LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Aegeus and the Lords of the Cosmos Pinup #6 – Final Pencils

January 13, 2015
Lords of the CosmosPencil WorkSequential WorkUGLI studios
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As we wind down the character designs- The LORDS OF THE COSMOS get another female character AMAZONICA, and her Dino Steed, as well as the Cyborg Samurai (as yet, no name chosen!)

The composition on this was simple, yet effective, and I really feel that I am hitting a stride on drawing accurate and attractive women, so I was really pleased with how AMAZONICA turned out.  Full disclosure she was inspired by the old 1980 Flash Gordon Filmation “Princess Aura” character who I loved as a young lad!  You can see a production still from that show here to see what I was getting inspiration from. Does the tiara on Amazonica’s head look similar?

Anyway- This art really sums up what I like in a nutshell… “Girls, Monsters, Robots” … so It was a pleasure to put pencil to paper for this particular page. Below are the final pencils and my Samurai artwork segregated on tracing paper.

 

Final Pencils

 

Lords of the Cosmos Pinup Amazonica Jason Lenox - edit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Samurai layout on tracing paper

 

Lords of the Cosmos Samurai Jason Lenox

 

“This is a Sad Comic” Final Inks

January 7, 2015
Pen & InkSequential WorkUGLI studios
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The wrap to the down and dirty high concept snobby project I did with writer Brendan Hykes.  Really fun to see with the India ink!

Enjoy, and look for it in Ugli Studios Presents #3!

This is a sad comic Jason Lenox and Brendan Hykes

 

“This is a Sad Comic” Pencils

January 6, 2015
Pencil WorkSequential WorkUGLI studios
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“THIS IS A SAD COMIC”
2015
w-Brendan Hykes
a-Jason Lenox

Writer Brendan Hykes and I have been plotting a one page high concept (read snobby) “Zine” style comic for a while now. Brendan is a writer that I met two years ago, and is one of the nicest and cool people I’ve been lucky to meet doing conventions. You can read more about him here .

So, what is this project?

Sort of like an art house film about people smoking cigarettes, doing heroin and suicide, but with wacky characters and product placement.

This is the penciled page and the final comic will be in Ugli Studios Presents #3 as a one pager near the end of the book. Inspired by two particular “artists” that drive me nuts (ask me in person for the dirt- it’s funny) and one head scratching convention that was the apex of this very independent and not easily accessible style.

I’ve been itching to put it to paper for a while with Brendan’s writing magic, and I needed to take a quick break from the “Lords of the Cosmos” to clean my palette with something a little bit lighter and fun as I gear up to tackle the last 10 pages of that particular project.

It was fun to do something that masquerades as “high concept” but really is just juvenile and insulting on several levels to a great many people. Of course, someone may see it and analyze the deep thinking and layers of meaning they see in it, then the joke is on them, this is a SAD comic, not a SERIOUS one!

This is a Sad Comic Pencils Jason Lenox and Brendan Hykes

LORDS OF THE COSMOS: Disciples of Umex Pinup #6 – Pencils

January 3, 2015
Lords of the CosmosPencil WorkUGLI studios
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“From the ranks of the Disciples of Umex… The Savage Flesh Eating Cani-Bull, The Mindless Sonic devastation of the Sound Golem Groanus, and the sworn enemy of Ironshell, the Giant Turtle of the Lords of the Cosmos, the Gigantic Cybernetic Dragon- Ragewing…”

So the latest round of villains- Canibull has been in my head for a long time with Ragewing, Groanus was always a blank slate. I used a friend who is a body builder for muscle reference on Canibull for a shifty crouched pose.  He was my alternate take on Beast Man from M.O.T.U. and a Minotaur- the idea is he eats humans and controls Ragewing telepathically as a creature leader of sorts.

Ragewing really was an extension of how much my fans love my dragons and monsters- to do a technological/fantasy version of a “Lenox Dragon”.  I used a Crocodile as the basis for the head and really struggled to get a pose in the composition that worked, I was pleased with what came out of my sketchbook here.  This character is also my evil giant monster which is the antagonist to the good giant monster, Ironshell the Turtle, seen here.  The basic concept of this entire project was that the Lords of the Cosmos are a set of toys from the 1980’s so if there is a good giant creature, there has to be a bad giant creature, Ragewing fills that mandate.

Groanus was the REAL challenge from the writers…

Description: “A twisted giant created by the diabolical DOCTOR SMOG, this  tall and spindly beast is a slow moving monster of  destruction created as a front line shock trooper to cause retreat in the battle of good versus evil. Stupid and slow, the beast is nonetheless lethal if not destroyed early. The sound emanates from his nuclear lungs and passes over his teeth of diamonds, causing a whistling sound that can rip ear drums and crack a man’s teeth.”

I kept drawing a tall muscular guy with a big mouth with a filter inside it, and it was so flat, I knew where I wanted him from a composition point of view in the middle top left, and it just kept failing on me. Anyway, I had to tune out, and then stop thinking inside the box, and get out- if a big guy wasn’t working, then why a human at all?  So I used a dust mite, and a virus diagram both from online textbooks to make a non human unique character, and I couldn’t have been happier with the weird totem pole of tentacles, spindly legs and bizarre flower like face… a touch of H.P. Lovecraft perhaps influenced me here as well.

Anyway, below are my original thumbnail and final pencils- Enjoy!

Final Pencils

 

Lords of the Cosmos Jason Lenox Canibull Pinup

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thumbnail

 

 

Canibull Thumbnail Lords of the Cosmos

 

2015 “Vulgar Display of Artwork” Tee Shirt Designs

December 31, 2014
Tee Shirt & Fashion Art
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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

December 29, 2014
Lords of the CosmosPencil WorkSequential WorkUGLI studios
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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

December 20, 2014
Lords of the CosmosPencil WorkSequential WorkUGLI studios
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“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

December 15, 2014
CommissionsMythological CreaturesPen & Ink
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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

December 10, 2014
CommissionsMythological CreaturesPencil Work
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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

December 10, 2014
Lords of the CosmosPen & InkSequential WorkUGLI studios
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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

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