The Small Press Virgin

'L' is for...

...Lois Lane, Loki and Lawdog!

These characters were kindly chosen by Chuck Dixon, who's Epic Comics character is pictured above. For those that don't know Lawdog was an Inter-Dimensional Highway Patrolman whos job was, in his own words "Whatever don't belong goes back to it's home reality or I waste it."

I've only got the first few issues of this which I got recently in the....sorry, Chuck....25p boxes at my local mart. Great, crazy, over-the-top bullet dodging, muscle car driving action.

Oh man, the car! 8-o what a vehicle! 

next up was Thor's devious half-brother Loki. The trickster was a lot of fun to draw - I loved acting out his sneering expression. "grrrr, I'll get you next time brother"

Great choice Chuck, I figured classic look is best for this guy.

Last but definitely not least is Lois Lane. I'll take Timm's animated Lois over the soft-headed movie version, she even edge's out Smallville's Erica Durance for the win. Fantastic design and inspired voice casting. Dana Delany is the narrater in all my dreams ;-)

Thanks for choosing for this boy with no imagination, Mr D.

Take Care All

-R

'K' is for...

Krypto the Wonder Dog, Rosa Klebb and Misty Knight.

Another Bond Girl to measure up to Jinx from the last post. Although I'd not want to wake up next to this one. Ruthless, cold, humourless and rather unpleaseant to look at, Rosa Klebb was one of Bond's greatest adversaries. She almost killed him, in fact in the book she did just that. Fleming decided to revive him for another adventure in his next book.

Misty Knight, that baddest, toughest Bounty Hunter in all of New York. She's got a great look but I didn't do it justice here. The original rough looked much better, I'll have to revisit this at some point.

Krypto. Superman's dog. Super fast, strong, heat vision and able to fly. I don't know where he came from if his planet blew up leaving Clark Kent the last Kryptonion around. All I know is I wouldn't want to be the one carrying his pooper-scooper. :-)

Take Care

-Rob

'J' is for...

hnh. I really thought I posted 'J' last week. Obviously not. :-)

The Jays are Joe Fixit, Jonah Hex and Jinx:

The grey Hulk is another of Bruce Banner's multiple personalities that emerged during Peter David's run on the title. This Hulk was a tough vicious mob enforcer working out of Las Vegas under the alias 'Fixit' during the 80s. Goodfellas is his favourite movie, probably. :-)

Jonah Hex. The ugliest Bounty Hunter to walk the wild west. I'm very bad at drawing hats, gotta work at that ;-)

Die Another Day might not have been the farewell Pierce Bronsnan deserved but it did excell at one aspect: Bond girls. Three of the best. Peaceful Fountains of Desire, Rosamund Pike and Jinx Johnson! I really wanted to draw Halle walking out of the sea but thought it'd be too obvious so I went for something different. Not sure how well it worked out.

Take care all

-Rob

'I' is For...

The Invisible Kid/Man/Woman. My first total themed letter!

The Invisible Kid (Lyle Norg) was a member of the Legion of Superheroes. His costume, although butt-ugly, is actually the best looking one he's had over the years. There's an innocent charm to it. Didja know he was voted leader of the Legion at one point? I always thought that Saturn Boy, no wait - Meteor Boy, Ultra Boy....crap...The one with the bluey-white outfit with the round things on his chest. I thought he was the perpetual leader, the top dog in the 30th century. Goes to show what I know.

The Invisible Man, played by Claude Rains in the 1933 film based on HG Wells' book.  Even an invisible killer can still enjoy a good vintage brandy. :-) One of Universal's great horror characters brought to life by Prince John from The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)!

The Invisible Woman from Ultimate Fantastic Four. Not the 'real' Sue but a nice, if slightly diluted xerox of her. I still like the character and if I had a choice of super-power - I would pick hers. :-)

Take care all!

-R

'H' is For...

Huntress, Heihachi and Howard The Duck. "WAAUGH!!"

Another Tekken character pops up here. This time the baddest 75 Year Old Karateka ever to enter the ring. And yes, he is wearing a nappy.

We still play Tekken 4 round here and I looove to pick Heihachi in this outfit as most blokes can't resist a cruel jibe about adult diapers as the fight starts - As they're making with the funny I'm making with the Wind God Fist.  "Incontinence trouble Heihac-?" SMAKSMAK!!!

I'm not the best so any little advantage I can get is vital ;-) "That'll teach you to pick Steve again!"

 For the uninitiated check out the Intro movie for Tekken 5. Father and Son fight back to back for probably the first time. Great animation, they really should make the Full-length movie like this. I do prefer the song over the second half of the vid - makes me wanna go kick someone's arse.

The Huntress turned out.....not quite as I wanted. I rushed the hair and cape (I really should know better by now) I do love the body position and quite enjoy crouching my characters like this - maybe I should stop hiding from anatomy eh?

and finally a belated Steve Gerber tribute. Howard The Duck. One of those characters I knew about without ever having read their adventures, strange how that works. But we all love an ill-tempered cigar chomping Duck so here he is.

Take care all

-Rob

'G' is For...

Ghostbusters, Giant-Man, Guy Gardner!

Only one Ghostbuster today, these are supposed to be quickies afer all, and it's the best one - Egon Spengler. I was a bit rushed so I think the drawing suffered for it but it he is a distinctive looking fella and I look forward to drawing him again.

Guy Gardner, Warrier, Green Lantern. I was just reading up on him and it seems he is now Green Lantern #1 out of all 7200 in the universe - quite an achievment for someone who started out as Hal Jordan's understudy.

Giant-Man - heh heh - I kinda cheated on this one. I wonder what he's looking at through that window?

These characters were chosen by Micheal Hutchison of Metro Med and Monitor Duty. He also is the world's biggest Elongated Man fan - perhaps I should've let him have 'E'!!!

Thanks for taking part Micheal. Hope you like the outcome.

Take care all

-R

'F' is for...

Fox McCloud, Forge and Fred Chyre!

Greatest console ever: Nintendo 64.

Greatest Action Game ever: Starfox 64

Starring Fox McCloud as the leader of the intergalatic problem solvers Starfox, the game has you coming to the aid of General Pepper of Corneria against the evil of the exiled Andross' attack on the Lylat system. Take care of those wingmen! 

Classic!

Next is Fred Chyre. I suppose he should've come under 'C' but I makethe rules so nyah nyah nyah. Fred was one of the supporting characters from Geoff Johns' Flash run. The only 58 year old beat cop on the Keystone Police force thanks to his anger issues. He's one of those big bruisers with a warm heart deep underneath the tough shell. Plus I have an affinty for those ugly-looking characters. Read into that what you will :-)

Where is Forge these days? How often do we see a Native American vietnam vet with a genius intellect, and he never seemed to be on of the X-Men's A-listers. Perhaps if Storm had married him when he asked then maybe we'd have seen him in the Movies. I always thought he was a pretty cool character - one question though...when he lost his hand, how did he build a replacement with only one good hand able to hold a tool?

Christ, I can't even tie my shoelaces with one hand!

Take care all

-R

'E' is for...

Eclipso, Ego the Living Planet and Eraserhead. (click for a big 'un)

Today's characters were selected by John Morgan Neal of Aym Geronimo fame - Thanks John!

I'm a little disapointed that the scan made the pencil shading on Eraserhead appear much harsher than it is, perhaps I'll find a good scan setting for soft pencil one of these days.

Call me Mr No-Imagination but these were three characters I would never have thought of doing by myself. Some great choices today.

So, this is the new Eclipso. The wife of....umm, one of the DC heroes...The Atom I think. Anyway, shes evil now and that's all I know. ;-)

Ego the Living Planet. What's there to say bout this fella. He's a planet that's alive. I've only read about him during the Exiles series when he implanted the Earth with his seed with the intention of making it sentient to act as back-up in some fight he was having. Why he chose Earth and not one of the bigger planets I can't figure out. heh.

By all accounts Eraserhead is a surrealist horror film that has become a cult classic even though most viewers seem baffled by the narrative, or lack of. I've been reading some of the interpretations and it seems to make no sense to me! David Lynch followed this up with The Elephant Man which, co-incidentely was my original choice for 'E'.

ok, gotta get to cooking my dinners for tomorrow.

Take care all

-R

'D' is For...

Dracula, Dazzler and Dubbilex!

hmm - Dubbilex looks like Daredevil. Ah well, both Ds so it can count! :-)

This time, I had some input from Blue Spider who selected Dracula as a character. Hope you like it, Chris.

Just a quickie today.

Later

-R

'C' is For....

Cypher, Catwoman and Captain Britain (Click for the fullsize!)

Cypher was tired of the fight against the machines - all he wanted was to be plugged back into The Matrix. I know I feel like that sometimes...."just plug me back in!!!"

Captain Britain. A used-ta-be drunk, a muscle bound buffon and insanely jealous...there's no doubt he's an Englishman. ;-)

And Catwoman - in her Animated Series outfit. Why I drew that and not the black leather version I don't know. Whatever.

Back in real life: The new Terminal Five is a disaster - everything fell apart. Add that to the fact that British Airways handlers are the most useless on the airport and you get 15,000 lost suitcases in the first day of T5 opening.

My company's Manager, as helpful as ever, told BAA that "my boys can handle it" and now we've all been forced to do at least one shift overtime everyweek for the next two months to pull BA's fat lazy arse out of the slop it's landed in.

I suppose it's kinda transparent that I'm annoyed about having to give up my freetime for another companies F-up and go in for 60+ hours a week. I seriously could not give a flying fig about this job anymore.

I think I need a beer.

or three.

-R

'B' is for...

Batroc, Batou and Beast Boy! (click to enlarga!)

I think I missed a trick here.

I should have drawn Batroc, Batou and Batgirl. An all-BAT post. -sigh- next time perhaps.

Batroc is the only one I used phot-ref for but it turns out to be the one that looks most odd. How does THAT work? 

Beast Boy is so far off-model it aint even funny but at least I enjoyed doing it. :-)

And now I'm in trouble, see I'm on shift tomorrow at 0700 meaning I have to drag my bones out of bed at 0530 BUT (here's the pain in my arse) I didn't wake up till 1300 today. So I gotta somehow force myself to sleep after being awake for only 9 hours otherwise the next 12 hours at work will be a killer.

Maybe I deserve it for being so lazy.

Have a nice week everyone!

-R :-)

'A' is for...

...Absorbing Man, Arrowette and Adon. (clicka to enlarga!)

My original Absorbing Man from the last post I felt was a bit weak. Even though this one is a bog-standard pose it feels like a better drawing.

I've been trying over the last few days to try and understand better the concepts of art,design and composition. Sometimes I read a long text about ,for example balancing an image, get to the end and realise I didn't understand a word of it!

It's like trying to read a foreign language, I occasionally understand some words but most of it is gobbledeegook. (wow, what a word - gobbledeegook, I wonder if the cool kids say that these days)

-sigh-

I regret not going to Art school now.

-Rob

Thufferin Thuccotash!

FINALLY!

My internet is back on. When it goes down, it goes down hard and not a thing I can do about it. But it's back.

Anyway - here's the Absorbing Man. What a beautiful face. ;-)

(I timed myself on this. 17 minutes)

-R

What's up with me?

I haven't drawn a thing since I finished page-number-whatever of THEM. Nothing since my last post on here.  :-(

I even had a company contact me - how often does that happen? - about working for them. I just need to complete a submission page but even that aint getting me moving.

Just pick up a pencil, man!

What's in a kiss?

This is a panel from one of our pages set back in 1899.

We've already met Ethan on this blog - but now meet the mysterious Starsha.

And yes, she's supposed to be green...and bald. The book is black and white but I wanted to see how it looked with a nice big sunset behind them.

:-)

-R

First 'mess around' on my new tablet

So, the next thing I need to do is not to draw with the pencil tool!

It completely threw me for a loop at first, looking at the screen and not at the 'paper' in front of me but it's definitely something I'd like to learn more about.

Here's to new discoveries!

Be The Best...Join The Grontz!

The Galaxy's premier Military Force coming to an invasion near you soon!

Watch your back. ;-)

_______________________________________________

I came back from work today to find a parcel waiting for me, inside was my first graphics tablet! Yay!

I ripped that sucka open and plugged it in but then remembered it's Valentine's Day. Goddamn it all to Hell!

I'm taking the old gal away for the weekend - a forest lodge by a lakeside - so now I can't even try this tablet out till Monday evening. It's going to be hard to be patient till then!

AND then I've gotta go to work on Tuesday, so it'll have to wait another day. So unfair. :-(

Take care all you lucky singletons ;-)

yesterday's warmups -sigh- better luck next time.

A terrible costume re-design. At least it's not a Chun-Li rip-off anymore - god that was shameful.

and a terrible rendition of Willie Garvin - what happened was that I paid no attention to the lines I threw on his face. With some thought it's easy to see how a well-weathered, rough-around-the-edges face should look. *Maybe* if I was to ink it I'd fix him up and do Holdaway proud. :-)

-Rob

A spattering of panels from some recent pages...

....hmm, should it be a spattering or a smattering of panels?

Whatever works. These came from pages 4 and 5.

(these aint in story order btw)

-Rob

Page composition thoughts...

I hope this shows up well enough...It's from a photo rather than a scan of a page I was roughing out.

I've been trying to recall half-learned lessons I've read or heard somewhere in putting these pages together.

Stuff about drawing the eye into the panels and leading the reader down the page. I hope I'm getting it right but i'm showing these ultra rough roughs just in case someone better educated has any pointers or guidelines to follow! :-)

Happy Monday everyone! :-)

-Rob

Some more of 2007's work...

This time we've got, from the pages of Spider-girl, Peter Parker's failed clone Kaine!

From what I hear, a lot of people think of that era as one of Spider-man's worst. But not me, no sir.

I came into US comics right at the end of the clone saga so perhaps that's why I still look at those guys in a good light - I mean, I liked the Scarlet Spider and was jazzed when he took over all the Spidey titles (for all of 2 issues!!!). Kaine, the death of Aunt May, The Great Game (El Toro Negro, Joystick et al) and then Ben Reilly's new supporting cast when he took over as Spidey fulltime, they were all responsible for dragging me into Marvel Comics and taking all my hard-earned money.

I got just £21 a month from washing cars -- it musta all gone on comics back then...not only Spidey but, well...maybe I'd better sketch up some other memories of that time,eh? ;-)

ps. speaking of Spider-girl - here's a pic of the main girl herself. Quite possibly one of my favourite titles of recent years, at least before the reboot anyway. (One too many blatant swipes put me off of Frenz for now)

-R

Some of 2007's leftovers...

yup, just checking out my 'my art' folder and decided to dig out a few of 2007's drawing's that haven't graced this blog yet.

Forgive us if you've seen some of these elsewhere, but the other three I guarantee you are brand-new to the 'net!

Enjoy this mixture of good, bad and the ugly. :-)

-Rob

Panel Progress....A-B-C!

Here's a snippet of page four from roughs through to the inked stage. (The first rough was drawn at a smaller size, that's why the scan looks crappy!!)

Ethan's not a bad looking boy is he?

Someone noticed that this is the second time I've shaded that side of his face. People are gonna start to think he's got some kind of hideous scar that's just waiting for a big reveal - he hasn't, honestly!!!

ah well, all but one panel is inked on this page now. (said panel was completely f-ed up in the ink stage, so I'm working on that tonight - after I kill some ninjas!!!)

-Rob (The only killing I do is on my PS2!)

Page 4 finally got started!!!

So, today I laid out (fullsize, I might add!) pages 4 and 5 in rough. I've gone in and finished 3 and 2 half panels on those pages and now, it's time for a little potty break.

Below is the first panel on page 4.

I think that when it comes to inking I'll omit the fence in the foreground. It seems to draw my eye away from the crashsite. (perhaps I'll re-draw it bisecting the furrow dug by the crash instead of parallel to it, what do you think?)

I've alos just noticed that I haven't varied any line-weights at all. That'll have to get fixed in the inks.

Anyway - - the comic's back on the tracks for now. Look out for more updates soon!!!

-Rob

Killer Croc (and the Arach-Kid redux!)

Okayyy.......so another cack handed attempt at Photoshop colouring. I tellya, I never realised how hard it is to do. There's a new found respect for colourists emerging in this Englishmans cold heart!

 Killer Croc....in his crime boss days all decked out in his white suit. Looking sharp Croc!

And the second pass at colouring Spider-boy. I'd prefer a more paintbrush/watercolour style myself. Maybe with time, I'll figure out how to do that!!!

-Rob

Spider-Boy (Colouring attempted too!!!)

A little something I'm putting together for this month's Superhero Jam:

The Awesome Arach-Kid from Amalgam Comics, Spider-Boy!!!

(This was only the third re-draw of the pic, must be improving!!)

So, below is the pencil drawing, which was scanned as is into Photoshop and then flat colours added to bring it out a bit. Next I plan to move onto highlights/gradients etc before posting it in the Jam thread

I know next to nothing about colour theory and related topics, so I'm flying by the seat of my pants on this...fingers crossed it turns out ok. :-)

-R

New Years Eve in Guaranabara!!!

So, this New Years Eve we went to a Brazilian club up in Holborn (Cent. London). There were six of us and I was the only non-brasilian so I had a lot to learn when it comes to Samba.

I knocked back some cocktails and started not to care how I danced. That's the way to do it, I say!!!

It was a great night. A live band, DJ Lemon, School of Samba, Another DJ and TWO New Years countdowns.

[edit] Once i posted, I noticed something wrong with this and it's really bugging me. I'm not telling you incase you didn't notice it yet!

-R

Where Does The Time Go?

It's been a week since the last post -- seems likes just yesterday I was online.

Just a quickie sketch this time of that Time-tossed Blackhawk: Zinda Blake!!!

It seems a lot more simplified than my usual drawings and I quite like it. Could do with some polishing up here and there but I suppose it'll do.

-Rob (well behind in my Christmas shopping!)

Thanks Photoshop, I owe ya!

In a space-saving kinda mood last weekend, so I got a bunch of those DVD cases that hold 12 discs and transferred some of my B-Movie chop socky flicks into the first of them!

Now instead of 12 dvd's taking up space on the shelf I've got just one case up there.

So, of course now I need to have a nice little cover for it. Below is a little photoshop mess around for the collection. It's ok I think. I kinda like the basic design, even the faux beat-em-up character select screen.

Below that is a cover I made for a mate of mine, to hold one of his fan-edits. It's apparently the old TV version of THE WARRIORS, instead of the Director's Cut that is out these days. He seemed to be happy with it - so I might have some other jobs to do in the future!

Take care all

-Rob

[click to see the bigger version]

Animated GIFs for mobile phones!

This is a little Mortal Kombat fun I put together for my new Samsung mobile phone wallpaper. Took a bit of trial and error to find the best compromise between filesize and quality but it seemed to turn out ok.

I plan to do some more, including a Street Fighter 2 one that my friend asked for - I'll post when I can.

Anyone have any tips or pointers about reducing filesize even more?

-Rob