This is a little sketch I did over Thanksgiving in Florida at my Neice’s 3rd grade class I sat in on 11/26/12 – it ended up being my Yag-kosha from Robert E. Howard’s “Tower of the Elephant”- from his classic CONAN short stories… Im going to do a Conan Poster sometime… this might be a basis for it. Note- this was supposed to just be an animal drawing in a class with kids, of course I ended up giving it arms, since that is how I roll.
The 5th page of the Painted Ladies of San Quentin- the flash back ends with a visual device of blurred vision and Elijah’s eyes closing from his POV in P1-2, and then to bring it back to the present characters getting ready to clash a side worm’s eye view of the horse carrying the Chinaman (fond of the panel- really love how this turned out!) and Elijah getting ready for a fight now that he is in the present again- in P’s 3 and 4 respectively. Also went for a lower angle side shot of the head turn on Elijah-thanks Brent Peeples from NYCC for tipping me off to more dynamic head turns during a folio review!
Also, Im getting more comfortable drawing the pistols of the era- practice makes perfect on them!
The flashback continues on page 4 with a nice alternative twisted POV for Elijah running to the house in p1, a closeup on the Sheriff’s face in p2, and a nice 2×4 upside the head from Jessica to Elijah in a violent p3 (really liked Elijah’s face construction in this panel) which starts to wind up the flashbacks to set up the action that takes the story to the fighting, guns and blood once we get the exposition part of the story set up, which is what everyone wants in a western about vengeance, killers and double crossin’! Some good old fashion old west killin’….. right pardner?
The third penciled page from Painted Ladies of San Quentin- really tried to get creative with the Sheriff’s obese body, a worms eye viewpoint on the P1 shot- a nice profile of the Chinaman in P2 (does he look like he is up to no good or what?!) , and a flashback moshup of three of the dying painted ladies in p4,5,6 which overlays a top down POV of the whorehouse burning with Elijah’s face superimposed over it which leads into page 4.
Second penciled page of Painted Ladies of San Quentin- dramatic entry for the Chinaman, The Sheriff and Jessica Belmont as they plot to kill our protagonist, Elijah Holman. Really happy with all four panel layouts- nice intros to all 4 characters, and tried to mix up the page with a tilted angle on p1, and a closeup on p4- and I like the sword opening from the Chinaman on p3. I also like the pencil shadowing on Jessica’s leg on panel 2, a “happy accident”- as a famous PBS painter used to say while doing landscapes….
Tom King was an amazing writer I met at NYCC in October 2012- his book “A Once Crowded Sky” is his attempt to do prose to the super hero genre. After NYCC- we spoke about doing a pinup of a character for paperback release of the book. Tom sent me all of the character designs, and due to the story, no villians – Save one- “THE SURVIVOR” in Tom’s words is…
The novel begins after all the villains have been killed off, so we didn’t really do designs for them. The only villain listed in the designs is Survivor, a character sort of like a more sophisticated Vandal Savage, an intelligent man with no actual powers whose been around for a few thousand years and whose immortality depends on him killing people. No one’s sketched him yet (he’s just a guy in a suit)……he’s basically a dignified guy in his early 50s with white hair, a sort of calm, modern CEO type who has always been on the wrong side of moral history (a Nazi, a slave trader, etc.).
Figuring a guy in a suit, slave trader, or a nazi etc. by itself was boring, I did a tryptych of the SURVIVOR as a Roman General, CEO and Nazi SS Officer, to show him passing through time… the overall effect was well, disturbing. Hopefully this helps Tom King get one of his characters more fully fleshed out!
This is the pinup that I have been working on for Wyrlwynd’s Issue #3 of their fantasy comic KANTARA. I have been lucky enough to meet Ron, Chris and Mike at events in our region (PA and NY) and we have been chatting about a pinup for a while- that time is now. Talking to Ron at NYCC- he told me- “Pick what you like and make it awesome from the first issue”. Well I did that, and picked out what I’ll call a “Cat Lizard” with a solider riding it that Chris Campana designed. Knowing the guys were really going to roll out Dragons in the upcoming issues of the comic, I decided to pull my inner old school RPG self and juxtapose the two, Cat Lizard/Rider with a Dragon as an overhead background element. The Dragon is part turtle/crocodile/turkey- enjoy! The Lizard Cat that Chris made was sweet, and I really liked the design- so I tried to amp it up, and bring something new and exciting to the creature.
I’ve included Chris’s art from the book, my thumbnails as well as the finished pencil art below.
I hope all the Wyrlwynd and KANTARA fans enjoy my interpretation of Ron, Chris and Mike’s original creations!
Penciled Pinup…
Thumbnail #1 & Thumbnail #2….
Cat Lizard, Profile- by Chris Campana
Cat Lizard in Action!- by Chris Campana
Nude portrait drawings with pencil on 9×12 & 12×18 paper- studies range from 1 minute to 45 minutes. This closed out the recent set of sessions at the studio- great model to work with- however, on the one position, I cheated and made up a face since her hair hid her features totally from my place in the studio and I wanted to draw a face- so pick out the one that doesn’t fit! The 45 minute piece was a really foreshortened pose that turned out great and was a real challenge, but I even got the tattoo on the foot- enjoy!
Nude portrait drawings with pencil on 9×12 & 12×18 paper- studies range from 1 minute to 45 minutes. Training in real life to help my imaginary people look that much better, and as always a great exercise, especially when you are on a time limit!
This is a pinup that I am doing for Shawn Alleyne ‘s new project Aizan. Right now he is doing a kickstarter to raise money for the project “Aizan the Demo”, so I am contributing this pinup of the main character- Aizan, described by Shawne as “Rebel. Anarchist. Superhero. Savior. “Aizan, The original hip-hop sci-fi ninja superhero.” Shawne is a really cool guy that I have been lucky enough to meet at some of the conventions that I attend, and I am really honored to contribute to his project with this pinup. Some notes- I struggled with what the layout would be, and I settled on the top down view with the soldiers lit in a spotlight with Aizan in freefall. Not only does this give the piece some movement for the eye, the image also tries to tell a small narrative tale with this one image of the soliders discovering the vandalism on the wall, and the Aizan coming to attack them (simple, but something!) . Some of my ink experiments (see prior post) gave me some ideas to be more creative with my and shading- so look for alot of black that fades to the small lit circle in this to move the eye! Right now, Im challenging myself to get more creative with my point of view on projects and to get away from the straight on POV that is a crutch of sorts sometimes and to move my “camera” to different points in the picture. The genesis of this piece was doing one hyper extended leg (Aizan’s left leg) and I had that laying around for months, and when this project came up, I took the leg and built everything from it- sort of like Adam’s Rib creating Eve- I took the leg and built Aizan and her action environment in this pinup. Enjoy!
