The Cursed... Page Eight

Page 8.

I'm not so sure I like the flow on this page.
I try to set up anticipation for the following page with something sort of dynamic and/or suspenseful in the final panel of the previous page. While we see the the TYR ground commander shielding his eyes from some intense glow I have to imagine the reader would just think it's the radient glow given off by Spawn in the previous panel. As such it doesn't lend itself very well to anticipating the big bang that leads off page nine...

That and I've been very unhappy with the way the panels with the smaller drawing elements have turned out - the drawings seem soooooo weak to me.

The Cursed... Page Six

This is now page six as I felt I needed a good transitional page between what had been pages 5 to 6.
Now as pages 5, 6 and 7 they flow much better and tell the visual story more accurately.

City Scape

I just really wanted to draw a nighttime skyscraper skyline. Despite how simple this looks it actually took quite a while to do. While the building outlines were easy the lines for the windows took forever.

I've always been fascinated by the outlines of buildings at night and the random patterns of lights in the windows.

Pencils and inks took about 6 and a half to 7 hours. Digital colors took about 20 minutes...

The Cursed... Page Seven

Or quite possibly page seven as I am not particularly fond of the flow between page five and this incarnation of page six.

I think I need a cool intermediary page with two big panels showing the linkage between Spawn elbowing the slave monster in the back of the head on page five and the second monster coming in and grabbing him by the cape and hurling him into a headstone as seen on this page...

*EDIT* This is now page seven.

Venom Kills, Even a Second Time Around...

This is something I've been wanting to do for some time now - I originally did this as a little gift for a friend of mine (the idea was hers). The top image was the one I did about 4 years ago now.
Well I was looking at it a week or two ago and was thinking about all the ways I could make it look better if I re-inked it, added in some more detail and re did the colors on it and got rid of the distracting diffuse white glow around everything.

I re-colored it and made the defining outline a sharper more defined white outline. I feel this matches with the line work better then the cheap photoshop effect I originally used.
I added in some detail in the buildings and drew in a couple more and generally beefed up the inking for the whole piece. I also added in some stars in the night sky to help break up the large black shape that I feel unfortunately dominates the upper portion of the original. I also added more dark space to the bottom of the image to better balance the amount of dark area thats at the top.

All in all I am much more pleased with the re-do.

Tiger, Tiger...

I've been thinking a lot about design lately. I've felt my sense of it has always been rather lacking so I do things like this to work out ideas and just generally try to improve at it.
I had this old drawing of this tiger laying about on my hard drive and I never did anything with it. The drawing itself is about 10 years old or so and I thought with a few well placed geometric shapes and a splash of color I could turn the relatively weak drawing into something cool.

The Cursed... Page Five

page 5

The Cursed... Page Two REDUX

I like this version of the page two splash page more then the previous version I posted.
While I feel the former sets the stage just a bit better with the more identifiable graveyard headstone outlines the setting of this one will become more apparent when I add in the dialog text.

The Cursed... Page Four

Page four.
Naturally.

The Cursed... Page Three

Page three.

The Cursed... Page Two

Page numero 2.
A splash page giving the title of the work and some important credits...
From pencils, inks and post work in the computer this took about 7 hours or so to complete.

The Cursed... Page One

Page one for the Heros End chapter 9 The Cursed Can Never be Broken.
I dig drawing space scenes - sooo much fun.
Anyway, from start to finish this took about 6 and a half hours or so - maybe a shade closer to seven.
I still need to add the letters.

Choke

I was thinking about something that could be a cool t-shirt design when I did this.
Pencils, inks and digital color took about 4 and a half to 5 hours total.

Aw, Crap...

I was at work reading a HellBoy graphic novel entitled Weird Tales on my lunch break and was admiring the simplicity of the covers.
Their designs are very effective.
Anyway I did this in some free time.
Pencils, inks and digital flats took about 4 and a half hours total.

Heros End Cover Deuce

Well I doubt this one will be used, but I liked the idea so I did it anyway.
Again this was done with the Young Avengers Comic Book Club in mind for their project Heros End. As I'm sure one can guess it is another team-up chapter featuring Wolverine and Venom.
Even though this one probably wont be used it was worth doing because it was fun.

Wonderland Lost

Done just for fun - I dont even really know what the Mad Hatter looks like as I have never seen Alice in Wonderland and I wasn't close to the internet when I sketched up this little guy.
It's simply mad I tell ya...

Head Case (A Bit Frigid )

An idea I put together sort of quickly.
An idea born out of my struggles to understand the effect of modernity on people (not just the fairer sex.)
The female form just lends itself better to the interpretation of being stripped bare. Not just nude, but naked (as Dr. Karen Klinefelder would say).
It's somewhat unrefined as I didnt spend the requisite amount of time doing the drawing of the figure.
Further work is needed to flesh out this idea.

Between...

... a Rock and a Hard Place...
Don't miss the silhouette of the little guy lying on the ground behind the Jade Giant.
Pencils and inks took about 4 hours. Post digital colors were about 3 hours.

Heros End Prep Sketch with Inks

So here's the prep sketch with inks.
The aspect ratio is 2:3 which is a standard comic ratio.
I'd really like to re-draw this one in a larger format to beef up the details a little bit.
Depending on whether or not the kids like this one or not I may just stick with this one. It still looks pretty cool even though it was drawn at only 8 x 12...

Heros End Cover Prep Sketch

This is a prep sketch for a cover I am doing for a friends project with a comic book club he set up within the Boys and Girls Club.
He is working with the kids to get them interested in art and drawing. As such he is working on a graphic novel with them. This particular chapter is a crossover story with the Hulk and Hellboy that revolves around an adventure in the Himalayas, The Abominable Snowman and aliens!
Sound fun?
You bet.

I do prep sketches like this a lot when I'm doing something formal - it allows me to work out the good ideas from the bad ones and when I do the full sized drawings I basically know exactly what I'm doing.

Click on the title of this post and it'll send ya on over to the blog-site that was set up for the comic book club this work is for.