jlenox – Page 56 – Jason Lenox

So the Aliens/Colonial Marine project comes to a close- and I think I threw out my ALIENS rants and raves in my pencil post here, so I’ll focus on what challenges the inks brought me as I brought this piece to completion this week.

#1- I had to correct the 2 pt perspective on the UA571-C gun and 1 pt on the hallway in relationship to the hexagonal wall system, it was incorrect in the pencil stage.

#2- The Aliens “Blackness” I had them too black and used some white paint to rebuild some contrasts in the overlapping black on black areas. Then inked over them to bring them back to a more stippled gradation to match the rest of the inked rendering. The Aliens are dark creatures in dark spaces, so it was a tight balance to bring to a proper level with the Aliens unique look and style in a low lighting environment.

#3- The spinning emergency lights (in every Aliens film) they were a bugger to get “right” in the inking process.

#4- the pipes and wires in the background- ugh, so cool to see, but so annoying to do!

Overall, I think this artwork ended up being the Aliens artwork that I wanted to see, and I have not encountered as an Aliens fan. I geeked out on the final product, which is just a fun place to be as a creator and fan simultaneously to generate the content you want to see. I look forward to seeing the response from others as this piece gets out to the public.

Vampire Lich King – Pencils

March 3, 2014 jlenox

Pencil Work Role Playing Games

1 Comment

This is a small one shot illustration I’m making for my friend by Mark Taormino’s new Role Playing Game module “The Hanging Coffins of the Vampire Queen”. It’s a retro “old school” first edition D&D style book he did on Kickstarter, which you can see here .

The project was one character “Vampire Lich King”- so I made a list of elements to put together on this

1- An old testament style bible crown (the kind of stuff I recall from Sunday School when I was awake)

2- A modified/exaggerated skull with vampire fangs hiding in plain sight,

3- Glowing eyes set back in the eye sockets

4- An uptight outfit

5- Long wispy hair to show that the Lich was alive at one time

The inks will use the eyes as the “light” part of the composition and the rest of the artwork will play off a dark palette hidden in shadow. For now even in pencil this really screams “Old School D&D” to me. So I hope it helps out Mark’s book, which is a fun project to have an illustration like this in, and that his fans enjoy my contribution!

2/27/14 – Nude Figure Studies in Pencil with Model- At Art Alliance of Central PA

March 3, 2014 jlenox

Figure Drawing Pencil Work

0 Comment

My third session in the last few months with our Model, Georgia. Very long hair has been a challenge with her obscuring her figure. I was quite pleased with this session of four pieces, especially the one hour pose at the end, I felt I really tackled her hair in a creative way and stylized it!

Aliens: Overrun Colonial Marine Checkpoint Pinup – Pencils

February 22, 2014 jlenox

Pencil Work

3 Comments

“James Cameron’s 1986 film Aliens is my personal Citizen Kane” – Jason Lenox

“They (UA571-C Auto Gun Platform) Really Kick Ass”- Cpl D. Hicks, U.S. Colonial Marine Forces

Final Pencils on Aliens Overrun Colonial Marine Checkpoint Pinup

So I love Aliens (1986), and what a twisted web that film weaves in our pop culture- it was the last good “Alien” film despite about 5 sequels that never came close, Prometheus being the latest failure in 2012. Aliens was probably James Cameron’s second to last good film, T2 being the last one in 1991, Avatar was a lame version of the Colonial Marines set to the script from Dances with Wolves, in my opinion. Aliens also inspired tons of cool comics from Dark Horse with some great writing- unfortunately most of them had really substandard artwork except Dark Horse’s “ALIENS:MORE THAN HUMAN from Arcudi/Howard/Irwin- again in my opinion. 2013 saw Aliens & the Colonial Marines spawn a horrible video game sequel to the 1986 film that FOX films and the game maker said was “film cannon” – I’ll hit on that later as it’s most recent failure in the pop culture arena. Rarely is something so cool sh*t on so often, so here’s hoping I can shed some coolness on this property- read on!

What they all were trying to get and failed at to was the mystique that Cameron made with the Colonial Marines, their gear, uniforms, vehicles and general feel when they got wiped out by the Aliens in 1986 in that iconic film, which was widely imitated and never matched.

But then I found one thing did hit the mark- a book. In fact a technical manual.

Early in 2013 I got a copy of the long time out of print Book “ALIENS: COLONIAL MARINES TECHNICAL MANUAL” which was reprinted thanks to the hype machine around PROMETHEUS. you can get a copy here and geek out a bit. Here is my copy that I kept with me as I worked on this project.

This 1996 book was expertly made by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood , and really captured everything the failed attempts to re-create this “feel” in the years since it was published, heck since 1986. The most recent failure as I mentioned above was for the new ALIENS video game in 2013 click here to read the reviews great for some laughs.

Then I started noticing people even cosplaying the Colonial Marines at conventions.

Here are two guys (one in full Colonial Marine gear!) I saw at Pittsburgh Comic Con in Late September 2013 that were super fans, I was inspired again. One even had me do a quick ALIEN sketch- check out his jacket with badges from the first two ALIEN films!

Then after Pittsburgh I got this amazing Aliens inspired UA571-C shirt from 8-Ball Tees last Fall…click here to get one yourself! O.K.- so what is the UA571-C? well I got an answer, see below, but look at my shirt here first!

This shirt featuring the gun was the geekiest ALIENS reference ever…. and I had to have it as a fan of the 1986 film! Hell, now I was all fired up by the technical manual and wanted to see more, just like all of the fans of the film have over the years….

Anyway- the UA571-C Gun… I got sidetracked, sorry!

The UA571-C gun is in a deleted scene of the film here– I couldn’t believe people were picking up on this obscure element just like the tech manual had done years ago.

So fast forward to now 2014 my pinup project is wrapping up before my next comic book creation starts in March of 2014- and one of my fans (Eric Suarez) asked me to do an ALIENS commission- it fit all of my goals as far as pinups were concerned.

1-Making a fan happy

2-Creating something that will sell as a print at shows

3-Generating something that I can show to publisher and as a portfolio piece

4-Finally it has to be something I’m passionate about that I want to show the world.

And on top of all that, I wanted to make that piece of “ALIENS” art that I never saw within the pages of Dark Horse quality wise, alot of “meh” artwork in those pages. I also wanted something that the folks that made the ALIENS Colonial Marines Tech Manual would love (super fans) and to show something that we never “quite” saw in the films. Hopefully all of this makes something awesome for my client that is paying me for the original artwork too! So the bar is now set- at “unique, unseen in the films (but hinted at) and my normal high level of pen and ink execution” on a property that has been dumped on for years.

So I made a checklist of sorts before I started

1- Show Aliens moving people infected with facehuggers away to their nesting area- the off-screen process we never saw in ALIENS (per my note above about something we have not seen before) was hinted at but never seen- I thought that would be cool to illustrate what that might look like.

2- The UA571-C gun is the centerpiece of the composition, gotta rock my shirt, right?

3- Colonial Marines on the bad end of a conflict- guns out of ammo, checkpoint overrun, Aliens placement in the artwork should be all over the place- showing their fast unpredictable movement.

4 -Use the designs from the ALIENS universe- hexagon wall layouts, flashing lights etc.

5- Using the Cameron ALIENS design from 1986, not the more HR GIGER design from the 1970’s to keep it consistent with the latter film- yes the original film Alien is quite different- sources below.

6- Facehuggers

7- The M56 Smart Gun- Vazquez gun from the film ( THIS DIDN’T MAKE THE CUT UNFORTUNATELY)

8- A perspective to show ACTION!!! not straight on, with a composition of the figures to make your eye move- like the action scenes in ALIENS.

9- A close up Alien so I can do some pen and ink magic to make the details and anatomy pop up close.

And I hit 8/9 in my goal to make the best possible ALIENS & COLONIAL MARINES artwork that would catch my eye and make me want to stop and look for a bit- so here are my source pieces for ref. to my pencil sketches to transfers on sketch paper the final pencils headlined the entry above. ENJOY MARINES!!!

Composition Studies

Sketches

Reference

2/20/14 – Nude Figure Studies in Pencil with Model- At Art Alliance of Central PA

February 22, 2014 jlenox

Figure Drawing Pencil Work

0 Comment

A great session this week with a new model, very pleased with my sketches this week.

THE THING 1982 : Dog-Thing Pinup – Final Inks

February 13, 2014 jlenox

Pen & Ink

0 Comment

I was very pleased with what the inks did to this piece- from the striking use of black to silhouette out Kurt Russell’s character “MacReady” in the foreground to the background textures of the wood walls and hay on the floor that all outline “THE THING”. I made it a point to work to keep all of the objects in totally different inking styles so whether this piece was black and white, or in color it still strikes you with all the different materials and lighting. Speaking of light- I was also happy with how I used a compass to make bigger circles emanating from the central light source to use different levels of line work and stippling to show the flashlight as a light source. The heavy line work on the large hands from the THING and the dogs that are being absorbed also gave all of the primary objects a real 3-D feel that you can almost reach in and feel the textures unfolding at the scene. Finally, I felt that the THING’s dog-face was an awesome focal point with the chiaroscuro really bringing out the melted and malformed features on the dogs unbalanced and angry face.

The awesome employee at JARU Inc. that does my large scale scanning, Miss Megan, who scanned this today, told me the image was upsetting and made her uncomfortable- all I can say is- Mission Accomplished!

Another Killer pinup under my belt and onto the next one-hope you enjoy this one as much as I did making it!

2/6/14 – Nude Figure Studies in Pencil with Model- At Art Alliance of Central PA

February 7, 2014 jlenox

Figure Drawing Pencil Work

0 Comment

A solid session with a model that was older than our normal college aged folks- I really felt I nailed these four pieces, and I think the model gave us some challenges in her poses and made me work.

THE THING 1982 : Dog-Thing Pinup – Pencils

February 5, 2014 jlenox

Pencil Work

0 Comment

CLARK “I don’t know what the hell’s in there, but it’s weird and pissed off, whatever it is.”

One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite horror and sci fi films of all time- the Iconic John Carpenter Film from 1982 “THE THING”. As I have been making pinups for the last few months, I have been having a great time “visiting” different movies, TV shows and comics that I am a fan of, and getting to give OUTPOST #31 a visit was a long awaited place I’ve been wanting to go, and a place I wanted to take my fans to with some artwork that is beyond what you have seen for the standard fan-art for this property. I made two small commission from this film in 2013, which just fueled me to do a full out THE THING project- those two pieces are also below with my full art process, even though they were small doodles, I really loved them!

Ive been a fan of this Film for about 20 years now, and I love the hardcore fan base which is online at their Outpost 31 website here, I hope that I can meet some of these good folks at a show in person soon!

This film has great acting, a great script, amazing music, creepy sound effects and could be one of the pinnacle films of practical F/X with makeup, models and even some stop motion. With so many awesome scenes to pick from I chose the dog kennel which I have always thought was just amazing. I was lucky to get a diorama of it as a gift from my Mom years ago, so I decided that was the direction to go in- make that scene from a new exciting angle in my style, but stay as faithful to the film as possible, without just copying a film cel. Going with an over the shoulder POV with Mac (Kurt Russell) in the foreground I wanted his shotgun to lead the eye to a direct view of the dog thing with the transforming dogs on the outskirts. I felt this added a real sense of excitement and urgency to the image by the composition to the highly detailed scene on the kennel floor. I was really happy with the results- here is the clip from the film I based it on.

Welcome to Outpost #31…..

Below Pictures

Final Pencils…. traced transfers, Thing Study, thumbnail

Film Ref. and Photo Reference- thanks to my Dad (Ron Lenox) and Dog (Loki Lenox) for modeling for me on this project!

And my two 2013 THE THING commissions from Baltimore and Cleveland

Barron the Demon and Hydra Pinup- Final Inks

January 31, 2014 jlenox

Pen & Ink UGLI studios

0 Comment

Here is the final inked version of this pinup- the biggest insight I can give is there was an old fake leather product my Grandmother had on a purse that I didn’t care for- it looked and felt weird- so I tried to mimic that on the Hydra’s heads for an otherworldly texture that also offset the lifeless eyes. I also gave Barron’s skull head a tweak to make it more 3 dimensional- it seemed off in the pencils with the head more a straight profile and the jaw on an angle- so I balanced it out. His right hand was altered as well in the inking phase to make it more realistic as well as creepy, It seemed to go from a weak element in the pencils to a strong one in the ink phase. Enjoy – and check out Joe’s book here– it got funded at over 100%

Really pleased and proud of how this turned out, and another Lenox Dragon is always a good thing to see…. Enjoy!

1/30/14 – Nude Figure Studies in Pencil with Model- At Art Alliance of Central PA

January 31, 2014 jlenox

Figure Drawing Pencil Work

0 Comment

I felt like I had a hot hand this week, and I was really pleased with the figure drawing session this week, especially the bottom first drawing, which is always a non traditional angle to work. Also of note- I was very happy with how my feet turned out on these pieces.