Superman Color Sketch

So I'm trying something new.  I have a fairly developed painting technique* established, and I'm now doing this digitally 'loose' painting style for actual jobs now.  Time to again bring these two  methods closer together.

I'm just now wrapping up work on the Road Warrior painting, and I ran into some finishing roadblocks.  In comping the piece together, and then doing the value study, I continually ignore the fill spaces, just thinking, 'oh, I'll add in some texture later.'  That is the lazy digital artist talking, with years of techniques built up to solve that problem.  The two year painter artist is not that good yet.  So, for me to avoid that issue again (which I should have, since it happened on the Oz piece as well.) I going to take the digital paint technique, and do a color comp for the whole piece.  I already have the drawings done, and it just needs to get transferred, so it won't hold anything up, as this can be done simultaneously.  And if you zoom in, you can see this rendering is very gestural, not nearly as detailed as other finished pieces.  Like I said, the drawing and details are done, this just is to service the color.

So the above image is a test (yes, I went back to the first version of Supes I did) to make sure it's something that would work.  On to the rest...

Now I need to get the rest of that stuff colored in!  The background/transition area is what I see a problem with, and something I previously would have ignored until I actually had to paint it, is the color treatment for the lower flare lines, the city, and how those would color theme with the Fortress of Solitude iconography.

Like I said before, I'm wrapping up the Road Warrior painting, which involves airbrush highlights, spatter, and final contrast looks.  But in between each paint app drying, I'd jump over to work on Superman.  For whatever reason, I noticed my hand, covered in paint, yet holding a digital pen, doing a digital tablet painting.

 
Two Worlds Colliding, indeed.

*I've meant to do a whole post about this, and now that will probably wait until I have several more pieces finished and try to do a show - this is where all the painting technique comes from, the DVD on painting Drew Struzan's Hellboy.  It is invaluable, and in many more ways than just the technical aspects of creating a painting.  More thoughts on the Master to come...

Star Wars Fighter Pods 04 - More Ships!

Clone Wars themed bikes.  I really like the original design of the BARC Speeder, it's a cool take on the future's past Jedi Speeder Bike, I really like the F1 style intake in the nose.  But that's gone on this toy.  Oh well.  All I did, as with all these ships, is shrink it down and cute-ify it.  I define the overall new shape, but the end goal is to fit in as much source material detail in as possible.  All the panels and vents, etc. have to try to find space on the new version of the model.

And then I did a version of Cad Bane's bike.  Moving on...

Republic Gunship - I think I did a few sketches trying to figure out the Pod placement.  Eventually Eric just said, "chop out the bottom, and I think we can fit two in that way."  And for kids, two is better than one.  Another notable development aspect is the forward gun pods, obviously deleted for the actual toy.  I want to say this was drawn out in design while they were still doing breadbox development on this size of vehicle, so I just added those in to see if could be achieved.  Apparently not, but in hindsight I think I should have done a take with embedded half globed, 25% larger, rather than something that looks like it could easily be broken off and eaten by a little brother or sister.  Fun to work on though, this is one of my favorite design from the prequels.

Imperial Shuttle - This is one of my all time favorite space ships.  It was such an epic toy when I was a kid.  Funny how in Jedi it barely does anything, not even fire off a laser blast.  But, everyone important to the saga flies in one, maybe that's it?

At this size, I try to get a little more of the cartoon-y look, really rounding off the edges.  It's a pretty fun toy, it's my new going-to-get-coffee-in-the-kitchen ship.

The X-Wing - Ah yes, another sci-fi icon.  I'm glad Eric had the wings spread out a little more than the final design.  A lot of these images become more about the details, and if it's something like a wing, or the turn of a head on a characters, it's more important to get the full range of views, rather that a series off center images - that makes it really tough for the modeler to find the right proportions for everything.  So the wings were drawn flat to show all the details, but also shown spread apart in attack position.  So if you sharp eyed viewers out there notice things like that, there's a reason more often that not.



All right, that ends this round of Star Wars Fighter Pod concept art reveals.  I'm sorry to say I missed a few designs to submit to legal (notably Grand Moff Tarkin!) in this round, but they'll be submitted when the next batch hits retail.  Of course Star Wars Celebration VI just happened, and Hasbro had more Pod reveals, so I'll give you a preview of some of the future product I've worked on...

Ki-Adi Mundi.

Yoda CHOP!

Kamino Jango Fett

Kamino Obi-Wan Kenobi

Jango Fett

R5-D4!

Rapid Fire Hailfire Droid.

All photos are from Hasbro Brand Marketing and Galactic Hunter.

More Pod Posts can be found here, here, and even here!

Star Wars Fighter Pods 03 - More Guys!

Of course I'm leading off with this one.  Assignment : Bespin Vader.  I originally concieved him in the Join Me pose, but Eric Siebenaler (the man behind the Pods) suggested a Force Push hand, for a more action oriented pose.  So I sketched in a new hand pose and we called it good.

And then Hasbro had this at San Diego Comic Con.  A GIANT one.  So awesome....

ARF Trooper.  With a BIG gun.

Clone Commander.  In a pretty cool twisted pose, but it didn't seem to quite translate to the figure.  I suspect a peg hole issue is the reason behind the repositioning of the feet...

Commander Neyo.  Looking all commanding and whatnot.

Coruscant Guard.  Looks like a repaint...originally Captain Rex, I think.

Magnaguard.  With his Purple Q-Tip of Electrical Doom.

General Grievous.  And in a stroke of genius, Eric added in the second saber.  I feel dumber for not having thought of it.  One of the coolest figures in this wave, in my opinion.

AT-AT Driver.  Back to Empire, this guy is in a 'Don't Make Me Run You Over With My Giant Robot Dog' pose.

Probot.  One of my favorite things from Star Wars ever.  So happy I got to do Pods version of this design.  This and the above Vader are my favorites from this wave...

Bespin Han Solo.  I gave him a cool guy pose.  In production, his hand got shifted down for a more action pose.  You don't want to mess with Han Solo, either way.


You might notice some of these character turns don't have the cleanest of lines in the artwork.  By this point, Eric and I had developed a really tight shorthand, and my contributions became more about quantity, as Eric would make tweaks on his end, before sending it farther down the production line.  So I just went crazy, from his lists of characters he wanted looks and poses for, A and B level characters that hadn't been addressed yet, drawing more obscure characters, or making wish lists for future characters.

I think it was the SDCC Hasbro presentation where they mentioned there will be characters you won't expect - and that's the truth.

Next week, some vehicles!

For previous Fighter Pods blog posts, go here, and here.

Fluttershy...be vewy, vewy quiet.

Ah, finicky bunnies and butterfly kisses...I'm like a sweet and sour Two-Face.  Sometimes I want to draw robots smashing each other to bits, sometimes I revel in painting pink pony tails.

So, that last one with Rainbow Dash was me, getting my toes wet in the Pony-verse, trying to see if I could marry my style with the shows' animated look.  This one is far more involved, making sure I stay on character model, both with characters and background, and really see how it looks rendered out, beyond the flat cartoon colors of the show.



All right - next week, back to Boys Toys, and more Fighter Pod Concept Art!

Daredevil Sketch...

...from that semi-abandoned series a portraits, that started with Iron Man, and apparently ended with Doom.

Spidey/Venom Team Up!

I got a big batch of new copic pens at comic con, so I thought I'd try them out.   I took that Venom head sketch from the other day, and just expanded it out.  Then Spider-Man followed to help fill out the frame, and background buildings...and there it is.