Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Boys cover black and white

[jimlee]

The black and white inked Boys cover I did for Garth, Nicky and Darick. What a book!....the Boy's is a crazy intense rollercoaster of a whirlwind of a title...and I wanted to capture just a bit of the dark, ultraviolent sickness Garth and Darick sprayed across the face of comics heh.

Monday, March 30, 2009

JLA sketch cards

[Joel]

I recently have been working on some licensing stuff for DC; JLA sketchcards to be exact. It's a lot of fun! I started out by lightboxing images, but found it great practice to just freehand as I went....I'm learning a lot, and I really get a kick out of busting out the 'ol prismacolor markers. I do sets of ten per image just to keep it going fast but they all end up looking different in the end anyway...plus the repetition helps memorize forms and fast techniques

JOEL

Friday, March 27, 2009

Recent Ramondelli

[Livio]

Starscream - This began as a pencil art commission at Wondercon in San Francisco, but I wanted to do a digitally colored version as well. This is probably one of the faster paintings I've done, maybe 4 hours from start to finish. I wanted to achieve a bit of a blurry/speed effect here.

Green Lantern - This was a commission, acrylic on illustration board. Later on I scanned it in and added a little digital glow to Hal Jordan's ring.

Zatanna - Another recent commission, and definitely a little different than what I'm normally asked to draw. But I had a lot of fun with this one. And thanks to artist extraordinare Mike Lopez, who always provides great tips on drawing the ladies.

[Livio]

Rorschach - I did this pencil drawing for fun in anticipation of the movie finally coming out. I still can't believe we are living in a movie era where Rorschach is on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

Until next time!

-Livio

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Nemesis

[Oliver]

Hey everyone, here's a recent commission I did of 'Nemesis' from Wildcats. I luv the Coda characters because they all have great costumes and I just luv to draw strong women. I kept the figure and composition simple and to the point. I also wanted to put her back on her homeworld, to change up the background a bit and it let me be able to put the planets in the background to help guide yer eye.

As I usually do when I'm inking my own work, I keep the pencils pretty light, since I do the majority of the work in ink and don't like wasting time drawing tight, then pretty much redrawing again in ink. As for my thunbnails, they're just 30 second sketches to help me with the feel and I blow them up, lightbox the silouette just to get that energy u get from quick gesture sketches.

Anyhoo, hope u like and untill next time....

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Intro to the Graphic Novel

[Eddy]

Here's some news for all the comic aficionados in the local area:

Jackie Estrada is teaching a course through UCSan Diego's Extension program, titled "Intro to the Graphic Novel." If you know any UCSD Students wanting to learn about the process, here it is in class form.

The course runs for six weeks, Thursday nights at UCSD Extension campus, April 16 to May 21, 6:30 to 8:30 pm. The fee is $165. Topics will include: exactly what is a graphic novel, the history and evolution of the graphic novel and the wide variety of books that are published in this medium (it's not a genre!)

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Rogue in the Savage Land

[jimlee]

Worked on it here and there over several days as a warmup to my real work.

The 80's ruled...

Monday, March 23, 2009

Joker Time

[Joel]

I always wondered what the Joker would be like in contemplative moments...maybe swimming in ideas for his latest scheme. I feel the character is always more complex and multi-layered than how he can often be portrayed. I also feel there can be more than one 'look' for this super bad-ass character...I wanted to sketch a 'portrait' of the man you would believe to beat Batman.

JOEL

Friday, March 20, 2009

Savage Land Rogue WIP

[jimlee]

After the layout sat on my desk for a couple of days, I went back in and tightened up areas that didn't look right (it's good to have some time to gain perspective) and then I take a lead stick holder and use the side of it to lay down my black areas. To add form, shadow, indicate texture but most importantly, to create depth and a feeling of light and 3-dimensionality. I squint a lot during this process to make sure the black areas are forming the basic shapes I want to create.

After I chunk in the blacks and squint to make sure the shapes actually form different planes and essentially look well balanced and composed aesthetically, I go in with a .5mm mechanical pencil, HB lead, and start capturing and better defining shadows and add detail and rendering. I work left to right sometimes so that I don't smudge any of the final pencils.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Rogue X-Men pencil layout

[jimlee]

Here's a blast from the past. Rogue from the X-Men circa issue 269 when she's trapped in the Savage Land. A very short scene but you wouldn't believe how many fans hold it near and dear to their hearts. Here, I'm trying to apply my since evolved style and do another take on the fan favorite character.

http://jimlee00.deviantart.com/

Monday, March 16, 2009

Happy Mistakes

[Lopez]

My idea here is that she's taking a moment to reflect on her decision to finally sport her costume for the first time and become "Spoiler".

Here's a quick Psylocke sketch on the worst paper ever. The ink just kinda sits on top of the paper and the finish to the paper was too slick. It's not ideal for markers, so I ended up just pushing the ink around.

All in all though, I thought she came out with lots of energy because i had to just push the ink around.

happy mistakes ;D

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Lost Boys Signing!

[Joel]

Hey All, Just wanted to share some images from a signing set up by the amazing Sarah Gaydos here at WildStorm. It was the 22nd Anniversary of the original Lost Boys film and to celebrate, several actors from the film and the musician who created the theme song (Cry Little Sister) were at MTheory music store in San Diego.

I was there to promote Lost Boys:Reign of Frogs the trade paperback, as well as give free sketches! It was a lot fun and I got to meet some pretty interesting people.

Take care.

JOEL

Super Human Resources #1

[Eddy]

Quick plug here for my friend's first comic! Ken Marcus is a long-time friend and the first issue of his Super Human Resources just hit comic stores!

Ken's a copywriter by day and enjoys a good comic or two by night, preferably written by Grant Morrison. He's been plugging his book everywhere online, doing interviews left and right, and has even written a short "Do's and Don'ts" on the perils of promoting an indy book. He even promotes the book on sites devoted to Human Resources. Talk about niche advertising.

The name of the comic basically tells you what you need to know and it's all lovingly-drawn by Justin Bleep! Available now in finer comic shops everywhere!

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Monday, March 09, 2009

Silky Smooth

[Oliver]

Hey guys, 'Watchmen' is finally here! I was lucky enough to watch an early screening with the rest of Wildstorm crew and all in all I think it was a very enjoyable and respectable adaptation. I can go on and on and nitpick little things here and there but overall I enjoyed it and it was what I expected it to be. I'll definately be checking it out in IMAX this weekend.

Anyhoo, if you remember, I posted an 'Ozymandias' that I did along with Trevor Scott a few weeks ago as part of a little pet project I've been working on, on the side. Here is 'Silk Spectre 2', smoothly and beautifully inked by my studiomate and friend, the amazing Sandra Hope.

I think I'll tackle 'Rorschach' next with inks by...Scott Williams maybe?...hmmmm, I think that would come out very nicely indeed. Welp, untill next time, hope you like ;)

Friday, March 06, 2009

Hurm

[Eddy]

In anticipation of the new Watchmen movie in theatres today, Carlos D'Anda, Eddie Nuñez, Jim Lee, Michael Lopez, Oliver Nome, JJ Kirby and Livio Ramondelli did this stellar jam piece!

Here's hoping Watchmen breaks all kinds of records this weekend!

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

WonderCon 2009 Pics!

[Eddy]

WonderCon was another big hit for everyone and we're already planning next year's show, so thanks to all the wonderful fans!

Personally, I'm still recovering from the show and catching catnaps, so above are some photos I found online featuring the gelatometti crew. To check out more of Jay Fayloga's pics from the show, click here and here.

Thanks Jay!