Dr. Strange 02

This is the transfer drawing, from the tight pencils, to the gesso prepped board.  This time, instead of using an 8B graphite pencil for the drawing, I went with almost entirely prismacolors, picking the darkest color I had to put under what would be the corresponding paint color.  Red cape?  Dark red pencil for the drawing, for example.  After all that did I then bring back in the dark graphite pencil, to deepen the darks.

After I settled on the drawing, I painted in the blacks, and did some tonal spatter.  And since I wanted to do a glow effect for the lettering, I filled in the outlines with white prismacolor, to maintain the forms throughout the painting process - I didn't want to lose the detail in the blending, nor spend a ton of time masking and remasking them.

I masked off the painting three times, the background, the warm colors, and then the blue and green.  Then an overall unmasked pass with the green glow color to bring it all together.  And since I filled in the lettering, I can still find the shapes to bring them back out.

On to the penciling...

Dr. Strange 01

This is now more in the realm of what I discussed with the Marvel editor - adding some tweaks to the concepts' execution.  As a concept artist by trade, I constantly have to show as much as I can in a character design, and that results in some very standard poses...with DrS, I wanted to push the 'lens' and try to get a more forced (semi-fisheye?) perspective, along with the other things I try incorporate for my education in all of these pieces.  In this case, glow-y, swirly runes emanating from a glowing magic skull, manifested by DrS's powers.

I also wanted to push my colors a bit, and work with non-traditional light sources - in this case, I want Strange to be lit by the glow of his magic.  So this color comp will act as my rough guide to when I start mixing colors...

White Queen 03

The final.  Starting to get all glittered up with diamond skin...

White Queen 02

This is the transfer drawing prep for the painting - I brought back the technique from Oz, where I drew in the skin areas with a colored pencil, rather than a black tone, to hopefully blend in the colors with a much softer final look.

I did a lot of matte cuts for this one, and it came out pretty well - EXCEPT, there was some bleed from the fabric color.  I got a little worried about it, but I figured I could just draw over the bleed with the pencil and paint, and hopefully cover it up pretty painlessly.  I also worked the background a little more, I thought that it wasn't very dynamic, though geometric, so I broke up the large planes with smaller areas, to kind of combine the theme of diamonds and ice.

This is the post paint and pencil pass.  Now all that's left is the punch ups, and adding in some diamond skin transformation, and a final balance pass, to bring up the colors, contrast, etc.  That's for the next post...

White Queen 01

So I've done a lot of boys for my Marvel submissions, but I haven't yet done a Lady of Marvel - I had this idea laying around, and I've been wanting to do something a little more graphic with the background, playing off the diamond motif of the White Queen.

So here's a series of head sketches to go with the figure, trying to find a properly snotty look for her Highness.

After finding something that I thought would work, I re-comped the elements for a re-draw of the image for final.  I really like PARTS of the the two latest costumes for the character, so I combined those elements, did the new drawing...

...with a few more costume tweaks.  Then I quickly did a color comp in photoshop, and got it ready for transfer to the painting surface.

Combaticon Sniper : RotF

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

All right, here is the last image I'll post from the sketchbook - a self indulgence, the Combaticon Sniper I designed for the Revenge of the Fallen game.

Quintesson Sketch

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

Them guys don't play so nice.  Especially ones of the 'Mad Scientist' variety.

Cybertron Prime Sketch

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

Just a different take on an Optimus Prime, from his days on Cybertron...very G1 based.

Some Starscreams

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.


First up is the grayscale render of the Starscream print, out for a fly.

Next is Movie Starscream, in the gargoyle pose I imagined while reading the original TF movie script.

Ark on the Run.

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

Here's a depiction of the escape that started it all...the Autobot's Ark, being pursued by the Decepticon's Nemesis! 

Animated Lockdown sketch.

I'm way swamped right now, so this week I'll just be posting a few more images from my BotCon Sketchbook.

Here's good ol' Lockdown from the Animated show...looking all intimidating and sh*t.