This was a creation as I was making page, no names for the characters, just the flight crew for the Disciples of UMEX VTOL vehicle.
I based everything off the guy in the hazmat suit, which I had a great photo of a guy at an oil rig wearing one for a while I wanted to use as reference for something, then the rpg character and the engorged tick filled out the composition.
Without further fanfare- more villains.
I just made these two posters of Aegeus and Umex- the principle leaders of the LORDS OF THE COSMOS and THE DISCIPLES OF UMEX. Enjoy, I wanted to make them monochromatic and bold to get that 80’s action figure fun vibe to the final artwork!
This photo just came in from Planet Aiden on the Jade Plateau, A Disciples of Umex transport gunship has been offloading missle platforms to a hidden base to strike at civilian cities and shipping lanes!
It is without a doubt- this is why we need THE LORDS OF THE COSMOS! —
Part Command and Conquer (1996 or so) and art David Lynch Harkonnens from Dune (1984), I had to give the bad guys their own aggressive looking transport, and yet another background featuring a menacing base with some radar. More characters and locations from Lords of the Cosmos are coming soon!
I was very happy with this new digital composition poster I made on Manga Studio 5 to promote my 2015 appearance as a featured guest artist at SETSUCON!
My guest appearance just went online here.
Check it out and enjoy!
Well the heroes of LORDS OF THE COSMOS have to get around, so I was inspired by the US Marines OSPREY and the Air Force’s C-17 Transport to make this VTOL transport vehicle for the good guys to get around on Planet Aiden with as they battle the Disciples of Umex- there will be characters in front of this, but I really loved the vehicle design.
I drew inspiration from the 1984 film “Dune” for style. The classic Battletech Technical Readout manuals from FASA that I had as a kid in the 1980’s which had some great 2 pt perspective line art of robots and various vehicles gave me a direction for a final look on the page. Clean and simple, and I really loved the final image, it was fun to draw a some planes for a change!
As we wind down the character designs- The LORDS OF THE COSMOS get another female character AMAZONICA, and her Dino Steed, as well as the Cyborg Samurai (as yet, no name chosen!)
The composition on this was simple, yet effective, and I really feel that I am hitting a stride on drawing accurate and attractive women, so I was really pleased with how AMAZONICA turned out. Full disclosure she was inspired by the old 1980 Flash Gordon Filmation “Princess Aura” character who I loved as a young lad! You can see a production still from that show here to see what I was getting inspiration from. Does the tiara on Amazonica’s head look similar?
Anyway- This art really sums up what I like in a nutshell… “Girls, Monsters, Robots” … so It was a pleasure to put pencil to paper for this particular page. Below are the final pencils and my Samurai artwork segregated on tracing paper.
Final Pencils
Samurai layout on tracing paper
The wrap to the down and dirty high concept snobby project I did with writer Brendan Hykes. Really fun to see with the India ink!
Enjoy, and look for it in Ugli Studios Presents #3!
“THIS IS A SAD COMIC”
2015
w-Brendan Hykes
a-Jason Lenox
Writer Brendan Hykes and I have been plotting a one page high concept (read snobby) “Zine” style comic for a while now. Brendan is a writer that I met two years ago, and is one of the nicest and cool people I’ve been lucky to meet doing conventions. You can read more about him here .
So, what is this project?
Sort of like an art house film about people smoking cigarettes, doing heroin and suicide, but with wacky characters and product placement.
This is the penciled page and the final comic will be in Ugli Studios Presents #3 as a one pager near the end of the book. Inspired by two particular “artists” that drive me nuts (ask me in person for the dirt- it’s funny) and one head scratching convention that was the apex of this very independent and not easily accessible style.
I’ve been itching to put it to paper for a while with Brendan’s writing magic, and I needed to take a quick break from the “Lords of the Cosmos” to clean my palette with something a little bit lighter and fun as I gear up to tackle the last 10 pages of that particular project.
It was fun to do something that masquerades as “high concept” but really is just juvenile and insulting on several levels to a great many people. Of course, someone may see it and analyze the deep thinking and layers of meaning they see in it, then the joke is on them, this is a SAD comic, not a SERIOUS one!
“From the ranks of the Disciples of Umex… The Savage Flesh Eating Cani-Bull, The Mindless Sonic devastation of the Sound Golem Groanus, and the sworn enemy of Ironshell, the Giant Turtle of the Lords of the Cosmos, the Gigantic Cybernetic Dragon- Ragewing…”
So the latest round of villains- Canibull has been in my head for a long time with Ragewing, Groanus was always a blank slate. I used a friend who is a body builder for muscle reference on Canibull for a shifty crouched pose. He was my alternate take on Beast Man from M.O.T.U. and a Minotaur- the idea is he eats humans and controls Ragewing telepathically as a creature leader of sorts.
Ragewing really was an extension of how much my fans love my dragons and monsters- to do a technological/fantasy version of a “Lenox Dragon”. I used a Crocodile as the basis for the head and really struggled to get a pose in the composition that worked, I was pleased with what came out of my sketchbook here. This character is also my evil giant monster which is the antagonist to the good giant monster, Ironshell the Turtle, seen here. The basic concept of this entire project was that the Lords of the Cosmos are a set of toys from the 1980’s so if there is a good giant creature, there has to be a bad giant creature, Ragewing fills that mandate.
Groanus was the REAL challenge from the writers…
Description: “A twisted giant created by the diabolical DOCTOR SMOG, this tall and spindly beast is a slow moving monster of destruction created as a front line shock trooper to cause retreat in the battle of good versus evil. Stupid and slow, the beast is nonetheless lethal if not destroyed early. The sound emanates from his nuclear lungs and passes over his teeth of diamonds, causing a whistling sound that can rip ear drums and crack a man’s teeth.”
I kept drawing a tall muscular guy with a big mouth with a filter inside it, and it was so flat, I knew where I wanted him from a composition point of view in the middle top left, and it just kept failing on me. Anyway, I had to tune out, and then stop thinking inside the box, and get out- if a big guy wasn’t working, then why a human at all? So I used a dust mite, and a virus diagram both from online textbooks to make a non human unique character, and I couldn’t have been happier with the weird totem pole of tentacles, spindly legs and bizarre flower like face… a touch of H.P. Lovecraft perhaps influenced me here as well.
Anyway, below are my original thumbnail and final pencils- Enjoy!
Final Pencils
Thumbnail
