TRDL 2011 Series, No. 75 – Alpha [TRDL Commission]

This was a commission done for one of my long-term clients, John, for whom I’ve done other characters for his shared gaming universe like Crash, Arclight, and several more. The concept isn’t quite a Superman cipher, but he was supposed to be big, tall, muscular, imposing and handsome. I knew it needed to make use of the alpha letter, but otherwise the design was wide open. I worked out a motif that involved some of the centurion-type imagery I use on some of the TRDL characters, based on some examples of my TRDL Universe design work I showed him, and then abstracted the alpha letter for the shoulders. I actually tightened them up more conventionally based on his feedback later, and removed the knuckle duster ‘stamp’ embossment that I had in earlier versions. From there, we tried a number of color schemes to get to the desired result. Great project. One of the most conventionally ‘super’ superheroes I’ve designed, I think.

:::

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:

Here’s the original pencils. I wanted to give him that big, just shy of caricatured physique. Tall, imposing, powerful.

Inks. Here he has embossments on his knuckle guards that are reversed, leaving the alpha mark on people’s faces. I decided this wasn’t in keeping with the character, and eliminated it later, reverting to it just being a graphic.

A morphology of color … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Commission: Holocauste
2. TRDL Tribute: Alina [RPG Commission]
3. TRDL 2011 Series, No. 17: Xena

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

I’ve been meaning to do this for, I don’t know, YEARS, ever since Snackboy and I used to post our NOW PLAYING music report at the bottom of our posts: I don’t do enough status reports on the art, and I don’t talk about music enough, and I love both, so here you go.

Tonight was a rare Friday night commission art session. Wee Z went down easy and has slept soundly, and wifebot(tm) collapsed a pisosecond later. Therefore, progress. Tonight was fruitful. My piece for the TRDL R3 Jam this week, Invisible Woman, was inked, and I really like how it came out. It’s going to not only have a vintage pin-up vibe, thanks to a nice Dita ref pic, but a 60′s mod element as well. I also inked a redesign piece, pairing alternate history versions of Power Man and Iron Fist, both done for the R-R-Redesign-Weekly jams on dA: in this case, both are female, but I’m trying to steer clear of the awesome Daughters of the Dragon business, which handily handled the pair as females, albeit as different characters. Anyway, inked. I spent the rest of the night finishing two commission pieces for Paco’s Maidens and Magic Calendar Series.

I started the evening listening to Son de Mar, which i’ll prolly touch on later, but I ended it with Brian Eno’s Music for Airports 1. I’m a big ambient fan, and always have been: just ask any number of bored girlfriends. Eno, like some of the works of Phillip Glass, is never better than wen he’s tickling a piano. In the case of this album, it is accompanied by haunting choir work. I’m no music reviewer, so I won’t pretend to have an experienced tongue in talking about it, but what I love most about this … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. Fini-Mix
2. TRDL Tribute: Jenny Sparks
3. Third Rail Thrills 40 – Mantis Pin-Up

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 2011 Series, No. 24: Deja Vu [Plan B Comics]
Third Rail Thrills No. 55!

This was done for a Pin-up Compilation book being put together by Plan B comics, of one of the imprint’s original characters, Deja Vu.

I don’t know a whole lot about the character, other than she’s in a relationship with another of the Plan B characters, Z. She appears to have a sparkly glow power, maybe light generation. Some of the released images for the character differ quite a bit in the details, so i pulled from what i saw and did my take on it. You can see all of Plan B’s stuff at their main site, or on Kyle Chaney’s DA page.

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 a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Background:

Here are two somewhat different pics of Deja Vu, direct from Plan B:

As you can see, the colors are different, her hair is different, the apparent ethnicity differs, and certainly the degree of explicitness in the costume does as well. I decided to keep it PG and cover up those nipples, and also to keep a darker skintone, to contrast better with the cloak and her powers.

Progress:

Here’s the original inks on the piece. There were a few issues: the proportions int he legs, the head a bit too small and narrow, and so on. Yay Photoshop…

First correction: right hand is held higher than … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL Featured in Plan B Pin-Up Book Available Now
2. Third Rail Thrills 59 – Quorra [Tron Legacy]
3. Third Rail Thrills No. 57 – Babydoll [Sucker Punch]

It’s been awhile since I posted an in-depth look at my personal process. My origina post on the topic was over three years ago, and a few things hanged for the better, though my drawing time itself is much more limited due to family responsibilities of children and steaks-in-the-freezer requirements. Anyway, this is not the RIGHT way to do this sort of work, just MY way. I recently was asked a number of questions about my inking style, which was generously referred to as ‘spartan’ (I think of it as streamlined, but compared to proper inkers, it’s not much more than tracing my equally simple pencils and making some judicious lineweight choices. Nonetheless…) so I thought I’d follow up that conversation with a full TRDL Method update. If you are interested in how I do this stuff, read on!

The piece being rendered below can be seen here!

The Tools:

I use Borden and Riley #234 Bristol in 9×12 pads for the paper these days, and I’m very happy with the tooth and the portability of the pad (though the size requires cutting down the stock if I want to print blueline onto it.) I use your old fashioned ‘natural’ finish #2 pencils for the pencil work; not blueline pencils, not mechanicals, not fancy art sticks. Just wood. I ink with pens, not nibs, though I greatly admire nib and brush ink methods. I prefer Microns. I’ve used refillable aluminum cartridge pens, as my partner Joao uses, but I go back to the comfort of the Micron. I used to use India Ink pens but the ink changes color over time. Anyway, I use a number of lineweights: 005, 01, 02, 03, 05 and 08, though I use them in pairs or threes, based on the scale of the … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. The TRDL Method: Thom’s Tutorial [Archive]
2. Finit-e Survey!
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. 2: Wolf-in-Sheep’s-Clothing [D&D Monster Manual II]

This piece was done for a project called Dungeons & Drawings, where classic creatures from the old Monster Manuals get a redraw, for fun and science. I made a shortlist of the most absurd creatures I could remember, which meant that I had actually USED them on players in my GM days. This was pretty high on the list. I mean, how do you wrap your head around a creature that mimics a small furry animal in order to lure adventurers close enough to be eaten by their concealed jaws? The best part of this drug-fueled anglerfish cipher is that all the hubbub about the fake furry seems to ignore an equally curious capability, which is TREE TRUNK mimicry. Anyway, I had a blast doing my modern take on the thing. You can read more about the progress of this piece below.
Please enjoy!

PS, if you are, or were, a D&D player, you’ll enjoy Something Awful’s review of the worst of the worst from various books here.

:::

You can find a larger version here.

You can see this illustration herein the TRDL Tribute Gallery.

:::

Process Notes:

References:

Here’s the original published version, in all it’s surreal glory.

Development:

Here are my original pencils for the piece. It was done pretty quickly to meet a short deadline, but I liked how it came out overall, with one glaring issue: somewhere along the way I broke the female warrior kneeling beside it, as her top and bottom halves, penciled together, are elongated. This would be corrected in Photoshop, otherwise known as Potoshop.

The inks, ready for manip…

Here I’ve fixed the warrior, cutting up her torso ("It puts the lotion in the basket!") and doing some … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. TRDL 2011 Series No. 75 – Alpha [Commission]
2. TRDL 2011 Series No. 50 – Baroness
3. TRDL 2011 Series No. 87 – Pixie

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

As you probably know from reading previous posts, I don’t think the iPad is a JesusProduct, but I see certain niches that look promising, and several that are just toy fun. Anyway, the area I’m most interested in, as a creator, is the standards war for comicreaders on the iPad. Right now, there are three basic methods: Basic iPad OS ie pictures, third party comicreader apps, often with subscription/store models, and web-based readers. I provide PDF/CBR and a web-based reader for Finit-e, my comic. I’m interested to see how the iPad users who read comics will be most comfortable: which interface works best? As a creator, i can have my work made available to third-party reader apps, at some cost. I can optimize a version of my web-reader on the http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com site to work well with the aspect ratio of the iPad… or i can look at ways to expand the functionality of reading on the device. From this perspective, I’m very interested in test-driving some of the third-party apps out there and see what true value-adds are in place. With conventional computer-based readers, I was never much of a fan. The interface of the reader was obtrusive. And most web-readers try gimmicks like simple animations and breaking page format. I generally just prefer looking at a PDF.

With Finit-e’s reader, I brought in certain functionality beyond looking at the PDF or a print copy: I have a thumbnail of the page, zooming to a full screen page, zooming to a high-rez version you can scroll. I also have keyed icons for extra content, like the character gallery and the annotations. But I specifically set it up to be unobtrusive. So, I want to see what the iPad gets us.

I have many friends who read much, or all, of … Read on for more awesome…

Related posts:

1. Finit-e Survey!
2. Finit-e Scene 04 is Live
3. Finit-e Chapter 4 is Almost Here

Less Current »