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?

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.

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, … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series No. 62 – Iron Man vs. Wasp Vs. TMNT
2. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 13: Iron Man Series – Stealth Armor
3. TRDL 2011 No. 8 – Iron Man Series – Original Armor

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.

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/

:::

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 … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 13: Iron Man Series – Stealth Armor
2. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 18: Artemis [Young Justice]
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 79 – Catwoman Redesign

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.

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/

:::

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 … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series No. 40 – Iron Man Series: Force Redesign
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 79 – Catwoman Redesign
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 31: Scandal Savage [TRDL Redesign]

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 35 – Iron Man vs. Batman [DKR]

Two foes meet spontaneously for the first time. Tony Stark recognizes the killing instinct in his desperate. battle-scarred adversary. Taking no chances, he binds the brute in his own awkward cape and launches him into orbit. The man in the bat costume tries to say something in the first few seconds of acceleration, but the comment is inaudible as veins in his face explode. "Now, what was I thinking about? Ah. Dinner reservations."

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 01 foe: Batman [Dark Knight Returns version]

Lots of ways of going about this battle. Does Stark know Wayne’s coing for him, or vice versa? Have either gathered intelligence on each other? was it an ambush or chance encounter? Both men are brilliant, with Bruce Wayne being more cunning, and Tony Stark being smarter. Tony plans chess moves upon chess moves. Wayne does his homework. Also, how realistic do we take this? Like my old supers RPG campaigns, is it slugfests or does each of them wait outside the other’s penthouses with a sniper rifle? For the purposes of this exercise, I chose to make it a spontaneous, no-holds-barred confrontation. I decided that if Stark is as smart as I believe he is, he’d know not to underestimate Batman. Better to take him out as fast as possible. I thought about him punching hole in Batman’s chest, or repulsoring his face off, but there was something satisfying about the humiliation … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 13: Iron Man Series – Stealth Armor
2. TRDL 2011 No. 8 – Iron Man Series – Original Armor
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 40 – Iron Man Series: Force Redesign

Third Rail Thrills No. 57 – Babydoll [Sucker Punch]
TRDL 2011 Series, No. 27

This was based on a sketch I did for the daily sketch challenge on #DailySketchChallenge, on DA.

Sucker Punch seems to be many things to many people, most of them polarizing. Seeing the previews and promo art, it looked to me like a live-action hybrid of fantasy/adventure gaming, anime and urban fetish. Sounds great to me! I decided to draw Babydoll because I thought she was the most striking of the protagonist character designs, with the ghostly white hair and the schoolgirl uniform. I went for a classic pin-up pose, inspired by one of the masters, and though there’s a panty peak, I think it’s pretty tame overall. I had a lot of fun working out the details of the costume and accessories, as usual…

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

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/

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Background:

Here’s the character Babydoll, from the Sucker Punch film promo posters.

And here’s Edward Runci’s ‘Surprising Mystery’ from 1945, the pose inspiration for this one. Intimidating working from source material like that. What I generally do is print it out in black and white, and roughly sketch in the pose and forms, and then set the original aside: I’m not reproducing the original work, only drawing inspiration from it, so I try to step away from it after that … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. Third Rail Thrills No. 54 – Wasp [And Ant-Man]
2. Third Rail Thrills 49- Velma Pin-Up
3. Third Rail Thrills 38 – Brandy Pin-Up

TRDL 3:33 2011 Series No. 15 – MARV [Sin City] and 16 – Captain Atom

Done for the #DailySketchChallenge on DeviantArt…
http://dailysketchchallenge.deviantart.com/

i’ve never drawn Marv. I’ve never even seen the film, only read the books… but man, what a fun face to draw. I drew it off-frame to give him menace. As for Captain Atom, well, he has Atom envy.

The 3:33 Project is art done in 3 minutes and 33 seconds or less. I use post-its. For science!

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

Related posts:

1. TRDL 3:33 2011 Series No. 10 -MODOK
2. TRDL 3:33 2011 Series No. 9 – Sabertooth
3. TRDL 3:33 2011 Series No. 7 – Human Torch

Third Rail Thrills No. 56 – Elphaba [Wicked]
TRDL 2011 Series, No. 26

This was based on a sketch I did for the daily sketch challenge on #DailySketchChallenge, on DA.

I’ve wanted to draw Elphaba ever since I saw Wicked, but never had the chance until now. While I really love her look in the musical, with the tight ponytail and glasses, I was inspired to give her tight kinky hair and a looser robe. Well, a MUCH looser robe, this being a pin-up and all… however, when I started the piece, I had a few ugly little monkey minions sitting with her, but I decided to redraw that aspect of the piece, and ended up drawing a monkey minion in a bomber jacket, which I think steals the show, personally.

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

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/

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Background:

Here’s Idina Menzel as Elphaba, from the musical Wicked. Man I loved that show.

And here’s a Witchmonkey plushie. For science.

Progress:

Here are the original pencils. Well, I guess they seem like DRUNK pencils at this point, but you get the idea. Ugly monkeys.

First, I pulled the monkeys and broom away and isolated Elphaba so I could clean up the inks and take care of this part of the pin-up first.

I played around with a few shades of green. She really needed a warm … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. Third Rail Thrills No. 54 – Wasp [And Ant-Man]
2. Third Rail Thrills 49- Velma Pin-Up
3. Third Rail Thrills 38 – Brandy Pin-Up

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 22: Wasp + Ant-Man [Avengers]
Third Rail Thrills No. 54!

This was done for the TRDL R3 Jam on the R3 Forum and DeviantArt Group, the subject being: Wasp and Ant-Man, from the Avengers.

I love drawing the Wasp. She’s one of those characters in my reading growing-up that I liked despite several reasons, as an adult, that I probably wouldn’t like the same way if introduced to her now. I mean, she’s a socialite, her role has generally been ‘super-wife’ and for older readers like me, or newer ones familiar with her Ultimates version, she carries the bagage of spousal abuse in her storylines. She’s described as a scientist but all she does is generate costume changes. And now she’s been martyred, for the moment, in an event book a few years ago. So, what’s the deal? It’s that she was the female founding member of a boy’s band, she’s a cute brunette sure, and she takes a confident position both with friends and foes. For all her 60′s sexist fluff that she inherited from the early days, she is one of the lasting Marvel women that showed real spine and an intelligent, cool-headed approach to the various Avengers conflicts. Anyway, she’s also fun for me as an artist because she has had maybe 3,000 costumes over the years, so there’s lots of opportunity to draw different looks. This time, it’s her debut costume, along with Ant-Man, or rather, his glove.

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

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

:::

You can find … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. Third Rail Thrills 49- Velma Pin-Up
2. Third Rail Thrills 38 – Brandy Pin-Up
3. Third Rail Thrills 42 – She-Hulk Pin-Up

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 18: Artemis [Young Justice Cartoon]
Third Rail Thrills No. 53!

This was done for the TRDL R3 Jam on the R3 Forum and DeviantArt Group, the subject being: Young Justice [Cartoon version]; I chose to do the enigmatic Artemis.

I’ll admit up front that I haven’t seen the cartoon, nor have I read the comic. But I read up a bit on the character, and noted that she is NOT Arrowette, and seems to be a melange of familiar character details as they often do in cartoon/ film adaptations, though I can’t help but wonder if she will slip into DC comic continuity, I suppose alongside the Amazonian character of the same name. She’s a well designed character, I think. I did mine as a Third Rail Thrills! pin-up girl, and tried to capture all the things about the design I liked most: the curve of the bow, the tones of the green uniform against the very dark utility gear, and the long whip of hair, which I fashioned to form a crescent moon, which is the symbol for Artemis, the Greek (or some historians believe, ore-Greek) goddess herself. I originally intended her to be booted, but I was looking at a nice character reference pic from Jay, who directed some of the episodes of the show; he drew her without boots, and I was inspired to do the same.

I’m foregoing my usual process notes this time, because I went into a little more detail snapshotting the progression, so I’ve formulated that into an update on my older TRDL Method post in out Tips & Techniques Section. The link is here. Check it out!

Artists, come join us on R3 and submit to the jams! The R3 Illustration Jam offers new characters weekly, … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 13: Iron Man Series – Stealth Armor
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 79 – Catwoman Redesign
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 20 – Haywire

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 13: Iron Man Series – Stealth Armor [Iron man #152]

As I go through these armor designs for the Iron Man series, I’m taken back to my youth when I both questioned the need for all these specialized armors and at the same time fed on them like a starving dog. And consider: this was prior to the merchandising blitz of the Toyfair 90s… they really had no reason to do this other than a little bit of variety, an excuse to do something new and grab a few intrigued first-time readers, and play up Stark’s obsession with designing shit to use on occasion instead of other shit. But when I think about my life today, I totally get this aspect of the character, if we generously apply it to story and not just selling comics: I keep designing characters because I just need to keep designing characters. I have EIGHT bikes, most of them built by my own hand. I get it.

The stealth armor was especially interesting to me as a kid because it seemed so shocking to have a black armor on a (now, clear to me) skyscraper flyby shot. This was before I had a sense of black ops, and all the sorts of unauthorized military and private actions that would necessitate both not being spotted, but nearly as important, not being identified. For my piece, I kept the blacks in the blue direction, and colored his repulsors in an inky aqua.

An explanation of the project and process notes below…

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Background:

Here’s the cover for IM #152. You see, by the copy, that the implication is that he’s going in … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 No. 8 – Iron Man Series – Original Armor
2. TRDL 2011 No. 5 – Iron Man Series – Modular Armor
3. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 19: Iron Man Series – Space Armor

« More Current — Less Current »