be, though I wanted it to have a great steampunk vibe to it. But originally I had been visualizing painted metal and gold or bronze, like a sweet period locomotive (well, like a PAINTED locomotive; all the really cool images I see from the victorian era have jet black giant monstrosities) but with the prominence of the purples in this piece, I knew it was either going to have to be a complimentary color or be bare metal, and the tone of the piece, and my own general aesthetic, went for the latter. But here, I hadn’t chosen the color yet so I had a gray placeholder.

Here’s the final color selected for the bot. I had so much fun with this design. You know I love cephalopods, so I gave it tentacle legs, but not flexy ribbed ones, but segmented, curved metal sheaths. The symbol on the head is a little bugaboo, and represented both a connection to the octopus look to the legs of the bot, but also a nod to all the awesome vinyl Nick creates and sells through Glue Junkie, including the robot that guards Zoe’s seat in our MINI. Nick had originally proposed the Etsy logo somewhere, and while I had sketched it in intending to just weather and distort it enough to not violate copyright, in the end it just wasn’t appropriate for the piece. Three smokestacks! And that torn of arm? I like it’s hand, I don’t know about you.

I started layering rus on all the major armor plates and then pooling it to the edges. I absolutely love doing this look. At one point I was playing with having most of the lower half be rusted, as if he’d been going in and out of the harbor, but then I thought this was a bot built on short notice (somehow) specifically to battle control of his kidnapped love. So the rust I’ve used is just surface rust from exposure during fabrication and use.

I started with bronze but as i worked on it, I felt it wanted something shinier. Brass, gold, some alloy? I don’t know. Something steampunky. HA.
I LOVE the crown plate above the bot’s head. I’ve used the crown motif elsewhere to represent finery: the Team Lope logo uses it thanks to Lung’s steady hand, and one of my tattoos, a TRDL crest and shield, has it as well.

The rust and weathering on the gears and other pieces of the armor that had a brownish tinge to them ended up looking really vibrant, which I liked. I toyed with having shiny scrape edges on the cog teeth, but when I tested it, it was the focal point of the whole piece, so I dropped that layer off.

Here’s the final version of the colored giants… next up was compositing into the poster format, and then about I don’t know 10 hours or so of fiddling over a week and a half of nights: getting all the text, in content and format, the way i wanted it. Drawing in burning London in that curved perspective. The fire, the smoke. Anyway, when all was said and done, I was pretty stoked!

And thankfully, so was my Client, as it was all done sight unseen!
Lots of easter eggs in the text that will have meaning for them, so I’ll let them find them themselves. Anyway, rad project!

Thanks for reading!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

TRDL 2011 Series No. 64 – Captain America [Film Version]

TRDL thom — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:00:48 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 64 – Captain America [Film Version]

This piece was done for the Captain America jam on the TRDL R3 Forum and TRDL-R3-WeeklyJam group on dA, and specifically as a birthday card for my buddy, as we were attending the film on his big day.

I’ve watched the evolution of the film costume design pretty closely, and really like the choices made. After drawing this, I saw the film, and noticed a few details in the construction of this suit that are different than I had interpreted from stills, but overall, pretty close match. I drew Steve Rogers taller as well as buff because, in my view, you can’t just supersize the muscles beyond the range of normal human capability without increasing the bone mass and surface area for connective tissue. So here, like all of my own TRDL characters as a rule, he’s bigger than your average bear.

Here’s the version I gave my buddy as a card: a USO promo photo sent to a few select lucky fans during wartime.

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

PROCESS:

Here’s a pretty good shot of the costume in the film. I love the straps for the parachute pack integrated into the tunic.

Here’s a pic of a Cap statue, which I’ve had in my queue for a long time as a reminder for the kind of muscular massing I like for the character.

Here’s a shot of the scrumptious Haylee Atwell as Peggy Carter. Note they didn’t retcon her uniform to include bustiers or slip skirts or high heels or whatever. Great period costuming.

I did this one in a series of separate pieces composited together. With a toddler trying to draw on the page the whole time. Here’s the pencils for Cap. I knew Peggy would be to his left side so I left that blank so i could digitally resolve it.

Peggy,in a pose that’s part classic B-movie femme fatale and part IN-CHARGE.

Inks for Cap…

And inks for Peggy…

Here’s the final ink comp, including a ton of digital inking and tweaking. Ready to go!

When a costume or uniform has both visual complexity AND layering, I like to start with the shade/shadow to get a sense of it before coloring. Then I turn that off while I color.

Skin tones for each.

Colors for everyone, my versions, which are either darker and richer than the film versions, or not, depending on the photos you see.

Shade reintroduced, modified here and there…

Highlights added…

I created the A on the helmet as a text element, rasterized and rendered. Beats my handwriting! Side note: I LOVE the wing motif on the sides of the helmet.

Here’s a color version of the card that would then be distressed to look old for the final version.

When I brought the work into the final template for the site, I added the shield and a few other details. I know it’s odd to not show the front of the shield in these kinds of views, but you really shouldn’t see it, as it’s strapped to his back when not in use. I suppose an argument could be made that for a promo photo he’d be waving it around, but I felt with Peggy blocking one half of him, the shield would either be blocking him, or her… so I left it on his back.

Thanks for reading!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

TRDL 2011 Series No. 62 – Iron Man vs. Wasp Vs. TMNT

TRDL thom — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:50:13 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 62 – Iron Man vs. Wasp vs. TMNT’s Raphael

UPDATE: Voting is live now:
http://outcaststudios.com/forums/index. … yal-final/

Tony Stark and Janet Van Dyne: friends, sometime lovers, now enemies through a cruel twist of fate and fortune. Raphael, mutant turtle with martial arts skills and a love of cheese, driven mad by an unfortunate case of rabies. Tony must apprehend Raphael before he bites someone, and catch the Wasp before she delivers the stolen command odes to his armory into the hands of AIM. In the labyrinthian tunnels beneath the city, Iron Man races against time to defeat his foes, minutes before his hot date across town with glamorous film star Luna Liu!

This piece was done for an epic Art Battle at Outcast Studios, a Battle Royale competition featuring 32 artists. Round 01, 16 pairings, with the winners moving on to the next round, and so on. The battles are judged on both concept and execution. My character for the series: Iron Man [Current Resilient Armor]. My Round 04 foe: The Wasp. Unfortunately, it was a tie. Fortunately, it meant for an exceedingly challenging final round, as a three-way was called, with Iron Man, Wasp and TMNT’s Raphael.

I must have gone through 10 rough sketches on this one, most being pretty decisively brutal. Concepts like Iron Man, Wasp in hand, punching a core hole THROUGH Raphael’s shell with Wasp’s face, to boiling Wasp in a soup made in the hollowed out TMNT shell, to dragging them both across the pavement at Mach 5 (an abandoned concept on Carnage)… but I wanted to keep to the general tone of comic covers, where you could show some degree of gore, depending on the rating or lack thereof, but you want to present a scene, not a panel from a comic. I also wanted to tone down the violence. Many of the comments on the previous rounds, from people generally not involved with the Outcast challenge, were bewildered and horrified by Iron man’s seemingly evil behavior. So, I tried to tell a story this time while keeping it a little tamer than I could have gone. I really like the action and momentum in this piece, and how Wasp is in that perilous moment-before-capture pose. The wing pinned to a tunnel wall is of course a reference to the classic Morlocks story in X-Men when Angel was pinned up in that Claremontian christian allegory. And the mangled, broken arm and hand and dislocated shoulder? Well, I never understood how people fighting someone with super strength and armor didn’t end up more injured from the fight and the grappling than any particular offensive attack.

This is Round 05. 29 artists have been eliminated, we’re down to this three-way final pairing. Go vote!

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

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Background:

Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, in her last incarnation before the [temporary] end.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Raphael…

I chose Iron Man, the current Resilient armor. This was not only because of my general love of Iron Man, but also to challenge myself with this brutally difficult armor design. It remains brutal.

Process:

FIGHT!

So my first pass at this piece was still a bit more gruesome: Iron Man was carrying that mangled TMNT arm… but it was already torn off his foe. I presented this, and the scheme below, to Lung for comment, and he advised for the latter.

Having the whole body being dragged along served several purposes: it shows power and speed, for Iron Man to be flying along carrying him like a bag of oranges; it balanced out the composition, and frankly, didn’t look so much like a cop out to avoid drawing a turtle, which in my opinion was the hardest part of this one, making a TMNT design work in my style. So, this is the one I chose.

Here I’ve composited the three separate pencil pieces and have ghosted them with Multiply, and am beginning digital inks. My time on this, the FINAL, was ridiculously short. We had a week to do them, but my family and professional obligations only allowed for pencils the night before and full render in the morning, the day it was due (technically into the evening, since the deadline was in a different time zone) I think this was of the fastest I’ve ever worked, and I was pretty stoked on it.

I’ve begun to take advantage of the rotate canvas view tool in Photoshop and it’s done wonders for my digital inks. I’m one of those artists who never really got comfortable with my palm off the paper, so my arcs are necessarily influenced by hand position. Rotating the page allows me to stay comfortable as I work. Additionally, I knew I was going to keep this from being IM being straight on against the camera, I just didn’t know yet exactly how the final rotated angle would be… So I was playing around as I worked.

Here, I’ve done the primary inks and am adding a heavier line for the surface contour. This differs from my usual three-lineweight style, as the brush in Photoshop wants to have some variation in lineweight so I really kept it to two or three brush sizes, and the variations as I worked with pressure on the stylus.

Laying down flat colors just to get everything on there. I changed Raphael’s colors considerably to try and capture a more natural look from the four-color-cartoon version with which most are familiar. Side note: I’m old enough to still think of TMNT as a black and white book!

Here’s Wasp, rendered completely sans wings, which would be added in the final comp.

Raphael came out particularly well, I thought. I think I conveyed the broken arm, dislocated shoulder and mangled hands pretty well…

Iron Man done. Colors to be changed…

You may have noticed I did some color changes too this time, darkening his reds and making his yellow more golden to give it a richness in the tunnel.

From here, it was into the final comp, rendering the tunnel, the foreground curve, the sai stabbing her wing, the wings, the water, the speed lines, the light levels, etc. What fun!

Hope you enjoyed it! Wish me lucks.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

TRDL 2011 Series No. 57 – Iron Man vs. Wasp

TRDL thom — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 16:31:10 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 57 – Iron Man vs. Wasp

UPDATE: Voting is live now:
http://outcaststudios.com/forums/index. … mi-finals/

Tony Stark and Janet Van Dyne: friends, sometime lovers, now enemies through a cruel twist of fate and fortune. The Wasp’s challenge: how to get to the man within the nearly impenetrable, regenerative, adaptive, post-Extremis biowear? Shrinking won’t work, as the armor is hardened to vacuum. Growing to massive size would give her a physical edge, but he would still be more agile and dangerous at range. The only choice: play the old card, lure him out of the armor for a secret rendezvous, then strike! Unfortunately, Stark has come to expect such things these days, and has protection waiting in the wings. What will happen next?

I mentioned before that as I progressed in this competition, if lucky enough to do so, I would make things harder and harder for Stark. This is also combined with an unwillingness to use lethal force against a friend. In this case, I was struck by the image of a long shot, low to the ground, of all the armor spread out all over the place with the lovers entwined in the back as the focal point, much like those classic shots in films where the characters flew up to their room and got crazy. The hitch would be that it’s not as decisive as it looks: Janet thinks she got him with the sting, but the armors are powered up behind her, one of the most classic ‘Iron Man Armory’ images ever. Of course, in execution, there are a number of factors at play: Stark’s current armor forms from nanites in his bone marrow, so there really isn’t armor to be shedded. But nonetheless, I thought it was a cool image. What may burn me in the competition is that the others have been clamoring for ACTION! and unfortunately, I chose to go the other way. We’ll see.

Here’s a quick bonus: the original version of this pic included his gold underlayment sheathing spread away in all directions as if the shock of the sting disrupted his ability to control it. It was also a bit of an Akira nod. It probably would play better in the competition, but I felt it was too busy against that cool floor.

This is Round 04. 28 artists have been eliminated, we’re down to 2 pairings.

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

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Background:

Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, in her last incarnation before the [temporary] end.

I chose Iron Man, the current Resilient armor. This was not only because of my general love of Iron Man, but also to challenge myself with this brutally difficult armor design. It remains brutal.

Process:

FIGHT!

Here’s my original sketch of the armor spread out everywhere. All it’s missing is the ubiquitous bra hanging off the bed. Except, no bed. And she’s wearing the bra.

This is the rough sketch of the armors that would be standing behind her in the gloom.
This would be a digital rendering so I could work out the perspective more accurately.

Here’s the pair of em. I first thought about her sting finger being close to his reactor, but I decided to have her arm up and away so that I could really emphasize the sting electricity.

Flesh worked out. I like Tony Stark tan. And I seem to only draw Stark the man, without armor, once every 5 years or something. I gave Jan that pixie do, the way I like imagining the character.

Flats for the armor colors…

The gold of Wasp’s chestpiece thing needed to punch lighter than the darker gold of the armor. I also had to add in the stinger whips at the top of the bustier.

Main armor components are complete. You can see I colored at a brighter light level than would ultimately be used in this darker scene.

Here’s the digital rendering of the armors in back. I’ve never drawn Hulkbuster. For good reason. But this was a good warm-up for when I deal with it in the Iron Man Series illustration.

I think I let the glows get dulled by the gloom back there. Higher contrast with the repulsors might have worked better.

This was the original scheme, with the bioarmor splaying out around them… the Akira reference… but it seemed to add too much visual texture. Had some fun giving it a shimmery weird effect though.

Hope you enjoyed it! Wish me lucks.

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

TRDL 2011 Series No. 55 – Uncanny X-Men #173 Homage

TRDL thom — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 17:07:46 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 55 – Uncanny X-Men #173 Homage [TRDL Redesign]

This piece was done for the Comic Cover Homage Jam on the TRDL R3 Forum.

For me, though I had been drawing superheroes and all manner of beast and bot since about age 3, it was Uncanny X-Men #173 that really got me going. Wolvie and Rogue, tense partners and former foes, on the run to face SIlver Samurai in Japan, while the rest of the X-Men lie dying, poisoned in a nearby hospital. Paul Smith! I did not do his work justice, but I made this a TRDL Redesign: Wolverine’s costume is leaner and tighter and more leathery/buckled with colors reflecting an arctic wolverine (dark brown’black fur with a halo of whiter fur on the belly and brow) and my Rogue is more confident and aggressive, with a bit of exposed flesh, and button-snap removable gloves. Oh, and while it’s nowhere near as fun to see, I draw my Wolverine with claws IN, unless actually in combat. Just watch Hugh Jackman in those films with his wobbly, awkward claws out while running. He can extend them so fast, no need to have your agility and hand articulation hampered prematurely, I say.

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

PROCESS NOTES:

First, the cover. Here is the original Uncanny X-Men #173. I even remember getting it in the comic shop in Westwood. Actually, I SHOULD. I had to choose between this book, and a weird indy black and white #1 issue about turtles with swords. So, I may not have a LEAR JET NOW, but at least i have a life-long passion for comic art. True story.

And here is the version of a real Wolverine I drew my inspiration from. Other regional versions have two tone brown and ruddy red color fur. I liked the contrast on this one.

So I drew Rogue and Wolvie separately over a few late nights, this time, as rough pencils mostly. My original hope was to try and do all the inks digitally on the Cintiq, but as it happened, I only had time to do digital inks on Rogue in that format.

Here’s hand inks on the sketch of Wolverine. I realllllly LOVE Paul Smith’s cover, with that lean, bent over run that he gave Wolvie, combined with the way he placed Rogue in the void under his extended arm. So yeah, mine wasn’t that. In fact, I took the approach of being inspired BY but not mimicking the original cover. I don’t have that same graphic balance, for sure. And I think, even after the digital lower-half that I put together for WOlvie below I still would have benefitted from him being more hunched over. But it was a fun exercise.

Here I used the hand inks of Wolvie’s top half, plus digital inks for the lower half, now being done with a Wacom, and then some symmetrical balance for the arms.

I had to get Rogue and Wolvie to fit so that they formed a proprtionaltely square mass that would fill the cover more than the original did, but also not obscure much of Rogue’s costume, as this was a redesign exercise as well as a cover homage.

Wolvie’s flesh, dark and tan and hairy. I gave him short sleeves, figuring he’d like unencumbered arms and frankly, he doesn’t need to protect them from anything. Also, I showed his central zipper seam unzipped for some cool air. I never thought about it before Frank Quitely did it: if anyone is going to disrespect the uniform and unzip it for comfort, it’s Wolverine. HA. You can imagine Cyclops all agitated about it.

Here’s the color scheme for the uniform. The black and white contrast is pretty cool, I think, and with very specific, localized whites per my inspirational animal. I love the custom costumes he’s worn in X-Force (the all black, and then the all white) but this time, there’s a reason for the colors.

Rogue’s skin is fairer and like spots of warmth in her dark green gear.

Here’s the body suit and segmented cloak. The stripe motif is on the uniform and on the hood. None in the hair. I love this design. Flirty, dangerous hints of her confidence with the skin sneaks. This is not an intimidated, fearful Rogue. This is a Rogue in control. The arm-sleeve-gloves unbutton with a snap from the short sleeves. The scarf is a nod to Destiny.

This was a fun final step. I had to digitally remove Wolvie’s head from the original cover’s logotype, redraw the lettering, and drop in the new figures in front of it. Compositionally, much more in your face. Also, check out the head-badge int he upper left for some other changes for this alternate universe version of the published book…

Thanks for reading!

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!

TRDL 2011 Series No. 47 – Hector Hammond [TRDL Redesign]

TRDL thom — Mon, 23 May 2011 05:36:23 +0000

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 47 – Hector Hammond [TRDL Redesign]

This piece was done for the Hector Hammond redesign challenge o the R-R-RedesignWeekly group on dA.

My concept: Hector Hammond, who in mainstream Green Lantern books suffered a severe brain mutation and disfigurement, in my version the effects of the mutation continue to grow and grow such that he can no longer support the weight of his cranium. However, his psychotelekinetic abilities grew proportionately and he was ultimately able to defeat Hal Jordan. He crafted an exoskeleton to carry his body, now useless and atrophied, tucked under it, and fused Jordan’s confiscated ring into the front of the machine like a cruel masthead. Realizing his twisted fantasy, he wears Jordan’s tattered Green Lantern uniform as well. Note: Hammond, not being trained in the use of a ring, doesn’t understand that he could heal himself or correct his physical damage through ring manifestation, so he utilizes this battle carapace, somewhat oblivious of the irony.

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

PROCESS:

Background:

Here’s old Hector Hammond in the comics:

Progress:

Here’s the original pencils, capturing the majority of what I wanted: the huge beetle carapace for the brain, and the atrophied body below.

Inks worked out pretty well, given a back injury and a hurtling toddler.

Here’s the Green Lantern uniform. My first ever for a Hal style uniform. I showed it dark and grungy.

The original concept was the armor was gold, as a nod to Parallax. However, as the film ramps up, I figured it was excessive.

From here, the piece sort of finished itself!

please enjoy

Follow this topic in the R3 Forum here!