TRDL / Deadless Collaboration for Tag-Team Battle Royale Semi-FInal Round: The Ferrous Gentleman

As you may recall, I have participated over the past year in a series of Battle Royale contests on Outcast, the latest of which being a Tag-Team competition. We thought we were knocked out in the quarter-finals, as we were unable to complete ours on time due to personal obligations. However, the competition was based on tiered points, so they had a first and a pair for second place. So, we were back in, pitched against Batmanners and Seb-Printer to duke it out for that second seat and a place in the finals. We were assigned the topic: BOTTLE.

Our approach was to do a homage to the classic Iron Man #128 cover by Bob Layton. In ours, the story takes place at the turn of the century, and poor Science Hero Antony Stark is hooked on absinthe and in a world of trouble.

Good news: we’re headed to the finals, as just announced:
http://outcaststudios.com/forums/index. … ntry124914

You can find a larger version here.

Also, this variant was my personal preference. However I did not submit it, as I thought the normal color version would be more successful in the competition:

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:

So here’s our famous cover… man I love that. Animated or not, ha.

Here’s my rough as sent to Miguel to work with.
Because it’s hard to parse and my idea … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Collaboration: Micevengers!
2. TRDL Collaboration: Locked and Loaded
3. TRDL Collaboration: Appleseed

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.

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:

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, … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2012 Series No. 01 – Starfire (Happy New Year)
2. TRDL 2012 Series No. 02 – Admiral Hamilton (Time Traveler)
3. TRDL 2012 Series No. 07 – Xartherian Warmonger

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.

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/

:::

In addition, here’s the familiar Third Rail Thrills series variant of the same pinup. Say, I mentioned … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2012 Series No. 08 – Wonder Woman [New 52]
2. TRDL 2012 Series No. 02 – Admiral Hamilton (Time Traveler)
3. Happy New Year from Third Rail Design Lab 2010 – 2011

This will be of little interest to anyone who isn’t a gamer, or more especially, isn’t an open-source game developer like me. Margaret Weis, yes THAT Margaret Weis, has licensed the rights to the Marvel RPG game. This initially caused me some alarm. While I don’t use the Marvel RPG stats in my TRDL Sourcebooks, use a generic rule system, TRDL Carbon, which is loosely based on it, in order to make it an easy conversion to that or any other system. This has been done in at least five or six other iterations by other game developers, not all of them for free, predicated on the fact that the old Marvel RPG game was out of print and seemingly abandoned.

Fortunately, the new game will feature her own Cortex Plus Generic Rule System, so that makes me a little more comfortable. I don’t use Marvel RPG stats, but I was inspired by that system, certainly.

Anyway, carry on.

http://www.margaretweis.com/news/116-marvel-mwp-2012

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

Related posts:

1. TRDL Game Mechanics FAQ
2. TRDL Tribute: Snow Stark [Marvel + Disney Mash-Up]
3. Third Rail Thrills 50- Mary Marvel Pin-Up

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 33 – Cable and Siren [X-Force c. 1996]

This was done for the TRDL R3 Jam on the R3 Forum and DeviantArt Group, the subject being: 90′s era X-books. I chose X-Force

My love/hate relationship with the X-books, and comics in general in the 90s, is well documented. And much of the mid-90s stuff appalled me and led to my abandoning collecting for a few years. But certain books lured me back, largely on risks taken in art or writing. I was intrigued by Adam Pollina’s work on X-Force in 1996. For one, it was miles ahead of Liefield’s previous work, almost rendering this an entirely different book. But for another, there was an inky, exaggerated style to it that amused me. Being a fan of artists like James Jean and Paul Pope today, I can see the roots of that interest forming even then, with Pollina’s work, and that of Mignola and a few others. Anyway, I drew this pic of Cable and Siren in 1996, right as I was getting into the book, and back into comics. So for this jam, I unearthed the piece, and despite the dated style and issues with the scan, rendered it today, 15 years later almost to the month. Kind of a surreal exercise. As you can see, I was always a fan of those Sentinel-view covers…

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 … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series No. 40 – Iron Man Series: Force Redesign
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 20 – Haywire
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 87 – Pixie

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 25: The Cleaners [X-Factor Redesign]

This was done for the monthly team jam on R-R-Redesignweekly, on DA. This month’s jam was to redesign the original X-Factor.

When X-Factor debuted, it was the return of the original X-Men line-up, with the conceit that the newly re-formed (and re-birthed, in Jean’s case, kinda sorta) team’s mission statement would be to travel the country, seeking out persecuted mutants, under the guise of being mutant hunters. Then, they’d rescue the victim, take them back to the mansion, train em’, give em’ a quesadilla, and all would be swell. Now, sure, it was a different time, but really? The very recognizable X-Men, displaying very obvious powers, telling the world that they are not mutants, not the X-Men, and are hunting dirty muties? Really?

So, here’s how I approached it.
1. I gave them a more militaristic uniform, to convey a sense of both preparedness and facility, but also protection.
2. I gave them matching uniforms, to present a unified, protective force.
3. The All-Seeing Eye logo suggests they are eternally on the case, seeking out muties
4. I rationalized that each member would either be presented as a human, or an enhanced-human (as the mutie-fearing Marvel populace never seemed to have a problem with non-mutant supers… until Civil War, etc anyway);This means Cyclops gets two optics, Jean exhibits no signs that she’s a Teek, and Beast is passed off as a powered human.
5. Beast’s fur was artificially lightened, to create a peaceful appearance and differentiate him from the blue-furred image the public might remember. He is passed off as a powered-human with therianthropic ability. It’s a word.
6. Iceman, the one that is the most recognizable, not only from his form, but the ice slides and such, is presented … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series No. 46 – X-Factor Dream Team
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 40 – Iron Man Series: Force Redesign
3. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 43: Rand + Lucas [TRDL Redesign]

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]

It may seem like this project languishes, but moonlighting over a full-time job was hard enough before kids. Now I’m squeezing it in wherever I can on top of other TRDL commitments. But the good news is that Finit-e Chapter 4 is almost ready!

If you haven’t read the first three chapters in awhile, don’t worry: when Chapter 4 is released, it will be added to the cimpiled collection of the book so you can read from page 1. However, if you want to catch up earlier than that, here’s a refresher on where to get Finit-e and what options you have:

Finit-e is a story of the nearly-now, and the dawn of the supernormal.
It is the first comic under the Third Rail Design Lab banner, which we tend to refer to as a graphic serial because it is designed to be read both scene by scene on-line and in a collected volume in print later. The story is set in a familiar timeline, much as things look today, but near-future, with a more dystopian edge to it. The context of the story will become more clear over time, but the tone is espionage, and it focuses on the admittedly less action-oriented side of events as much as it does the action itself. As a fan of good espionage thrillers and heist dramas, I’ve always been interested in crews plotting their crimes before they execute them, and the action itself being reasonably thought out and complex. I like not seeing the complete picture at first, and growing into understanding the story as it develops, so the Finit-e book is written similarly. I hope you stick with it! If you like Heat and the Bourne Identity, I think you’ll like this as well.

http://www.finit-e.com

You can read Finit-e either offline … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL v2.0 and the Finit-e Graphic Serial are Live!
2. Finit-e Scene 04 is Live
3. Finit-e Survey!

This illustration was done for one of my long-time clients, for whom I’ve done several character designs for his supers-based RPG campaigns.

Holocauste are a French super villain team with a shared nuclear power base. They were described thus:

When a single of their number rose up into the air and began moving towards Jackson, a colorfully clad woman who trailed a stream of dazzling orange light behind her, the UN troops on the ground took up positions and aim. Nightingale was shouting something as well, but it was clear that the next move belonged to the American.

* * *

The pickup truck Mu’azzazz had thrown turned over in the air as it sailed towards the back of the aircraft, towards the metahumans who had held their ground as one of their number took to the air and roared off towards the genie’s master. The long-haired, shapely leader of the infamous mercenary group Holocauste — and the most human appearing — Réacteur soared across the sky, borne by the deadly nuclear energies that permeated every member of the … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Tribute: Alina [RPG Commission]
2. TRDL Commission: The USS Hamilton
3. TRDL Commission – Glue Junkie

hey TRDL/R3 army!
You may only know me as an artist, but I’m also a bike-rider, and here’s some exciting news…

as many of you remember, ironlung PARTICIPATED in a charity fundraiser 585-mile bike ride called the AIDS lifeCycle in the summer of ’08. it’s an amazing event and over the last several years, it’s raised over $11M/year for AIDS and HIV research and treatment.

well, this year, WR and IL are doing it together, as a team, and we’re both doing it on fixed-gears. one speed and no coasting from san francisco to los angeles. this will be a brutal effort, one which could just as easily reward us with a major sense of accomplishment as with blown out knee tendons. but we are committed, and when we are committed, things happen.

our notification to you is two-fold, of course. one part of it is pride in our upcoming challenge. we’re both really looking forward to putting ourselves into this feat and as always, we love sharing that stuff with you, the faithful TRDL/R3 army. but it is a fundraiser, and we’re hoping to rally your help, even if that just means forwarding our information on to others. we know that asking for money is difficult and uncomfortable, but there’s a lot of talented people here who may be able to auction off art or services or the like.

if you or anyone you know is interested in participating in such a way, they can go to PAYPAL and send their donation to wrongrobot(at)thirdraildesignlab(dot)com. we’ll be splitting everything between the two of us, since we each have a minimum of $3000 to raise.

for our own part, we’re hosting a fundraiser party at a great little bar here in SF, which will feature trivia games (complete with kickass prizes … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Special Project: Team Lope AIDS Fundraiser 2010
2. TRDL Tribute- Team Lope Bike Girl: Red
3. TRDL Tribute: Team Lope Bike Grrl Seen: Star