I’m not the only one watching the new Superman movie on repeat and drawing their Supersona… right? ^_^U
I imagine this alternate-Me from, let’s say Earth-J somewhere in the multiverse, was caught in an explosion when an H-Dial was destroyed by a malfunctioning Bizarro Duplicator Ray–the mysterious energies unleashed by this catastrophe permanently granted him Kryptonian level superpowers, but did nothing to cure his tragically nerdy brain.
Kicking off Halloween season, the design itself is based on my kindergarten era Superman Halloween costume, created by Mom–she was giving the S-shield a yellow border before it was cool! I was very proud of this costume and let me tell you–little J.Ho was very judgey about the 2 or 3 other Supermen in my grade who were dressed in store-bought costumes that were not nearly as good. B-)
Was Star Trek Day last week? Yes. Am I yet again excusing my tardiness by saying that every day is Star Trek Day? Also yes.
With this illustration I’m channeling the energy of an oft-repeated Star Trek plot in which a Starfleet officer is annoyed by a visiting (non-Starfleet) relative.
The fellow on the left is a Mugato based on the bizarre Mego Action figure. I decided to interpret this as a highly intelligent alien race that shares a common ancestor with the Mugato and has some physiological differences (notably, lack of vertebral spikes and a tail). This particular guy is a diplomatic envoy who excels at pushing people’s buttons.
The other fellow is his relative, who is of the same species, but also based on the Mugato as it appeared in the Star Trek TOS episode “A Private Little War.” This science officer is (normally) a mild-mannered toxicologist who spends his days in quiet labs researching venoms and synthesizing anti-venoms to save lives across the galaxy. He would just like to get back to work.
I would be remiss to not mark the final episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks with a little bit of fanart… it’s Taylor, the USS Cerritos‘s resident Kzinti Ensign!
I was a teen when I read the first volume of Larry Niven‘s Man-Kzin Wars. I was already a huge TNG fan, but I had never seen the episodes of TAS that featured the Kzinti, and I had no idea that the Kzin had any connection to Star Trek. And I definitely did not expect to see a Kzin wearing this particular uniform!
Just one example of how Lower Decks has lovingly homaged every corner of Star Trek history. What a journey–and now I can’t wait to see how the mythos of Lower Decks lives on as Star Trek continues on. LLAP!
Started sketching this during a work call and decided to clean it up real quick. From “Bart the Genius” (7G02), I believe this was the first appearance of Radioactive Man (in our universe, not theirs 🤓). I took some liberties of course, but what’s important is the super weird color scheme. 😎
Here’s the second round of commissions that I’ve finished for Help the Cheerleader. To read more about my involvement with this fundraiser, please CLICK HERE.
I will continue to post new commissions next week! And even though commissions are closed for now, remember it isn’t too late to donate to Help the Cheerleader.
So I’m posting on a Sunday for what was supposed to be a Friday post. But at least my post was late becauseI was actually drawing, right? Right?? Anyone?
Anywaysss…
Here’s the first round of commissions that I’ve finished for Help the Cheerleader. To read more about my involvement with this fundraiser, please CLICK HERE.
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:
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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.
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.
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!
Back when I was a kid (we’re talking the eighties here, bear with an old-timer), there used to be a chain of hardware stores called National Lumber. Contrary to their name, I believe they were in fact, not national, but a local phenomenon. They were most recognizable for their two cartoon mascots, Shorty (a man in overalls and a painter’s cap) and Cheap Chicken (obligatory wise-ass animal sidekick). National Lumber’s catalogs and mailers were peppered with comic strips and gags featuring Shorty and Cheap. It wasn’t amazing material, corny with crudely executed art–but it was pretty funny stuff for hardware flyers! And as a kid with a modest allowance, who had to scrape together 75 cents to buy a “real” comic book, those catalogs were a good diversion while I was trying to gradually accumulate three quarters. National Lumber even had a series of commercials, featuring Shorty and Cheap in animation, and their catchy jingle:
It’s the good stuff, at the right price, Na-tio-nal Lum-ber!
Whenever my parents needed something from the hardware store, I would ask them if they were going to National Lumber. The answer invariably was no, due to their prices and/or geographical distance. Well sadly, National Lumber went out of business, sometime in the mid-to-late eighties. I probably hadn’t thought of Shorty and Cheap Chicken in over a decade, but someone at work brought them up, and we looked up the commercials on YouTube.
After being reminded of these obscure characters, I naturally felt the need to draw my take on them:
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This was a lot of fun, and actually quite a challenge. In situations like this, I typically don’t like to do draw the characters in their native style, because if you want to see that, you can go right to the source. But at the same time, you don’t want them to be unrecognizable. Hopefully this piece walks the line. I’m pretty happy with how the wood grain turned out, but I’m not so sure about the background color.
While I was sketching over the weekend, I had the Sonic Underground DVDs playing in he background (yes, my life is ridiculous). An episode came up with a cool-looking robotic hair-dresser named Do-Bot, so I decided to make a quick sketch of her. The sketch turned out okay, so I quickly colored her with some color pencils. And here she is:
I adjusted the scan so that the colors match the physical piece and added type–other than those small changes, I’m giving this one to you warts and all. Typically I’m overly-focused on over-producing slick artwork, but every now and then I get some artsy notion that it’s cool and “raw” to show off the gritty details of reality, like the gibberish on the scratch paper that I drew on.
Lately I’ve been feeling the need for a more tactile sensation while producing my sketches, so maybe we’ll see some more quick and dirty traditional media in the near future? There’s no way to know for sure… I’m a wild card these days.
Back in the 80’s, the action figure aisles were ruled by four archetypes–robots, commandoes, ninjas, and barbarians. Of the barbarians, Masters of the Universe was the most prominent line. A few other action figure brands wisely chose to mimic the proportions of Masters of the Universe figures, and marketed their lesser known figures as being compatible with all popular 5.5″ figure lines. Perhaps the best known manufacturer of such figures was Remco–they produced figures based on DC Comics’ Warlord, and the companion line to Warlord was The Warrior Beasts–which brings me to today’s post.
The Warrior Beasts consisted of a group of beastly humanoids and a few monstrous mounts who could all act as antagonists for your Warlord figures (or other 5.5″ action figures). But strangely, in the midst of this group of beasts and beast-headed humanoids, there was a skull-headed Skeletor-esque figure appropriately named Skull Man (not to be confused with a hero of the same name). Here’s my interpretation of the character, drawn to fit in with my various Masters of the Universe drawings:
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But how would he fit into the world of Masters of the Universe, you ask? Well, here’s some nerdy background info I concocted for Skull Man:
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PROFILE: Cold and efficient, SKULL MAN is not only a mercenary, but an expert tracker and sleuth, armed with a cunning intellect. His hand-to-hand combat abilities hint at extensive training in martial arts from across the galaxy–this expertise allows his him to match up against opponents who would otherwise outmatch him in brute strength. Skull Man’s favored weapons are the bow and dagger.
HISTORY: The enigmatic mercenary SKULL MAN operates under his own rules, sometimes working for the forces of good, and sometimes working for the forces of evil. He has his own motivations, but those motivations are as unknown as his true identity. He has been known to operate in Skartaris, but most recently has been sighted on Eternia, allied with the Raqquill Rqazz’s personal army, the Warrior Beasts of Berserker Island.
In the late 80’s, Taito produced a Superman arcade game. Last Friday’s post depicted a female character who appeared in some unused sprites from said game–people speculate that she was intended to be a Player 2 sprite. The actual Player 2 sprite in the game was a red and grey palette swap of Superman.
Check out the original sprites in question here, and below is my own interpretation of Player 2:
This piece and the previous one were both drawn rather small, probably because they were done somewhat spontaneously. I interpreted the Player 2 Superman’s grey and yellow colors as silver and gold–in my opinion this clashed a little less. I was somewhat at a loss when it came to rendering the hairstyle of the unused Wonder Woman-esque character, but I finally settled on a somewhat anachronistic feathered Farrah Fawcett-esque style.
Who are these characters? Do they hail from an alternate reality known as Earth-Taito? Or perhaps they’re modified clones created from the DNA of Superman and Wonder Woman? Maybe they’re descendents of the heroes we know so well?
I’ve mentioned it on this blog before, but it bears repeating–I really love obscure characters. Obscure + mysterious is a bonus. I also have a fascination for bootleg toys (hence the blog URL), and these two characters have such a charming bootleggy/knock-offish quality about them, I can just imagine discovering cheap action figures of them in Chinatown.
Drawn for a re-design challenge at the He-Man.org fan-art forums. The subject is Gygor, a never-made concept for a He-Man toy, as described by a former Mattel employee. Read up on Gygor, and check out the other entries in the challenge’s thread. My post can be seen here. First round polls are here and here. Final poll is here.
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It was tough making the colors from Gygor’s description work. Maybe they don’t work? On the other hand, the description of Gygor’s colors very much paralleled the garish colors of Battle Cat, so maybe if the colors don’t work that means they are working? Anyways, I designed Gygor’s helmet to mirror Battle Cat’s as well. The guns are all modelled on Stridor‘s armaments. The chair mounted on Gygor’s backpack should give you a sense of his scale.
A garishly colored giant gorilla decked out in a cape and high-tech energy weapons… hmmm… something’s missing. Oh, I know–how about some supplemental nerdy background info, written by yours truly? Here you go:
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PROFILE: Standing at well over 13 feet tall, the ancient being known as GYGOR is one of the most powerful entities on Eternia. His physical strength surpasses that of He-Man, his wisdom rivals that of the Sorceress, and his knowledge encompasses aeons of Eternia’s rich history. His helm is made from the hide of a powerful prehistoric Eternian beast, and he is outfitted with a battle harness powered by an enchanted gem. The harness is armed with two heavy shoulder blasters, two hip mounted stun rays, and rotating light rapid fire blasters mounted on the back turret. Gygor rarely needs to rely on more than his brute strength and great wisdom, but he has also demonstrated powerful spellcasting abilities from time to time.
HISTORY: Gygor was already ancient in the days of King Grayskull, and in fact, records indicate that Gygor was a staunch ally and advisor to the legendary king. Allegedly, in modern day Eternia, Gygor has been sighted travelling towards Castle Grayskull. Has Gygor returned to aid the heroes of the land in the dark times that have descended upon Eternia? Only time will tell…
Today’s post is for yet another re-design challenge at the He-Man.org fan-art forums. The thread is here, my post is here. The first round voting threads are here and here (my entry didn’t get enough votes to proceed), and the final vote is here.
Apparently, in an issue of the UK He-Man comics, Hordak disguised himself as the “Dream Mistress,” and tried to deceive Stonedar… Stonedar didn’t fall for it (lucky for him). [Place your own cross-dressing joke here]
I chose to interpret the Dream Mistress as a shapeshifting entity who works for Hordak as a spy and saboteur. Here she/it is, in both Horde (right) and non-Horde (left) garb:
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The non-Horde version isn’t significantly altered, so I threw in the Horde version as a re-design (or alternate costume, at the very least). The pose is rather generic, pretty much just a minor variation of a standby that I go to when drawing women (or shapeshifters that look like women). I was a bit short on time for this one.
The Subject: General Mills cereal monsters.The Twist: Drawing them in the style of Capcom‘s fighting game franchise, Darkstalkers.
Today, I present the most obscure of the General Mills monster pantheon, Fruit Brute.
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I basically drew Fruit Brute as a palette swap of Jon Talbain wearing overalls. Horrible, multi-colored overalls, as per the source material. So, yeah… werewolves are cool.
The Twist: Drawing them in the style of Capcom‘s fighting game franchise, Darkstalkers.
The Reason: I love Capcom’s character design style. Capcom’s art direction is amongst the most influential in video games in general, and particularly with 2-D fighting games. I often find myself looking at a random character and wondering what it would look like as a character in a Capcom fighting game. So, fusing that mode of thinking with breakfast cereal and the Halloween season, here we are.
I kept Yummy Mummy’s basic colors, but rather than giving him multi-colored bandages, I redistributed those colors to parts of his re-designed costume. The added accoutrements are based loosely on those of Anakaris (the mummy character from Darkstalkers). The ceremonial thingy (i think that’s the technical term) draped over his shoulders looks awkward–I was trying to emulate the geometric, almost blocky quality of Anakaris’s design, but it didn’t quite work out.
