Of Gods and Turtles...

Every so often, we artists, in our groups, get bored drawing one character pin-ups and we decide to draw TWO character pin-ups to test ourselves a bit further. The below is an example of one battle in a Battle Royale (in which a large group of artists choose a character to draw and are paired up to see who can draw the better battle between said two characters--winner moves on to the next round of battles until a champion is named).

Once the word that my first round opponent's character of choice was Raphael of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, visions of Thor drinking turtle soup from a half-shell in a great hall of Asgard sprang to mind. And then I realized it would be kind of tough to draw this fight in a way that would come off as believable. And then I thought of Thor as a frog battling Raphael and decided to pass as my choice was full grown Thor as a god.

And so, I began to doodle out ideas for the battle ahead on Sketchbook Express. I ended up liking the depiction of Thor bringing down Mjolnir on Raphael on the Bifrost to the left.


And I then copied it and created a whole piece with it, filling in black areas of space, drawing in a layout for the bridge and Asgard in the background. I then printed this off for use in 4D...


Taking the print off of the computer drawing, I light boxed it and, using a blue line pencil lightly drew in the layout for my final piece. I then inked it using Faber Castle Pitt Pens, brush pens and manga pens for the gray tones...


Finally, I scanned it back into the computer and into Photoshop where I enhanced the black areas, expanded the starry night and added in Raphael's caption.

BTW, click on any of the above images for a closer look.

COMIC BOOK SHOW ADVERT

Above is the final draft (minus a few minor touch-ups) of the art for the advertisement about the upcoming return of the Nostalgia Newsstand's Greenville Comic Book Show on Saturday, October 8th 10am to 4pm at the City Hotel & Bistro. Not so sure about some of the likenesses, but it was fun doing 'em.

CHIMPANZEE THAT...

LIL' THOR VIRAL AD

NOSTALGIA NEWSSTAND CON AD PRELIM

I've been working up some poster art to promote the forthcoming Greenville Comic Book Show for THE NOSTALGIA NEWSSTAND on October 8th and since it was the first convention we've put on in well over a decade, we wanted to go with a zombie coming out of the grave. And so, Charles suggested a very EC Comics cover as their stuff was perfect for that. This is part of the image I've come up with in blue-line pencil for it (click on it to get a better look):


The cover I've based this on is Jack Davis' cover art for TALES FROM THE CRYPT #37--classic image...

YELLOWJACKET FEVER

A commission for a friend. It's both fun and scary when you realize one slip of the brush, one jerk of the pen or one example of drifting off while drawing could ruin someone's comic book. Kept me awake at least... the second time I've been asked to draw on someones's comic...


Click the image to make gigantic (just like Pym Particles do!).

CHRIS SAMNEE ON CAPTAIN AMERICA...

If this is what we have to look forward to on the new CAP & BUCKY book, the comic book gods have smiled upon us.

RED SKULL by ~ChrisSamnee on deviantART

HELMET HEADS

Finally a good long look at a helmeted Thor and Loki...



When compared to the Loki from the comics, they've done a decent job of getting the gist of what Kirby intended. They've scaled down the horns so that it would be less trouble for the neck to hold up and easier for him to walk through doors. Note that they've left off the tassels or hair (I've always thought that it would be great if they acknowledged that it was Sif's hair that he cut from her head in the mythology, but they never have)--guess they figured that was a hard thing to portray in the film.




They've gone with a more modern version of Thor's helmet designed by Tom Raney IIRC (below) probably due to the fact that the original helmet probably tends to fly from the head of it's wearer when he moves much. Again, what works beautifully in the comics, is a bit unpractical in the real fake movie world.


Still, from all the merchandising, it appears that Thor won't be wearing the helmet much on camera anyway. Which is, for this Thor fanboy, a bit disappointing.

KEITH STONE DOES IT AGAIN

Said it before and here I go again: Keith Stone is the finest pitchman in advertising. I don't drink beer, but if I did...




My earlier post about the legend:
THE GOODS: KEITH STONE AMERICAN HERO