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.

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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 … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Commission: Holocauste
2. TRDL Commission: The USS Hamilton
3. TRDL Tribute: Alina [RPG Commission]

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.

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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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 … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute- Captain America
2. TRDL Tribute: Captain America 2008
3. TRDL Tribute: Batman Begins Pre-Film Concept Art

Third Rail Thrills No. 59 – Quorra [Tron Legacy]
TRDL 2011 Series, No. 34

This was based on a sketch done by Mahasiddha for the#DailySketchChallenge, on DA. His was a page of loose sketches but this pose really struck me so I did a homage to it using the same character. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’m all about Olivia Wilde in a black bob with glowy bits, so yay me.

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/

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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:

OK here’s that original sketch. Man I love the exaggerated, loose, sexy form here.

These are the three pics I used for costume reference. It’s deceptively challenging to get right…

Process:

Here’s my original pencils. They were pretty close to my vision for the complete piece, except I was too stylized in the face and her eyes are too far apart.

Inks. I knew the face would have changes, so I figured I’d wait for the render to play with it. After this point, I abandoned the LEVEL UP reference…

I started with skin and hair. On this one her hair and the suit would be very close in tone, though neither are black in my case.

Here’s the body suit basic colors. Very closely matched. But not the same!

Here’s a shot of the highlights on the suit. I love an ink black, featureless … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. Third Rail Thrills 43 – Dr. Girlfriend Pin-Up
2. Third Rail Thrills 46 – Victoria Hand Pin-Up
3. Third Rail Thrills No. 66 – Dakota North

Third Rail Thrills 49 – Velma Pin-Up
TRDL 2011 Illustration Series No. 11

This illustration was done for the R3 Jam on TRDL’s R3 Forum. Artists can participate in any open jams by heading here. The subject this time: Scooby-Doo

For this week’s Scooby-Doo jam, I HAD to do Velma. I’ve drawn Daphne twice now, on account of her mod style, but never Velma, who was always my favorite. What can i say, the smart brunette in glasses? That tools my leather right there. This is the 11th pic in my 2011 series, and number 49 in the Third Rail Thrills series, which are contemporary characters in poses inspired by vintage pin-up art.

Please enjoy, hell yes!

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You can find a larger version here.

You can also see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Process Notes:

References:

Of course, here’s the classic cartoon Velma, complete with bowl cut and blue saucer-lenses.

However, I’m a fan of Linda Cardellini, and her thankless portrayal of Velma in the Scooby-Doo films was my primary inspiration, including the longer hair and smooth skirt.

Process:

This time, instead of late-night pencils, I had early morning pencils. I posted the topic to the jam, and then was hit with my concept quickly and just took advantage of distracted toddlers and sleeping mothers and hit the sketchbook.

The digital tweaks to these inks aren’t immediately noticable, but I brought her face into a more cute, rounder proportion, I moved the right leg higher and more tucked under her left and extended the knee (this is a mistake I continue to make for some reason) and a few small corrections.

Here are the flats. I did the entire piece flatted right away instead of doing fleshtones first, because the tenuous balance between … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. Third Rail Thrills No. 54 – Wasp [And Ant-Man]
2. Third Rail Thrills 38 – Brandy Pin-Up
3. Third Rail Thrills 43 – Dr. Girlfriend Pin-Up

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 9: HAM: Spy Chimp

This week’s TRDL R3 Jam was ‘Historical Figures’
I was inspired by one in particular, in no small part to my love of simian silliness…
HAM [Holloman Aerospace Medical Center], our first chimp in space… I drew this pic in honor of the 50th anniversary of his flight. Of course, in my version, HAM wasn’t just our first chimp in space, but also a super-cool 60′s spy! Read below for notes on the process and what some of the details mean…

Please enjoy…

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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Illustration Jam, which can be found here.

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Background:

So HAM went 160 miles into orbit on 31 January 1961, suffering greater Gs than they trained him for, all on a stomach full of cereal, and when they recovered the Mercury capsule, he was basically giving them the thumbs-up from the cockpit, so I say he’s a hero to us all. In my piece, I was inspired by the notion that he’s not only a space chimp, but a SPY chimp, sent into orbit to thwart the efforts of those dang commies. Never mind the fact that there weren’t any dang commies in orbit, unless you count dogs. But hey.

Some reference material:

HAM training!

HAM boarding!

Here’s a general chimp "Sir, General Chimp, Sir!" for color reference.

Here’s the Elvis record I wanted to use. He’s BACK! Ha. It’s been so long.

The Mercury capsule…

This is the suit I used for HAM’s model. Interesting tidbit: in 2005, archivists at NASA discovered a few of these MOL [Manned Observation Laboratory] suits in deep storage and in great condition… these … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 18: Artemis [Young Justice]
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 79 – Catwoman Redesign
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 85 – Enchantress

Annotations for Finit-e: Scene 04

Scene 04 was a weird one: it took the longest, not for lack of trying, and certainly that helped and hurt the production of the pages, and the story told within them. The pages started out, as with previous chapters, as large storyboard thumbs drawn up when the story was developed over the first few years of the new millennium, from notes and concepts gathered in the late 90s. At one point, and Lung can attest to this having lived next door, I had some 178 pages taped up along a long wall of my loft, which was quite impressive looking but daunting, thinking about the work that would go into getting the project done. And this was just Book ONE of a three book series plotted out. Over time, as you may have read, I began to systematically scale the project back, condensing the events that comprised Book One, and bringing in more of the events from Books Two and Three, in the hopes of just having a chance to complete the project in my lifetime. A lot of the concepts remained, while much of the detail would necessarily be edited out from the original story. While the book Finit-e was originally conceived as swinging back and forth between the action in the field and the messy bureaucracy behind the curtains, it was planned to be doing so in very wide swaths, so Book One was almost entirely talky-talky until the final act, setting up an action filled middle volume. This was due, in part, by my love of procedurals, from law & Order to films like Bourne Identity that dared to show agency types fumbling around, watching their asses as things got messier in the field. But really, the more I condensed it, … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 02 Annotations [BONUS]
2. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 03 Annotations [BONUS]
3. TRDL Finit-e Graphic Serial: Scene 01 Annotations [BONUS]

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 4: Fett Boba [TRDL Redesign]

This is a TRDL Redesign project. The subject: Boba Fett.
Please enjoy.

An explanation of the project and process notes below…

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This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Illustration Jam, which can be found here.

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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Background:

The inspiration for this project was two-fold:
One, regular readers will know I’m always into redesigns, both on-model updates of recognizable characters, and wholesale redesigns from original source material description. I recently did a redesign of The Joker, which was done with the intent of taking a fresh look at the simple concept of a grinning, clown-themed villain. But I didn’t have any text description of Joker to design from in a raw sense. My redesign was necessarily responding to the original material, rather than from a blank canvas.
Two, I recently posted a look at various designers attempting to redesign Darth Vader based on script description. Here, I felt like the designs, while awesome, were still reactions to his film imagery, and understandably so.

My challenge this time was to design from a Star Wars script reference for Boba Fett, but to do everything I could to divorce the description from the familiar character design we know and love.

Unfortunately, unlike Vader, Fett wasn’t really clearly described in the script, but rather referenced and then dependent upon the design team to be fleshed out. As I was trying to avoid being influenced wherever possible by the original design work, I avoided the behind-the-scenes descriptions of how McQuarrie and Johnson came to the familiar look we have etched in our brains. I looked at the brief script reference, and then hopped … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 No. 1 – Joker [TRDL Blank Slate Redesign]
2. TRDL Tribute: Boba Fett [1978 Prototype]
3. TRDL 2011 No. 7 – Catwoman [TRDL Blank Slate Redesign]

This was done for the R3 Illustration jam on Third Rail Design Lab’s R3 Forum, the subject being the late-70′s superfad KISS-tie-in character Dazzler, formerly notKnown as Disco Queen, in the hands of Casablanca.

I never, never, NEVER liked Dazzler. I was born in the early 70s, but I wasn’t old enough to disco or what have you, and so this sort of music had supplanted Cream, the Beatles, the Doors and the Stones as the annoying music piped out of the fraternities across the street from my childhood home near UCLA. Granted, I don’t remember disliking the psychedelic rock particularly, it just made for awkward background music for my action figure action. But the disco? Hated it, even as a kid. So when Marvel was shoe-horning Dazzler into continuity to take advantage of the KISS promo books, I wasn’t having it. Over time the character kept coming back, and was a small component of the greater problem in the X-books when I left comics for awhile in the Siege Perilous years. MEH! Of course, 33,000 hours of studying my Marvel Handbooks, followed by a good run of a Marvel RPG campaign in which I believe she was strangled by Doctor Octopus, helped me at least see the character as part of the Marvel Universe, not just a bad superfad angle. And as an adult reader, I look back on pretty much everything from those days with the same level of wonder and nostalgia, and it doesn’t even bother me anymore. She’s just another attempt to sell books, and who can fault that.

Anyway, OK. This TRDL pin-up was envisioned as a fictitious movie poster. You’ll note I’m not a great caricaturist, but that’s supposed to be Isla Fisher as Dazzler, in full 70s regalia. Probably should have feathered the … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Dazzler (Joao)
2. TRDL Tribute: Classic Rogue
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 35 – Iron Man vs. Batman

This piece was done for the TRDL R3 Jam, the subject being Mulan. Not just the Disney version, but any interpretation of the classic Chinese lore. I haven’t seen the cartoon, but I liked the design work I saw of it, so I picked a version of her costuming from movie stills, and went with that. Granted, I armed her in one of her casual non-combat costumes, but whatever. It’s hard to include a cartoony, zany sidekick creature when I work in my usual style, but I gave it a shot.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

Process notes:

This was my original sketch rough. But Torsten put up something similar and very cool, so i went back to the drawing board…

Inks:

I was laying around quite a bit with the face. Lots of photoshop edits.

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

No related posts.

This piece was stuffed down the barrel of a TRDL shotgun, aimin’ to kill two illustration birds with one metaphorical stone. The beautiful femme fatale Silk Spectre, as re-imagined int he Watchmen movie, is all sorts of awesome: part Bettie Page, part superheroine, and all Carla Gugino. So I took inspiration from the vintage pin-up illustration done for the film, and made this little Thanksgiving card, serving as our holiday release and also as the entry in the Watchmen R3 Jam… see, economy is the name of the game in these troubled times!

Wishing you a great Thanksgiving, my R3 Army!

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

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

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Silk Spectre
2. Happy Thanksgiving from Bots THREE
3. TRDL Tribute: Rorschach

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