Dice, Camera, Action: "Death"

The Waffle Crew met Death last evening. An old and faceless thing. I kept thinking, "Death from the Endless would be pissed if she got stuck with this form during her mortal sabbatical...."

For once, I was really satisfied with a sketch of Death and Dream!

Inktober: Comics

Here are a few comic-themed sketches from last month's Inktober!

Warm-up Sketch Series: Wolverine

My last posted sketch turned into three sequential All-New Wolverine (X-23 for those that don't realize Logan has been dead in comics since 2014) warm-up sketches.  We had Laura go from the Monkey Style flip into two Changquan inspired stances.  As I said a few days ago, she has the real potential for some amazing combat panels.  The toe claws could add a whole new visual layer to many Capoeira and Changquan moves.

Click to enlarge.

These are all pencil sketches into ink (a weird combo of different pens/brushes).  Lettering and level adjustment done in Photoshop after the scan.  I probably should have redone the middle panel; you can see the levels adjustment is poorly done.

Here are the individual scanned sketches from the final two panels:

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Warm-up Sketch: Wolverine Somersault

I rarely draw my favorite character, Wolverine (Laura Kinney/X-23), because I never quite seem to do her correctly.

My motivation to try again yesterday: I am always interested to see more sequential action panels with her, since she has a wealth of possibilities to draw from.  A vast and diverse skill set + flexibility + acrobatics are a recipe for some excellent visuals.

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Warm-up Sketch: Captain Marvel

There is something about Ruby Rose that makes me think she is the perfect reference for in-comic book Captain Marvel's face.  It has to be the short hair and sharp features.

This ended up somewhere between Carol Danvers and Ruby Rose, but that's OK too.

Dice, Camera, Action: Diath's Cure

During the 11/29 "Dice, Camera, Action!" game, run weekly by Chris Perkins on the official Wizards of the Coast D&D Twitch channel, the party finally found a cure for poor Diath (played by ProJared).  The gauntlet was thrown down on twitter for some fan art - they suggested holy light, but all I heard when I listened was eerie darkness:

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Heavily influenced by Garney and Milla on the current Daredevil run.  I thought about going static image (a la the Were-pom that never came to pass), but I really thought we needed to see the goop crawling away.

Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew (Digital)

Back in April of this year, I drew a pen and ink sketch of Marvel's Jessica Drew.  Here is the digital update.

At some point I'd like to shift my character coloring from an interior comic styling, to a more painterly, comic cover look, to match how I enjoy digitally coloring certain other items.  This image highlights the difference, when you compare the sky, to the building to the character.  Hopefully, the shift was not too jarring.  I tried to bridge the gap, or ease the transition, via the way one might look at the image.

Inktober #10 & #12: Titania and Gabby

Two Marvel characters for these two Inktober sketches.  The first prompt is "Jump" and the character is Titania.  I got a lot of this wrong: jumping is more She-Hulk's thing, the pose doesn't denote any comic book style action, etc.  I just wanted to do a little tribute to Josh Williamson for making Titania as awesome and powerful as she always should have been ('80 to the present) in his Illuminati run.

My Error: I didn't capture the motion or action properly.

The second prompt is "Worried" and the character is Gabby from All-New Wolverine.  I attempt was to get her when she (off-screen) hears the same water bombers Laura hears.  OK with context, but I didn't capture a strong enough look when you look at the sketch with out context.

My Error: the emotion isn't enough with or without context)

Inktober #6: Sneaky Batman

The prompt for day 6 of Inktober is "Hidden".  A quick sketch of Batman skulking around in the dark is an obvious choice, but the surprise for me was: I believe this is the first non-Marvel comic character (or non-Vertigo, due solely to Sandman's pantheon) I have ever drawn!?

Inktober #5: Kamala and Bruno

The prompt for Inktober's Day 5 is "sad".  Last week, I had the chance to read the latest issue of Ms. Marvel.  G. Willow Wilson showed us the aftermath of Kamala and Bruno, the repercussions of his injury and her desperation to normalize things.  This sketch was spawned from that idea (movie of the week poster composition is totally my fault however...).

Simple pen and paper.

Medusa from the Inhumans

Don't get me wrong.  I am a big fan of Black Bolt, Karnak, and Ms. Marvel, but when Marvel pits the Inhumans vs. the X-Men there is only one choice for me: the X-Men.  My first comic over 30 years ago was the X-men, and those stories will always represent the best in Marvel's ensemble team comics.

That said, I have a friend that was not able to cosplay as Medusa for DragonCon, so I used an old image I started in 2011 which used her as a reference (see the first image), redrew it as a line drawing, and laid down some comic coloring on it.  If you cannot *be* Medusa, at least you can *look* like her in a comic panel!

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Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew

Marvel's Jessica Drew (aka Spider-Woman):

This started as a nondescript practice sketch, and somehow
turned into a character I don't really follow all that closely.

Ms. Marvel and the Mayor

I changed up the last image to make it a meta, fanfic cover - Ms. Marvel writing about herself getting an award from the Mayor of Jersey City.  I imagine she saved them from giant robot bunnies, but this is her fanfic, so maybe mutant Dr. Doom clones instead?

Click to enlarge.

W.I.P. Sketches: Kamala, Laura, and Slippers

The X-23/Laura/Wolverine kick continues, but I also had a chance to read the new Ms. Marvel recently as well.  What a great character!  Everything I have read on the Ms. Marvel titles has been cleverly crafted, and pitch perfect for the character.  Laura gets the same care when in her own series', but as a guest hero or team member on other titles, it is really hit or miss.  Some writers seem to forget the mental aspect of the character, and opt for the easy "let's just have her be an angry Logan substitute".

Below is a fun thought I had, if and when they are paired together.  I am unhappy with how Laura's face looks in my attempts, and it seems to get worse with even the slightest tweaks.  I am going to have to scrap her pose and positioning, and start from scratch.

Second attempt to fix X's left side.  I need to redraw the head from scratch,
and then salvage the elements from this version that worked.
Click to Enlarge.

Sketching fails aside, I mean, come on!  Kamala's Wolverine slippers should be the stuff of legend!

Warm-up Sketch: X-23

I love the X-23 character.  I was shocked, because I was convinced it was going to be a retread of Wolverine and a gender swap so they could get away with it.  I am happy to say I was wrong - the only problem is that Marvel writers now want to pen a 95% normal Laura who has a "few anger issues lurking around from her past."  This is wasting the character's potential.  She was completely broken as a person, and to just toss away the wellspring stories that spring from that is a disservice to the character.  Give me the vacant stares and stiff shoulders when meeting the Fantastic 4's proteges over the forced date-an-Angel and "normal" reactions.

Ah well...here is a terrible warm-up sketch of X-23.  Even her conditioned hatred of being late seems to be a quirk that has been lost in the shuffle.

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Warm-up Sketch: Sabretooth Redone

For the first post of the new year, I'll use a bit of the new and a bit of the very old.  Here is a quick Manga Studio redo of one of my old Sabretooth sketches.  And when I say old, I mean this is a 20+ year old sketch!

2016 Warm-up

Here is the original:

Early 90's!!!  (I started work in Korea in '96,
so prior to that)

Warm-Up Sketch: Female Thor

Done quickly last night as part of an office Pollyanna gift:

I couldn't find an Avengers scarf for the son of the person I had, so I went with a picture of them dressed as Thor and a faux-SHIELD letter telling her to give this "photo" to her son.

Warm-up Sketch: Orochimaru

Great villain.  The series went down hill as they phased him out.

Click to enlarge

I have been very frustrated with my tablet and with photoshop recently, I went back to my old 4x6 and Manga Studio 4.  I felt like I had control over my strokes again, and Manga Studio's pens feel like drawing with a pen.

I keep missing Dr. Sketchy's!

I keep missing Dr. Sketchy's events...totally unacceptable on my part!  This time I even missed the one that was very close by due to a combination of the Temple Owls dashing my hopes yet again and work that was sent to me at 4pm on Friday.

I found some sketches from the first Dr. Sketchy's - Philly event I had ever attended  a few years back (Stoya, modelling as Death), so I'll throw these up and hope to make the next event (excuse the poor quality scans...and sketches...excuse them as well):

Facebook Timeline, by Catwoman

I finally gave in and made the switch to Timeline on Facebook.  The lure of being able to fool with the cover photo was too much to resist.  Here is the completed cover photo, which was teased in a WIP post earlier this month.

Anne Hathaway clearly used as the reference for Catwoman,
and an overall nod to the awesome Adam Hughes' sleek, latex outfit design.
(Click to enlarge)

I am not sure the cover photo fun makes up for the ugly left-right alternating posts, but what's done is done.