This was not the best figure drawing session for me, it was if I had a bad deal on a card game, but here are the results, even if it wasnt the easiest session for me- practice makes perfect. I am always learning to work on my human anatomy to continually get better and improve my craft.
O.K… so this is something I get asked about frequently, and yes I do it when it makes sense… “Do you design tattoos?”… This is always a rough and slow process as the goal is to pull something out of someone’s head that isn’t necessarily an artist, but can “see” something, and like blind man’s bluff you are shooting darts to hit that imaginary target.
So this project was for a friend and fraternity brother, Dave Warden. A few words on Dave- I’ve Known Dave for about 20 years now, and he has always been a great older brother for me- sometimes we have spoken and seen each other frequently, and sometimes not so much. Also Dave has always been someone that would equally tell me I was wrong, as well as praising me when I was doing something right. I can also thank Dave for about 50% of my technology knowledge, also introducing me to the Geto Boys (2000?) and South Park (1997?) as well as many beers, laughs and good times. Pretty much, if you know someone like Dave, or as we called him “Sweet Daddy” consider yourself lucky, they don’t come along very often. Dave was diagnosed with M.S. a few years ago, which was a real blow to me, since I have known Dave so long I hated to hear that he would not have the same quality of life moving forward, and I realized we were all getting old.
Anyway Dave contacted me about this project because he wanted to get a tattoo to show his dedication to fighting this disease. Dave has always been a supporter & fan of my artwork since about 1993. Dave actually made a Mad Magazine style cameo in this 90’s fraternity tee shirt I illustrated here – Dave is driving the golf cart. After our initial conversation about this project I got a real feeling that my return to artwork the last few years really made Dave proud of me, and I also got a true sense of his enjoyment watching me make so many new pieces and getting back to the younger artist’s dedication that he remembered before I stopped drawing which I reference in this post called “Hiatus”. I get so much energy from positive talks like this, so once I had an idea of what Dave wanted last Fall- “A Broken Sun with a Smirking Face Surrounded by Tattered Flags”- it was time to get to work and get this taken care of for Sweet Daddy.
One of the things I found as I researched this issue (doing my homework) was that alot of people in the M.S. community get tattoos, and what a rough disease this is to have. Losing control of my body has to be one of things that scares me more than most- other things being Sharks and Drowning that would rate in that category. So while doing this project, I gained a healthy respect for Dave’s situation and the M.S. Community in general, and I knew that I needed to give the project the slow process and attention to detail it deserved so Dave’s wishes would be accurately drawn out for the tattoo artist to put this into his skin permanently. Of course, tattoo needles and needles in general scare me, so yes I am a huge pussy.
Luckily- Dave loved the first draft, and there was a move to get more to the original sketch, which you can see I was already moving away in images 2-3! The 7 images below chronicle the journey from step one- to final inks. Along the way we had some adds, deletes and some happy accidents that Dave loved that I had no idea were in there- so that was awesome. When I do something like this, I abdicate about 80% creative control to the client, so it is a slow process. I don’t always agree with what we (Jason and Art Client) are doing in a process like this, but unlike most of my projects I make I’m not the creative director.
Ultimately It is important that this is what the client is comfortable wearing on their skin, so they are the boss. I can say that getting Dave’s final email simply commenting “Beautiful” made my day, another job well done with some killer artwork. Thank you Sweet Daddy, keep up the good fight!
Updated (2/9/14 with actual tattoo art on skin)
Conan the Barbarian- an epic character from Robert E. Howard and an iconic figure in American Artwork on book & comic covers and thousands upon thousands of pages of printed comic books. Unlike my last series of pinups (Dr. Who Villains) where there is little art to compare to- Conan is an epic order to fill- Frazetta, Buscema, Smith, Alcala, Chan, Boris are just some of the classic legends to tackle and succeed with this Barbarian from another age and time.
The biggest challenge when facing this kind of historical comic character is what I’ll call the “Nord Barrier”- and by that I mean Cary Nord- super artist in general that re-launched this title with Dark Horse several years back. What impressed me with Cary’s work was that he made his work original and “re-made” Conan all over again with a fresh style that was unique, as well as beautifully rendered. I think that Cary pulled this off was made all the harder with so many great artists doing the same thing for decades. He managed to make the Nord Conan a unique look and feel despite so many hurdles to being original. So I felt if I were doing a Conan piece I had to make it mine and not a knock off of say- Buscema’s or Frazetta’s etc. and thus cross the “Nord Barrier”.
So I took my favorite Conan Story and made my image of two paragraphs from Tower of the Elephant– it was a challenge from the changing poses of the Main character- Conan, and the Spider- below are my 4 steps to get to final pencils. Here is the passage I took my cue from…
It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with swift death. This was the killer that had dropped from its perch in the middle of the ceiling on a strand of its web, on the neck of the Nemedian. Fools that they were not to have suspected that the upper chambers would be guarded as well as the lower!
These thoughts flashed briefly through Conan’s mind as the monster rushed. He leaped high, and it passed beneath him, wheeled and charged back. This time he evaded its rush with a sidewise leap, and struck back like a cat. His sword severed one of the hairy legs, and again he barely saved himself as the monstrosity swerved at him, fangs clicking fiendishly. But the creature did not press the pursuit; turning, it scuttled across the crystal floor and ran up the wall to the ceiling, where it crouched for an instant, glaring down at him with its fiendish red eyes. Then without warning it launched itself through space, trailing a strand of slimy grayish stuff.
And now that you have read the text I based this on- I present the pencils, and layout and thumbnails that led to the final pencils. Lots to do here before I get it complete, but a project to be excited about! Did I cross the “Nord Barrier”? Well dear reader, that is for you, and not your humble narrator to decide!
*Note- the top scan are some edits I made after the “final pencils” I got some amazing crits on this piece from some killer artists (who asked to remain nameless) and I was able to give Conan a boost, to look, well more “Conan”. So the first scan are the Conan Specific Corrections, and then the main scan is under that – it was done about 48 hours prior. I like to share as much behind the scenes stuff as possible so I wanted to show this part of the process pre inks.
CONAN RE-EDITS
Another cool commission from a fan who asked me to do an interpretation of DC Comic’s Harley Quinn, the girlfriend of the Joker. I was surprised to see her new costume was more of a roller derby girl as opposed to her old Batman the animated series jester outfit, but hey, times are changing! I may tweak some of the facial expression, but at the same time, I like the odd expression that came with the smile and stare I was going for in a psychotic killer’s psychotic girlfriend….
Enjoy!
Just a short and sweet Thanos Commission I’m doing for a fan I met at a store signing. He is collecting different artists doing their own interpretations of the classic Marvel villain. I’ll always identify Thanos with the following four items as visual keys…
#1- The Infinity Gauntlet
#2- The 70’s Anime inspired helmet
#3- the psycho eyes and ever present smile
#4- the wacked out ribbed chin
I put all of them in the piece, and had a nice overlap of hand over face and shoulder to build depth. The piece ended up being a fairly simple, but effective composition to get what I remembered about Thanos into one coherent pinup.
I could tell this session really went well for me, I was very pleased with my pieces from this week, I think the rust finally came off from missing figure drawing for a few months- enjoy. And very impressive from this week’s new model who held some obnoxiously uncomfortable poses for decent amounts of time.
So my newest pinup is based on a Manga I am reading called “ATTACK ON TITAN” Which is basically a post apocalyptic future where humanity lives in a walled city as the Earth is over-run by cannibalistic giants that eat people. Right now I am on volume #6 and I quite enjoy the series. As I work on building up my folio, I have an anime con coming up in January 2014, and I know this show is popular (it’s an anime as well, which I have not watched yet) so it should be a hit at shows, and since I like it… and who doesnt like cannibal giants…. I decided to do this piece as my newest project.
The layout and pencils took about a week to get where I wanted them- volume 6 detailed a new Giant that is a skinless woman, who is smarter than the average giant, and alot of the issue is her killing the “good guys” the SURVEY CORPS of the last bastion of humanity as they ride a bunch of horses around towards a forest- they use horses to get around, and wires with guns to launch the hooks from their hips to stab the giants in their necks… go read it or watch it to find out more on ATTACK ON TITAN… but I digress.
Anyway, I wanted to give the size of the female giant in this piece and at first in my thumbnail my thought was to go over her looking down with the soldiers on their wires trying to cut her- see below I didn’t think it worked. Then I went with a straight forward Giant woman crouching with a horse running at the viewer- straight on, and not dynamic at all, but I liked the elements- then later that day, I was brushing my teeth, and just saw the thumbnail of the crouching giant in my head and moved my internal camera to the left and down and looked up- and saw the image rotated in my head. I made a rough sketch of the giantess from a worm’s eye view as a rough sketch, then made some traces of my rough sketch of the giant and a sketch right on tracing paper for the rider so I could move his image around on top of the Giant. After I was satisfied with the composition, I cleaned both images up , and then transferred it to a board and did the detailing. Now this book has kinetic art, but weak on the detail, so I had to really guess and dig to find out the layout for the uniforms and monster body. Id love to ink this book for the artist/creator Hajime Isayama and give his excellent layouts some of the detail they deserve, probably not going to happen, but It can’t hurt to dream a bit. Enjoy the pencils, especially the guy getting crushed in the giant’s hand. Take a look at the hand closeup below the finished pencils… it was fun to make that gruesome detail of the twisted and crushed limbs, I always love finding details like that in other artist’s work so I like to pay it forward to other fans to find this sort of thing. So be on the lookout…. Ill be inking this piece soon!
Reference Material
More rust coming off at figure drawing class- check it out
I’ve been away from the Art Alliance for months, but back again last week here are the results, I was rusty, but as always a good workout of the fundamentals.
Davros: “Now, you will tell me the reason for every Dalek defeat. With that knowledge, I will programme them. With that knowledge, they will know their errors and how to avoid them. With that knowledge, there shall be no defeats! We will begin…..” from Genesis of the Daleks 1975
And so my fifth and final Dr. Who pinup begins. I knew in the back of my head I wanted to end on another classic villain I loved as a kid- Davros, the creator of the Daleks. As a fan of the militant villains that the FASA Dr Who RPG fleshed out in the 80’s I was obsessed with the crippled and evil Davros who was introduced in the 70’s on BBC as the twisted genius that created the cybernetic Daleks. Davros first appeared in the 1975 Episode “Genesis of the Daleks” and then back in 1979’s “Destiny of the Daleks” & 1984’s “Resurrection of the Daleks” where a new (and very lame) enemy of the Daleks called the Movellans apparently had the Daleks at a “logic” impasse in a huge intergalactic war.
To quote: “For years, the two were locked in a long stalemate, each side’s purely logical battle keeping them in deadlock. Hundreds of Dalek and Movellan battlecruisers flew across space, without a single shot being fired. ”
Again, more lame from the BBC- we never saw the fleets, and the Daleks were always thinking outside the box on the show, now they dont fire their guns and can’t make a move in a war?? as a fan, I was left thinking “What the f***?”
The Movellans ultimately defeated the Daleks offscreen with a biological virus…. as a fan, I was left thining “What the f***?” yet again.
The Movellans were androids with a metrosexual/rasta look that were the height of lame late 70’s/ early 80’s design. It looked as if the Movellans came off the set of SOUL TRAIN or SOLID GOLD, I was not pleased at all as a fan of the Daleks that this was the endgame.
I WANTED THE DALEKS TO WIN- and if they were to lose- the freaking Movellans? A totally lame villain didnt deserve to win… surely they had a better nemesis than that. And then Dr. Who the BBC television show went away unti the 2005 reboot, where a new improved Davros was involved with a war against the Time Lords and the Daleks kicked enough ass to fight the Time Lords into a mutually assured destruction in a “Time War” – and I was left thinking “What about the Movellans? As much as they sucked- THEY WON THE WAR!! Where was the resolution?” On top of that the BBC never showed the Movellans after 1979, and we never saw the galactic war the Daleks Lost- and then, did they come back and win the war to become the New super Daleks? WHAT HAPPENED THIS MADE NO SENSE FROM START TO LACK OF FINISH?!?!?!
Ah poor/incomplete writing and cheap production values from the BBC yet again- a storyline we never liked …that we never saw a resolution to ….just gets ignored, and then we just move on since the writers realized the Daleks kicked ass and needed to be the top dog of the villain food chain of the Dr. Who Universe…. and who needs a lame android from the late 70’s to get in the way of that?
In the Movellan Dr Who Wikia page I saw that a 1997 book based on the 8th Doctor tried to retcon the old Androids off the show… to quote from the Movellan Entry here… where the Daleks lost a writer would eliminate the old dreadlocked robots once and for all…..
” Fans have, generally speaking, not warmly received John Peel’s suggestion, in War of the Daleks, that the Dalek-Movellan War never actually happened. “
And I realized that nobody liked the Movellans, and the BBC was just lazy and hiding from a lame decision in the first place. So this project was in many was a correction to do several things, besides being a great piece of Dr. Who artwork.
1- Show the Daleks kicking ass on the Movellans
2- Davros running the show from a headquarters area- he sort of looks like the Crypt Keeper, which works for him here.
3- Illustrate elements from the War on the Movellans that we never saw, at all. This includes a space ship battle with a Movellan Ship and Dalek ship (hey wasnt this a battle in space with two war-fleets?) the Daleks using a nuke in a city (they are radioactive mutants in hard shells, wouldnt they use nukes liberally on the enemy?) and finally the close up death of a Movellan via a Dalek. We all hate the Movellans so that brings some closure to the composition of the piece.
4- Make the up close Movellan death, horrific. I hated these guys and wanted to end this with a bang, so I felt a laser cutting one in half from a Dalek POV was what I wanted to see.
5- Make the continuity that I wanted (and I suspect many fans would as well) in one spectacular image around Davros, and the Daleks defeating the Movellans- once and for all, once Davros fixed the virus and put the Daleks back on top- then they are free to fight the Time Lords, or whatever adventures they need to have.
So here is my final pencils, pencil tracings from my thumbnails and layouts and the original source material I used for the character and ship models. I hope you enjoy this piece for some killer artwork, and well, my own little retcon with Davros, the Daleks and the Movellans -which in this piece the Movellans are sort of cool for once!
I look forward to inking it soon!
FINAL PENCILS
DAVROS /DALEK/ MOVELLAN PENCIL LAYOUTS
SOURCES
