Sketchbook 002

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Birthday Girl

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Unbelievably, my daughter turns six years old today. The painting above was done when she was four, and I never got around to finshing it. I doubt I'll do any more work on it though, since I would rather do a new one if I can ever find the time.

Today also sees the release of Captain America #38, but there will be no cake involved-

Captain America #41 Cover

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Marvel's August solicitations are starting to show up, featuring Captain America #41. Here's how Marvel describes the issue -

CAPTAIN AMERICA #41
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Pencils & Cover by STEVE EPTING
The epic "Death of Captain America" tale hits its penultimate chapter... and the final battle between the New Captain America and the people who killed Steve Rogers begins here!
By the Eisner-Nominated team of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99


Also, last week The 2007 Eagle Award was given to CAPTAIN AMERICA 25-30: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA under the category Favourite Comics Story published during 2007. Thanks to all who voted.

Sketchbook 001

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I've been meaning to do this for a while, so here it goes. I've finally started actually sketching on a (semi) daily basis in my little tiny sketchbook. Whenever I manage to get a couple of pages filled up I'll be inflicting them on you here. Bear in mind that I may spend less than 5 minutes at a time drawing in this thing, so it could be a while before I actually fill up two pages. Also, as today's post shows, I may get the urge to do some color experiments after they get scanned in.

All of this is due mainly to the inspiration of guys like Dylan Teague and Edward Kinsella (among others), who do some amazing sketchbook pages. Plus, I'm hoping I can snap myself out of the artistic rut I've been in.

By the way, when you click on thumbnail above, the image you'll see is the actual size of the sketchbook.

Convention Update

In case you may have missed the announcement today, I will be appearing (along with Captain America writer Ed Brubaker) at Heroes Con in Charlotte June 20-22. I currently plan to be there Friday and Saturday only, but if that changes I'll update it here. Shelton always puts on one of the best shows in the country and I'm looking forward to returning this year.

UPDATE: I've received several requests for advance commissions and unfortunately, my schedule simply won't allow it at this time. Also, several people have e-mailed me hoping to get on the sketch list before the show. I appreciate the time and effort it sometimes takes to get a convention sketch and wish I could accommodate everyone, but I want to try to be fair, so the sketch list will be on a first come-first served basis on the day of the show. I'll do my best to do as many sketches as possible, and look forward to seeing you all in Charlotte.

UPDATE 2: Sorry, I won't be doing sketches of naked superheroes either.

Also - On sale this week - The Death Of Captain America Vol 2 is out in Premiere Hardcover format reprinting CAPTAIN AMERICA #31-36.

Iron Man 2

Another piece of Iron Man liscencing art from 2004 (again, I only supplied the pencils) that was painted by Scott Johnson -

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The Iron Man figure and the cityscape background were done separately so that the background could possibly be used many times with different characters.

Iron Man

In honor of Iron Man's success at the box office this weekend (and yes, I saw it and enjoyed it), I'm posting some Iron Man art I worked on for Marvel's Creative Services Department back in 2004. I should point out up front that I only supplied the pencils for these projects, and the lion's share of the work was done by the incredibly talented Scott Johnson.

First up is an image of Iron Man surrounded by his various armors. I was supplied with an image of Iron Man that was done by Adi Granov with a mockup background pasted in:

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I was also given this image by Paulo Rivera of a similar scene:



What they wanted was a background with the same look of the Paulo Rivera piece to paste in behind the Adi Granov figure. After fighting endlessly with the perspective and the various armor designs, I finally managed to get a pencilled piece finished. I wasn't too happy with it at the time and I still see a lot of obvious problems that I should have fixed:



This was sent to the aforementioned Scott Johnson, who despite the flaws in the pencils used it as the basis for this incredible digital painting:



And here's the final result, with the Granov figure in place:



As you can see, Scott did a great job of painting the background and integrating it with the previously existing art.

More Iron Man tomorrow!