Here’s the Martian Manhunter in marker:
It looks like MACHO WEEK wore off on me, at least temporarily. I’m feeling MACHO enough to see if I can go back to posting twice a week. No promises though! Let’s see how this goes first…
There used to be a cartoon called Powerpuff Girls, and before that there was a cartoon called Dexter’s Laboratory, and that cartoon featured a segment called Dial M for Monkey, and one of the best episodes of that segment of that cartoon was titled, “RASSLOR.” Macho Man Randy Savage guest-starred as the eponymous Rasslor, a masked neon-hued wrestler whose power was on a cosmic level.
So, here’s Rasslor executing a Macho-esque flying elbow:
And thus does MACHO WEEK draw to a close. I’ll be back to “normal” posts next week. Until then, have a great weekend, and stay macho, my friends.
MACHO WEEK continues, with a piece of vintage nerdery from my archives, drawn and colored in 1999. TWELVE years ago.
Let’s think about this people. That was before 9-11, before the dot-com bust, before the (still ongoing) energy crisis, before I owned a car or a DVD player. I was fresh out of college, just starting out full time at the day-job after interning there for 2 years (same day-job that I have today, by the way), and living in a tiny studio apartment that paradoxically had a huge walk-in closet (which I filled up with comic books and action figures–mostly Beast Wars at the time).
So… I confess, this was drawn to impress a geeky girl who I was talking to at the time. Believe it or not, the subjects in the illustration were our common points of interest–and there’s the Macho One himself, front and center! Oh, and I’m in the picture too, inbetween Optimus Prime in Pikachu, because apparently I have a raging ego. For what it’s worth, I think the girl was in fact impressed by this. However, things didn’t work out for a number of complicated reasons which I will not bore you with. You know how it goes.
Man, just look at this thing. It was one of the first things I ever colored in Photoshop, and I thought I was pretty hot stuff, using the Dodge/Burn tool to render the shading. WHAT WAS I THINKING?
And yet, here we are, twelve years later. My drawing is a little better, and my coloring is much better. And I still pretty much won’t shut up about Macho Man, Transformers, Batman, Pokemon, Miyazaki movies, and Bruce Lee.
Tune in on Friday for the final installment of MACHO WEEK!!!
Still red and blue, and there’s several things I don’t like about this one, but it’s a big improvement over last week’s marker sketch. And posted in a relatively timely matter. Unthinkable!
Plenty of marker sketches on the way. I’m much more fond of the ones I did after this one.
I’m posting super-late again, but at least it’s a real post and not some cobbled-together BS. Here’s a cartoony, but still very pissed-off Frank Castle, AKA the Punisher:
Less talking, more sleeping.
I sketched this up for Dustin last weekend during the Long Beach Comic Expo, inked it up when I got home, and colored it this week. And here I am posting in a reasonably timely manner, as promised:
I did my best to channel Alex Toth, Bruce Timm, and Derek Fridolfs when I drew this (please go to Derek’s DeviantArt page, look at his awesome black and white ink sketches, and give him some compliments–it makes him very uncomfortable). There are some other influences at work as well… the general leanness of form is from Neal Adams (whose influence I’ve discussed previously), and of course the crescent moon eyes are from Dick Sprang. I think there’s a little Jeff Matsuda in there too.
This started out as a pretty static sketch, but I’m trying to be more dynamic these days, so I consciously tried to move away from that. The big experiment for me on this one was spotting blacks heavily. I usually do all my lighting in the coloring stage because I’m uncomfortable with my ability to execute heavy inks. I feel okay about the result though–you can tell because I was actually willing to show you what the original lineart looked like.
(For those who care about such things–of course he has the yellow oval on his chest.)
A late post, a multi-layered nerdy title, and another practice sketch from my iPad 2:
All is right in the universe. Or not, but what are ya gonna do?
Real quick like: For those who enjoyed the step-by-step walkthrough from the last post, I’ve compiled it into a single huge image file–you can get it on my DeviantArt account here.
But back to today’s post…
I yammered on forever in the last blog, so I think I’ll try to keep it brief today. It’s Red Claw from Batman: The Animated Series:
During a typically nerdy late night conversation, I was talking about B:TAS with Josh, and was reminded of this bad-ass villainess, so I decided to draw her. Sometimes it’s just that simple!
I think I’m out of vague teasers for the moment, so let’s see if I can get back to the regular nerdy fare for the moment, yes?
I wanted to do something quick, fun, and 100% digital, so here’s a super deformed Hellboy done in less than two hours (my sloth-like idea of “quick”):
Please forgive any inaccuracies–I drew this without looking up any reference.
A quick doodle on an outgoing envelope that I decided to scan into Photoshop and slap some colors on.
Sleepy-bye time!
AKA Terry McGinnis:
Pencil, pen, and marker. You can kind of tell that I started this drawing at the top and lost momentum as I reached the bottom. Oh well, I’m still happy with how the head and neck turned out. I definitely need to do more drawings with heavily inked shadows.
A few months ago, I finally saw the Watchmen movie on DVD, which was also the first time I had revisited the story in a number of years–the last time I read the comic was maybe… ’98 or ’99? Anyways, it occurred to me that it would be really funny if Bubastis somehow was able to reconstitute himself the way Doctor Manhattan had. Okay, I guess it’s not really funny, but it was funny enough that I thought I should draw it.
I came up with the name Doctor Manxhattan, and Sherri suggested Doctor Mankattan. I decided optimal funny-badness would be achieved by combining the two names. Thus was Doctor Manxkattan born.
The idea really makes more sense (insofar as such an idea can make any sense at all) in the context of the movie, wherein Bubastis is colored similarly to Doctor Manhattan. However, research into the comic corrected and reminded me that Bubastis was actually magenta colored, not blue. Here, for your enjoyment, are both comic and movie versions of the good Doctor:
click above for larger view
The pose, composition, and colors are all executed in imitation of chapter IV, page 20, panel 1 of the Watchmen comic. HILARIOUS, right? Right? No? Okay, that’s enough of that.
In case you missed my previous Watchmen goof, please check it out.
And here are some superior Watchmen goofs, from sources superior to me–enjoy:
I think today’s post manages to top the dumbness and nerdiness of my previous record holder. Here’s Rorschach of the Watchmen, resurrected as a Black Lantern, presumably planning to extract vengeance from Dr. Manhattan and Ozymandias:
This one turned out a little better than I expected. As I was drawing it, I had no idea how I was going to approach the coloring, but things ended up working out. Occasionally that happens. Occasionally.
For those who missed this particular detail–the ink blots on his mask are in the midst of forming the Black Lantern symbol–you can thank Josh for suggesting that! And the ring construct grapple gun is fairly accurately derived from Rorschach’s device in Watchmen.
My apologies to Alan Moore. I love the man’s work, but I can’t resist the lure of stupidly awesome nerd crossovers! I’ve got another Watchmen-related post in the “Things That Should Not Be” category… I think I might have it ready for next week. Stay tuned, it’ll be hi-larious!
Sorry for the interruption in the series. From City of Heroes, here’s the Statesman‘s archenemy, Lord Recluse (named for the venomous brown recluse spider):
I took a few liberties with the costume design on this one, but I think it worked out. Recluse’s logo is normally only seen on his forehead, while a generic spider emblem is emblazoned on his breastplate. I think Recluse actually has a pretty cool looking logo, so I put that on his breastplate instead, and left his forehead blank.
C’mon, Recluse! Take a hint from Cobra Commander–if you’ve got a good logo, flaunt it!
As promised, here’s an MMO villain–Doctor Destroyer from Champions Online:
I have no idea why the good Doctor’s character design so closely resembles that of Doctor Fate. You’ll have to take that up with the creators of Champions. I also have no idea why my drawing turned out so meh and stiff. That is strictly my fault. I think the colors turned out decently though. Gold is shiny.
._.
OH HEY–don’t forget to go to your local comic book store tomorrow and pick up the new JLA 80-page giant, which includes stories written by my pals Josh and Derek! Click on the pic below for details… DO EET!
Of course I would not have paid tribute to Champions Online without also acknowledging its predecessor, City of Heroes.
Here’s Statesman, flagship hero of Paragon City:
How about some MMO villains next? Tune in next Tuesday.
Carrie Kelly, of Dark Knight Returns:
Pen sketch + color pencil + minor touch-up in Photoshop. Hmm… sometimes I draw something (like this) and immediately have zero enthusiasm for my own work. Oh well, recognizing mistakes and moving on…
“MMO Mondays” would have been a much catchier title, but oh well.
Here’s Defender, from the recently launched Champions Online MMO (based on the Champions pencil & paper RPG):
Erm… there are some problems with this drawing, but I enjoyed coloring the glowy parts at least. Tune in next Tuesday for more MMO heroics!
To The Powers That Be,
To the best of my ability, I have determined that Disney’s Purchase of Marvel Comics is neither a hoax, nor a fever dream, but indeed a reality, true believer. To that end, I demand that you produce the Disney/Invaders ongoing series that fans have been clamoring for since the 40’s. Also, I demand that you negotiate with Warner Brothers/DC Comics, so that we may also see the long awaited Disney/Invaders versus Looney Tunes/All-Star Squadron crossover.
I would be happy to write and draw these books for a nominal fee. Enclosed is a piece of sample art, proving my nerdish devotion to pointless, but awesome, crossovers.
Regards,
J.Ho
The pose is loosely based the standard Mickey Mouse images turned up by my internet research. This whole thing took me about three hours, which is fast for me. Yes, I’m painfully slooow.
What a strange world we live in.
Here’s Darkseid, pretty much as seen in the final Justice League Unlimited episode, “Destroyer.” The Omega insignia on his chin is a tip of the hat to JLA storyline Rock of Ages.
This one had been lying around half-colored on my computer for a long time (about 2.5 years), and I finally got around to finishing it up. Pretty basic, but I think it more or less works.
I’m away at Comic-Con, so this post was written in the distant past of earlier this week, and visits you, dear reader, thanks to the amazing macro-advancements in hyper-blogtronics provided by the super-intelligent mega-androids of the ever-flowing info-webs. We can only dream what I will come up with as a blog subject when I finally return from my epic Comic-Con odyssey in the far-flung future of just a few days from now.