The Devil

Finally found these pages while in a folder of old random work. Thought I had lost them. It had been a while since I'd seen these in black and white. I absolutely LOVE drawing Daredevil and can say with certainty I'm no where near done with this character. Would love to do some more DD interior work, since these three pages only scratched the surface of my interest. In fact, I'd LOVE to take Daredevil back to more of the feeling it had in it's first 20 issues or so. As much as everybody enjoys brooding, dark Matt Murdock, I'd like to take a left turn and take the character back to his more adventurous and cavalier roots. Matt Hollingsworth did a stellar job with these pages in color. I was thrilled to be working with the guy that colored Grendel: Devils and Deaths, probably one of my top three favorite books of all time. Anyone who hasn't read it should find it immediately.

Legion

The assignment was to do a cover based directly on this Keith Giffen Legion image from the 1980's. Perks: No layouts required, the basic color scheme is already worked out, and the final goal is much clearer than it usually is. The thing I enjoy about doing homages to other pieces is the fact that, even with all this homework done beforehand, the final piece still requires you to find some solutions to make the image work for you. My ultimate goal became giving my cover a psychadelic feel, something that felt more in tune with what the Legion seemed like to me at that time. Put that tablet on your tongue and to relax....

I can't discuss this cover without talking about Jack Kirby. The Darkseid character is an amazing design and I LOVED the big orange sun in the background and all the Kirby-crackle. I did a number of passes on this in the drawing phase just to get Darkseid's face close to looking like Jack's stuff.... or at least as close as my capabilities would allow. In the end, hopefully my version is still recognizable as a homage to the Giffen cover, but different enough to be somewhat fresh.

Off topic: R.I.P. Frank Frazetta. King of Kings.

Emerald Warriors

Green... and lots of it. My most feared color... the one I avoid like the plague. For this variant cover I was pretty much forced to deal with green and knock it around like a red-headed stepchild. See, normally, green is the bully, at least that's how I view the color. It tends to push me around in the piece, and force me into color schemes I don't really naturally gravitate towards. It tells you to add more yellow, a bit of purple, and makes throwing red in there a bitch and a half. Due to the fact that red and green are compliments, the combination of the two tends to produce and image where both colors fight each other for attention unless the piece is extremely simple. In this particular case, I started out with much more red in the sky and had to continually mix more purple into to get that green to jump forward. Anyway, enough boring color talk.

It's this simple: I had never done a Green Lantern piece before. I've done a couple of covers for DC lately where I branched out a bit in terms of the characters and tried some new things color-wise. To be honest, I never read Green Lantern as a kid, so a lot of wikepedia was involved here. Guy Gardner I was already familiar with, but from waaay back in the Justice League days. Funny, a LOT can change in continuity in twenty years ,) Look for this cover as the variant to Emerald Warriors #1.

Thor

Just saw the image of Thor from the upcoming film and thought I would post this. I really enjoy what Olivier Coipel did with the book, especially his rendition of Thor's physicality. He just looked thick, powerful, and rugged... a nice change from many of the pretty boy renditions in the past. The long blonde hair makes it REALLY easy to drift off into romance novel cover territory, and Thor can be a particularly brutal character because of those big wings on his helmet. How in the hell do you make that combination look cool?!?!?! Solution: stick to Olivier's approach as closely as possible. It's really one of the first times I've purposely set out to emulate the look of another artist for a particular character instead of trying to find my own approach. Of course, my stylistic tendencies are still evident and the homage to Coipel is probably not all that noticeable, but every time I look at this piece I think of how it pales in comparison to Olivier's stunning work. The moral of the story is that you have to stick to your guns and do what works for you.

Darkness

I know, I know.... ANOTHER old piece. Promise I'll start posting some new stuff as soon as it gets solicited. This Darkness wrap around cover was done a couple years back, and definitely presented a challenge for me. Whenever I approach a new character, I try to figure out a way for the dude to make sense to me. If I can find an angle, a way IN, the piece usually turns out more successfully. Sometimes, that angle never seems to manifest. In hindsight, I probably could have found a way to do the armored version of the character but I kept hitting a wall conceptually. See, The Darkness looks amazing when Marc Silvestri draws him. In all my preliminary sketches, the 'superhero' version just came off looking messy instead of badass. I couldn't figure out how to insert some of Marc's magic into what I do. In the end, I opted to play off the juxtaposition of having a guy in a suit next to all these weird little creatures.

Some of the old Image stuff has been on my mind lately. Part of me really wishes that there had been a way to transition a lot of that stuff into the modern marketplace. I still have a soft spot in my heart for some of those characters, and got a kick at digging up some of my old books and seeing what was hitting my switches as I began my career. Honestly, there are some GREAT concepts there (admittedly some truly AWFUL ones as well) and I think the Darkness is one of them. The fact that Jackie is a mobster is just such a fun twist to the concept. I also love the fact that the book had such a sick sense of humor. Garth Ennis is the MAN!

tats

Came across this going through old files and found myself looking at it more carefully than some of the other cover images in the same folder. I think that the idea of drawing characters with tattoos is always more interesting that actually 'doing' it. The problem is getting the buggers to look like they're underneath the skin. At the time, I wrestled with adding another tattoo on her forearm but decided against it to keep the focus down around her torso. Gotta give it up to the fantastic Mauro Corradini once again for logo placement. This was the first cover that my editor allowed the the possibility to play with graphic design a bit, and without it I don't think the piece would have worked as well. Still wish we had been able to warp the bottom left hand corner of the logo a bit more....

The things you do for girls....

Personal interlude here. Light some candles, listen to the sound of the violins, use the cheesy smile...

I did this piece a few years ago for my wife. Her favorite character is the Silver Surfer and she actually has a pretty awesome little collection of art based on the character. See, it goes like this: If you're a girl, it's ten times easier to get artists to give you cool pieces. Somewhere deep inside us still lurks that insecure little high school kid who never got the girl and is thrilled at any little ounce of female attention thrown our way. I've seen many an artist in action at conventions and it never ceases to amaze me how it's the same pretty much across the boards. Sad really, but I guess it's the way of the world. Case in point, I did this piece back when we had just begun dating thinking it would win me points. As for the big floating space fish, Sara loves to scuba dive. The ocean fascinates her and it's difficult to find her happier than when we're sitting on a beach somewhere.

At any rate, she was looking at some of the other Surfer pieces yesterday and it made me realize I'd never actually made a scan of mine. Don't know if it will be of interest to anyone else, but at least it's something new to post while I'm waiting to show off newer work. Now blow out those candles and give each other a big sloppy kiss.

buuuurrrppppp!!!!!