Epic #3 - Predator

Dutch and Team, about to get their badasses kicked.  One of my all time favorite movies (got the Hot Toys classic Predator on Pre-Order!) that never really had an epic image for the poster/marketing.

Of course, this is nearly 25 years after the fact, so spoiler, it's about an alien.

This epic series is chugging along in the background, the Road Warrior is transferred to the final 30x40" canvas/board, and is getting drawn, along with thumbnails for the next two ready to go to this comp stage - Superman the Movie (I&II combo) and Disney's Sleeping Beauty.

Masters of the Doodle

Good ol' Skeletor.  I went to Power Con last weekend, and had a great time.  I got to meet the original creators of He-Man, and hang out a bit with my buddy, Emiliano (one of my concept artist counterparts for Hasbro) , who helped put together this awesome book, from the Power and Honor Foundation, a collection of all the concept art for the creation of Mattel's He-Man toyline.  It's great!  I highly recommend...

Check out this video of the book preview!

My book links aren't working for some reason, check out http://www.powerandhonor.org/ to find this awesome book.

2012 Sketchbook and Prints Preview

Yep, I'm getting started early this year!  Still locking down details on my first con of 2012, but it looks to be a pretty sure - I'll make a formal announcement when everything is 100% confirmed, but I'll give you a hint...Yellow Brick Road.

Enough of this jibberjabber, and on to the robots!  Here's the thumbnail plans for the sketchbook and prints:

Jeez, that's a lotta stuff to do!  A few of last year's sketches that didn't make it in the 2011 book, and hopefully a couple of blueprints for 2013's print set.  The 2012 Prints will include the Tapes, Thundercracker and Skywarp - to round out the Seekers - Wheeljack, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe.  Sunstreaker and Sideswipe will have a linking background, for anybody who wants to keep the twin's together.

I labeled what was actually going to be what the thumbnails will turn into, though all poses aren't set in stone, just yet.  But I am excited for the double page spread, Dinobots vs. Devastator, bottom right!

Dawn of Apocalypse 03

Final!

I'm pretty happy with this one overall - and I love that Cyclops, I want to do a painting of just him.   So I don't know if that means the Cable and Apocalypse are weaker then, making it a weak painting.  I still really like the composition, but now that it's done, I wonder if I should have spent time more defining how Apocalypse is being portrayed - he's not actually meant to be with them, but is he a spectral figure?  A background figure?  If so, he's too defined/rendered.

So here's what got sent to Marvel this week:

After scanning in the Strange painting, I went back and added some more glow, with white paint airbrushed on, and then gave it the gloss varnish.  It changed so much with those little tweaks, I had to rescan the image.

I got a response back from CB, saying the Strange one was the 'best one yet!' but I don't know what that means - I hope it signals he's passed it on to the editors, or at least Steve Wacker, who I had talked with at SDCC, weeks back.  Anyways, it's nice to have a guy like CB enthusiastic about your work!

I'm tentatively scheduled for a comic con in March, so my need to get going on my 2012 prints and sketchbook just kicked into high gear, coming three months earlier than I expected.  I may have to put aside my efforts to get into Marvel, (though I have high hopes these last two will hit it for me) and get going on making pictures of robots fighting each other.

Next week I'm out, but expect some Transformers sketches to be posted when I get back - got a lot of ideas to come up with, in a short amount of time!

Dawn of Apocalypse 02

Quick update, still working on this one in the after hours...here's the paint prep, the drawing transferred to the canvas, with the darks painted in black, and some texture.

Here's the airbrush pass, getting all the colors in there.  I masked off the figures from the backgrounds, and tried the airbrush spatter technique this time, rather than my old tried and true toothbrush.  I think it worked well for this, as the paint spattered out in more deliberate directions than I sometimes get with the brush.

And finally, a quick scan of the work in progress - I nearly have all the pencil work done, now I need to balance the values, and do the f/x and highlights.

Dawn of Apocalypse 01

Nope.  Wait, first let me explain.

Strange and this one are going to Marvel for submission - they HAVE to be the best I can do at this moment with my painting.  Apocalypse looks pretty good, and I think Cyclops looks awesome.  Cable is jammed in there, in a pose I envisioned originally, but in actuality he looks contorted to fit the composition.  I drew, and re-drew the gun hand, the arm details - the angles never came out right ( I don't want the blast angles to be the same) so I finally faced facts, and decided to scrap that version of Cable.

Painting is the hard part for me, the drawing isn't - and if the fundamentals aren't there with a strong drawing and composition, the painting is going to fail.  I think the pre-Strange submissions suffered from that, and the White Queen painting is a transition from that older series of Avenger paintings.

So moving on:

I cropped out the Cable, and did a few quick sketches in photoshop with the Cintiq - this one more suspense, and less action, and the second sketch got deleted, but it turned into this...

...I decided to let go of trying to feature the cyber arm, and just get a cool pose in there that worked with the rest of the composition, and I think it came out pretty well.  I found the gun angle I was looking for, and the tone I was originally going for with the piece.

And finally, here's the color comp.  Expect some foreground paint spatter before all is said and done...

Dr. Strange 03

Final.  I'm really happy with this one, and pretty confident in it, for my next Marvel submission.  I spent probably an additional day working on it, about four days total, (the last batch was averaging three days for the painting) and really put time into the pencils in the prep drawing, and in the color pencil details.

And with this one I tried to push my technique for color/light sources, using the green glow for the lighting, and a purple/magenta (hot pink!) back light highlight.  I'm still a little weak on my cape draperies, I think I need to set aside some time to do some studies, before I tackle another caped character.

This is where I left it last night; this morning I looked at it with fresh eyes, and decided to try some lens flares on the skull, and the hottest part of the spell letters.  So this is another thing I need to do, if time permits, is let the final sit for a day, and then come back and see if I can add to it any more.  There's no deadline for this, so I took the opportunity to let it sit for awhile.

I think I forgot to show the thumbnail sketches - I really struggled with finding the pose, until I decided to zoom the camera in a bit, and then I found the framing that looked pretty good, and then worked on tweaking the pose to make it a little more engaging, per my talk with Marvel at SDCC.

All right, one more to do, next up is 'Apocalypse and the Summers Boys...'