Channeling my inner child of 80’s D&D artwork, I wrapped the ink for my friends at KANTARA for their issue #3 pinup- Enjoy!
“A Once Crowded Sky” -Character Pinup- THE SURVIVOR- Pencils
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!
KANTARA Issue #3 pinup artwork for Wyrlwynd – Pencils
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
Painted Ladies of San Quentin; Page 1- Final Inks
The inked first page of “Americano: The Painted Ladies of San Quentin” the inks were- well a PAIN!! The building renderings were brutal, I had 10 hours in the india ink phase of this, and I have a real appreciation for the difficulty in hand rendering buildings at this point. I think the piece is a great setup for the hard core western story to follow- enjoy the pencil comparison to the inks. Special notice to the wierd vein that breaks the panel on Elijah’s right hand and the detail in the burned building in panel two – hats off to the master of illustrated rubble/destruction- Katsuhiro Otomo who inspires me to do better destroyed stuff than anyone else!! 
11/1/12 – Nude Figure Studies in Pencil with Model- At Art Alliance of Central PA
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!
“Aizan” – Pinup; Final Inks
The final inks for my Aizan: The Demo Pinup for Shawn Alleyne’s new project which you can find on Kickstarter. I changed up the back wall to make go higher beyond the filed of view to accentuate the height of the fall or jump from Aizan onto the soldiers below. The stark blank and whites really brought out the chiaroscuro effect I had been playing with on my experiment post the other week, this combined with the creative camera angle really plays well together. I really loved Aizan’s anatomy with the old school euro style inking, which makes it look fast and fluid (like the character) but gave it almost wood printing block look that I started building on with the cover to Ugli Studios Presents #2 (the wrap around American flag cover) – which if anything I was inspired to do from the classic artwork in the old “Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks” from my childhood, which all featured some incredible British pen and ink artists- so thanks to all of them for the memories and inspiration for my current work! I’m really excited and proud for Shawne, so I really wanted to give him something that would take his character, Aizan, and my work to another level in layout, perspective, anatomy, shading and inking, I feel I met my personal goals on this pinup!
10/25/12 – Nude Figure Studies in Pencil with Model- At Art Alliance of Central PA
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!
“Aizan” – Pinup; Pencils
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!
Painted Ladies of San Quentin; Page 1- Pencils
The first page of my next story with David Paul for UGLI STUDIOS PRESENTS #2- “The Painted Ladies of San Quentin”- our western grindhouse story… welcome to the mean streets of SQ and our main character Elijah Holman….
Ink Experiment
A small pen and ink experiment to work out some textures and shadowing ideas I’ve been thinking on… some Chiaroscuro… an Italian term which literally means ‘light-dark’ , and some negative space work on the feet to go with the cleaner texture on the animal skull. We’ll see if I can use some of these tricks in my future pen and ink work.
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