Author: jlenox

2015 “Vulgar Display of Artwork” Tee Shirt Designs

Another year, Another metal themed convention tour tee shirt for Jason Lenox.  2015 is a tribute to one of my favorite metal bands,Pantera, and their metal albums. Elements from their LP’s “Cowboys from Hell” (title below name and font), “Vulgar Display of Power” (Play on name, and font) and “Great Southern Trendkill” (Snakes and font) all played into the final product.

 

I used my SKULL KING and GORGON MEDUSA artwork to fill out the images needed for front and back.

Thanks to Andy Mylin for the layout and Collegiate Pride in State College, PA for the production and coordination!

 

Front Artwork

 

Jason Lenox Vulgar Display of Artwork (2)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Lenox front3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back artwork

 

 

Jason Lenox Vulgar Display of Artwork

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason Lenox back3

 

 


LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #5 – Final Pencils

Another showcase pinup of the Heroes from the Lords of the Cosmos Team!

Tiedemies the Scientist, The Mighty Man-Tank, & Tenta-Kill the Blackwater Butcher in action on the Planet Aiden!

Notes on this page- I really went for reference on the cloak for Tiedmeies to get the folds as close to accurate as I could make them.  I also used a photo of an old person to get some of the facial wrinkles looking lifelike.

Tenta-Kill was like Belchor, simple and easy to come up with- no idea why, but his entire character came to me in a flash and it looked great.  Basically a “Fightin’ Robo Squid”

Man-Tank- wow.  He has been a main character in my mind’s eye for months, but getting his scale and bulk down correctly has been hard- I had him in a prior pinup (Mechaspring’s page) and then closed him out, I couldn’t get it together.  But using tons of tank reference, and a ruler to keep my lines and proportions correct, I pulled him together- and realized that just like the two headed guy from the last “Disciples of Umex” page- this was in the Transformers art camp again.  Man Tank was hard to do, but I am very happy with his final product- a defensive unit that shoots nets, ropes and has defensive shield generators that is part man, part tank.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did making it!

Jason Lenox Lords of the Cosmos Team Pinup 5


LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Disciples of Umex Pinup #5 – Pencils

“Golut the Tek Dwarf and two of his monstrous creations lurch across Planet Aiden in search of wanton destruction as they hope to eliminate the LORDS OF THE COSMOS once and for all!”

Thoughts and Notes-

So I managed to get a robotic snake head with needles for teeth injections in next to a butcher knife head on the larger monster- I had a fetish going with snakes after my recent “Gorgon Medusa” Project.  Additionally, I had a pile of reference from my prior snake-centric project, as well as some templates I had made from my own work with tracing paper to make rattlesnake heads- so it was a natural move to use one here.  The twist was to make it not a true snake like my last project, thus the robotic snake look.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    …………The two headed brute ended up channeling that blocky G1-G2 Transformer toy look- esp. with the howitzer/gun on the back- Onslaught the Combaticon comes to mind if you know what that is check him out here.  And I would have never realized how HARD those blocky Transformer type characters are to draw- much respect to anyone working in that world drawing these kinds of characters all the time! Since our goal from day one was to base this whole project on an 80’s toy line that never existed, this keeps the project in line visually with what we wanted.
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A very vague character write up came with the slime character, so I made it slime in a powered suit that gives it a human like shape- in addition to the wires on the suit it has wires coming out of the Umex team logo on his head- communication and control system.  One issue that came up-I had to fight hard to keep him looking like a minion- originally I had one big eye, and I was like “oh sh!t- it’s a minion!” so he got a face full of smaller eyes to break it up.  Totally unintentional, glad I caught it before fellow artist Chris Flick who is always drawing minion mash-ups called me on it!
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We are still working on names for the two monster/creatures, so we’ll get back to you on that one.
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Golut has a World War two era flamethrower and his nuclear backpack- go violent hate dwarf!  I used the basic template from Warhammer 40K and that genre of metal miniature dwarves to get the “look” for Golut down.
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..These three characters have been hard to get on paper, this was actually the third attempt to get them down, and it finally worked- some of my below sketches are from aborted attempts to work out these odd characters in design and composition- an evil dwarf and his evil machinations proved to be a larger challenge than I could have imagined.  Anyway, it made the finished work much sweeter to finally get completed and out of my head and sketchbooks!
………………………………………………………………………………                                                     Below are sketches, the minion look in progress piece that I caught in time , and final pencils
Lords of the Cosmos Disciples of Umex Pinup 4 Jason Lenox
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          My Minion Realization scan…
Not a Damn Minion!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Behind the scenes progress, sketchbook notes on some of the characters and composition study
2014-12-20 101010 2014-12-20 101219 - Copy 2014-12-20 101937 - Copy 2014-12-20 102412

Gorgon Medusa – Final Inks

The completed Gorgon Medusa artwork!

Another highly detailed ink piece- slight changes from the pencils- the breasts, eyes, and center head relationship with the top two snakes were changed to make some corrections on minor anatomy and layout errors.

The snakes were hard to do, especially the complex mouths and jaws, but the final results were really worth the efforts as they really bring the entire composition  together as small gems of detail for the viewer to explore.

Final words on this commission-

This was done for my friend and client, Carla Knapp. Just a quick word about Carla, when I got back into the art scene as a public figure (read:doing conventions, selling artwork, making comics etc.) about 3 years ago, I was introduced to her as a supporter of fantasy art at her store in Huntingdon, PA. She asked to buy what I had (at the time one book) and gave me $20 and said “we need to you making artwork”. Carla has always thrown up flyers for conventions I have been at locally and always supports just about whatever I am up to. Recently she fixed my computer as well- so I would ask any of you that are in Huntingdon to support her business if you want to help someone that actively supports my art, and the fantastic art scene in general.

Im excited that she can have some of my original artwork to put with her other awesome pieces of original art!

Huntingdon Computer Workshop
600 Washington Street
Huntingdon, PA 16652
(814) 641-7312
https://www.facebook.com/HCWorkshop

Gorgon Medusa Jason Lenox

 


Gorgon Medusa – Final Pencils

A really fun commission of a mythological creature I have wanted to draw for a while, and when a client asks, for this I couldnt resist.

Of note-

1- I really wanted to make a pretty woman under those snake scales, and do an angle to enhance the fact that her face has depth and form- not a front on portrait style composition.

2- The snakes- gorgeous but hard to get them right.  My first draft (below) had it like a headscarf with 5 snakes, it just didnt really look good, even though it was easy to “account” for all the snakes.  Then I mixed it up and made her hair more of a forest of snakes, which visually looked much better- it was just harder to make sure the physical layout of the snakes made sense.  Finally- getting the “curve” on the snake bodies was a trick, I kept drawing them straight, and it seemed wrong, I had to really get into the less simple snake layouts and make myself get into the snake anatomy (like you thought there was any?!)  Then those changes affected the physical layout at times (mentioned above) which made that part difficult to say the least.

I loved the final pencil art here, but it was a rough road.  This piece really ends up being a companion piece to “Vampire Lich King”, which is highlighted by the square shape as a framing device behind her.  You can see that other art here.

 

Final Draft

 

Jason Lenox Gorgon Medusa

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First draft

 

Jason Lenox Gorgon First Draft


LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #3 – Final Inks

In their full inked glory….Zacateco, Shar-Dor the Ice Assassin, Aviteus the Winged Warrior and Mechaspring.

Notes

– Mechaspring’s face changed to a real face from a machine face to show emotion better

– The feather pattern on Aviteus and shading was difficult, I used a stippled “dark shadow area to avoid more solid blacks

– Shar-Dor’s jagged ice skin was a pain to do

– Zacateco was based on a fan who is now in the book (pre kickstarter reward) so that turned out very close to his actual appearance.

Lords of the Cosmos #3 pinup Jason Lenox


Setsucon 2015 Badge Art Contest Entry

Working on an entry for the Badge Contest at Setsucon, the Penn State Anime Expo, and my first show of the year to be at locally every year!  Rocking an old school anime theme, inspired by some of my favorite 80’s anime.  You can read about Setscuon here and the badge art contest here !   The theme for the contest is childhood memories, so I designed the show mascot girl like she was in something like Dirty Pair, Project A-Ko or Bubblegum Crisis.  I put her in the snow with a soviet soldier style winter outfit to complete the winter time theme of the January date for the event.

Below are my final inks  and pencils for this project, I hope to see you at Setsucon 2015 on January 24th and 25th at the Penn Stater Convention Center!

 

Final Inks for Project

 

Final Inks Jason Lenox Setsucon Badge Entry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pencils for Project

 

Jason Lenox Setsucon 2015 Badge Entry Pencils


LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Disciples of Umex Pinup #4 – Final Pencils

TERRORIST DEATH CULT LEADER- UMEX!

The matching bookend page of the main villain, Umex the Defiler in a solo appearance to signify his importance to the story and his place as a leader of the forces of Evil in the world of Aiden.   You can see the main hero, Aegeus, in his solo page here.

While Aegeus was straight up and down and stoic- symbolic of his straight forward approach to law and order- Umex is on an angle, and is moving, the slanted angle (dutching or the “dutch angle” read about that visual concept here) hints at his twisted nature.  Small details of note- nuclear fallout ash is in the air, and an ominous dual black tower on a 3 pt. perspective dominates the background with a bridge going to a single door that connects the evil looking structures.

Other challenges were to show another angle (right side v. left side) with Umex, which is important to me as a creator to not repeat poses (unless I have to!) and to make a scary and dynamic composition for this character in his spotlight page.  On a technical note- getting all of Umex’s odd shapes and body armor correct on the angle he is standing at was difficult- you can see many of my erased lines as I struggled at times with the anatomy, proportions and perspective.

Below are the final pencils, in process pencils and a small poster I made with the artwork as a promo piece on Manga Studio 5.

Enjoy the leader of the DISCIPLES OF UMEX!

Jason Lenox Umex Lords of the Cosmos

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Promo Poster of Umex

Jason Lenox LORDS OF THE COSMOS Umex Poster

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Progress Sketch of Umex

Jason Lenox Lords of the Cosmos Umex

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #4 – Final Pencils

Another showcase pinup of the Heroes from the Lords of the Cosmos Team!

Icepaw the Polar Warrior, Orchamemnon the MechaFlower, and Ironshell the War Turtle.

Icepaw ended up being the easiest of the three, I was really plesae with the subtle facial structure I was able to learn about and then execute using reference of real polar bears. Ironshell brought out my inner Warhammer 40k geek of showing a gigantic war creature, and I feel I was successful in giving the creature a sense of grand scale.  Orchamemnon was hard, really hard.  The original creature description we made almost a year ago was very similar to Groot, so I moved away from that, and wanted to keep it a plant based character.  So I put a flower in a machine, which caused me to really get involved in the engineering of his mechanical transit robot body- rulers, compasses and drafting tools really became important.  I needed more space than usual to actually show the legs, arms and flower globe to the viewer- thus 3 characters not 4 or 5.  I am attaching the final pencils and the tracing paper I used to make sure that what you see works out with the parts that Icepaw hides with his bear sized body.

LORDS OF THE COSMOS… ASSEMBLE!

Enjoy!

Jason Lenox Lords of the Cosmos Team Pinup 4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tracing study of Orchamemnon’s robot body- note my see through compass tracings to get the proportions, and mechanical engineering correct behind Icepaw!  I made a small sketch of the entire machine in the lower right hand corner for my own reference as I worked to find out “how would this thing work?”

 

Jason Lenox Orchamemnon Trace Study with Icepaw


LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #3 – Final Pencils

Lords of the Cosmos… ASSEMBLE!!- Four new heroes get their debut into our new universe….Aviteus, Mechaspring, Shar-dor the Ice Assassin and (one as yet to be named, go go writing team!)  Watch them swing into action against the evil of Umex and his Disciples!

Aviteus- a roughly humanoid hero with a bird head, arms with extended wings attached and two powerful legs ending in vicious bird claws. Descended from the great man-Rocs of old, Aviteus soars the skies of Aiden searching for the stain of Umex upon the land. Along with Green Man’s animal spies, Aviteus serves as scout and first striker for the Disciples of Umex. His massive talons can tear flesh and rend metal when their diamond tips are exposed, but by Aegeus’s order Aviteus keeps them shod in dragon-hide leathers. Though he respects Aegeus’s ethos and stalwart resolve he longs to feel the flesh of his foes rent asunder under the might of his magnificent talons

Mechaspring: An injured and escaped Slave who fled to the mysterious RUST MOUNTAINS, where he fashioned ancient Tek-Dwarf technology to make himself a new pair of legs and arms. Now he leaps from hiding to free other slaves, making him the bane of the slavers and Umex’s agents in the harsh RUST MOUNTAINS.

Shar-Dor – The Ice Assassin From the Frozen South, where the temperature never climbs above freezing, this jagged prince can form his body into icicles of death. He can melt himself down and reform into whatever shape meets his needs. He rides his great Polar Bear, GRAUL, and swings his ice scimitar.

(Un-Named Character still under construction)

Jason Lenox Lords of the Cosmos Team Pinup 2 edit


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