Category: Pencil Work

Vampire Lich King – Pencils

March 3, 2014
Pencil WorkRole 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!

 

Vampire Lich Jason Lenox Pencils

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

March 3, 2014
Figure DrawingPencil 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!

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Aliens: Overrun Colonial Marine Checkpoint Pinup – Pencils

February 22, 2014
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

Aliens Colonial Marines - Overrun at the Checkpoint - Jason Lenox

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

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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!

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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!

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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

 

Jason Lenox ALIENS Artwork Progress transfer

Jason Lenox ALIENS Artwork Progress (5)

 

Jason Lenox ALIENS Artwork Progress (2)

 

 

Sketches

Jason Lenox ALIENS Artwork Progress

 

Jason Lenox ALIENS Artwork Progress (3)

 

 

Jason Lenox ALIENS Artwork Progress (4)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference

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

February 22, 2014
Figure DrawingPencil Work
0 Comment

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

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

February 7, 2014
Figure DrawingPencil 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.

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THE THING 1982 : Dog-Thing Pinup – Pencils

February 5, 2014
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

Jason Lenox THE THING Dog-Thing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lenox THING COLOR OVERLAY plan

Lenox Gun Overlay

Lenox Thing Study

Dog Mutation Rough Sketch003

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Lenox diorama THE THING

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lenox Gun Pose

Loki LENOX Model Dog

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

January 31, 2014
Figure DrawingPencil 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.

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Setsucon 2014- Commissions

January 31, 2014
CommissionsPencil Work
0 Comment

Three random commissions I did at SETSUCON 2014-  Jigsaw, Judge Dredd and a young lady who had a furry character she asked me to illustrate for her!  I always enjoy these small sketches at shows!

Im looking forward to a larger scale DREDD study for a killer pinup in the near future- stay tuned…. it’s fun how these commissions can foreshadow something bigger sometimes!

Lenox Setsucon Commission Work (2)

Lenox Setsucon Commission Work (3)

Lenox Setsucon Commission Work

Barron the Demon and Hydra Pinup- Pencils

January 21, 2014
Pencil WorkUGLI studios
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Joseph Freistuhler has been involved in both of my comics, and now as part of our UGLI STUDIOS banner he is making his own comic project called EN TENEBRES which he is currently running as a KICKSTARTER HERE. I was tapped by Joe to do a pinup, and I wanted to focus on his Demon character known as “BARRON” which Joe had some really cool character designs on.

I wanted to draw another Dragon for a while as well, so this was a great chance to shoe-horn a Hydra into the mix.  The “story” I am showing in this pinup is BARRON as a high officer in the “ARMY OF HELL” and the Hydra is BARRON’s living weapon of mass destruction.  To give the piece a setting I have BARRON and his Hydra destroying a church in the middle ages,  because what else do Demons that have Hydras with them have to do in their free time?

Visually I really wanted to make BARRON seem like a feral animal moving quickly while also showing he is really strong, and I think he really ended up looking like a fast moving creature stalking/running/crouching on that roofline.  Part of this in the thumbnails to final pencils was bulking him up and getting his head down to more of a crouch pose.  He also has really long creepy forearms as well which added to his unnatural aesthetic.  I really had fun with his chest, which after it was done reminded me of the Alien’s chest from the 1979 film of a creepy exo-skeleton which was a second sub-conscious thing.  One element you can see in my sketches was he was going to have a gorgon with a trident behind him, and this just didnt work from a layout standpoint for me, so she got dropped- I’m sure the monster union will file a complaint and protest with me.

I also really wanted to duplicate the great time I had creating my Dragon I did as a pinup for Kantara in 2012.  That piece was really fun for me, and the fans have really connected with it and I get asked frequently “WHEN IS YOUR NEXT DRAGON?” so I present the newest “Jason Lenox Dragon”.  At the same time I needed to  do it differently, so creature design wise there are three big changes with this Hydra to the 2012 Dragon

#1 Three odd heads with different outcropping and features as well as breathing fire.  I wanted to make these heads less natural and more freakish to show they had “Hellish” origins.  I also felt like I channeled some old school Godzilla monster into the heads  the center head sort of looked like a Godzilla foe (KAIJU!!!) that had a big knife for a head I liked as a kid- I realized this after the fact, so it was a second sub-conscious thing.

#2 The Hydra has blank “dead” eyes which I pattered after deep see fish that don’t see much light- thus just white plates with no pupils.  The blank eyes always were an element that creeped me out, whereas the 2012 Dragon looks smart and cunning like a crocodile, the Hydra just looks like a mindless killer- again, it’s Hellish origins as a slave creature made by Demons like Barron to just wage war and cause indiscriminate destruction on Earth go along with this visual cue.

#3- The snake like body on the Hydra as opposed to the turtle like legs and the stout body from the prior Dragon.  The lack of legs all adds to the malformed/un-earthly/hellish look I was working to achieve with Barron and the Hydra.

Visually the final element that just worked was the cross on the building, it was sort of a tribute to when Todd McFarlane made comics- he loved throwing that as a visual element into SPIDERMAN as well as SPAWN- I always loved his work and am still inspired by his ability to make things look fabulous, so with Demons running on a church roofline, I felt it was a fun wink and a nod to fans of Todd’s work from me to them.

Here are the final pencils, my thumbnails and Joe’s original Character Designs for BARRON.

Demon Barron and Hydra - Jason Lenox

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1/16/14 – Nude Figure Studies in Pencil with Model- At Art Alliance of Central PA

January 21, 2014
Figure DrawingPencil Work
0 Comment

Another session that was a struggle and challenge for me,  here is my most current figure drawing session from last week.  But like basketball, when a shooter hits a cold streak, you shoot your way out of it, I’ll be back at figure drawing class this week.

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