Here are the complete work stages (including the finished pencils, which I rarely bother to scan) for a 2012 illo drawn for an Udon art book focusing on the Marvel vs. Capcom fighting videogames. Line art by me, colors by the great Rob "Robaato" Porter.
Gotta say that I do love the inks on this piece, which were among the last I'd do with a Japanese Zebra "maru" pen-tip; not long afterward, I had to abandon that form of inking due to insuperable problems with the increasingly challenging interaction of pen, in...
2021-04-29 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Spent 45 g-d minutes setting up a "Lily vs. laundry drones" post for today before belatedly realizing that I already posted the story pages here, albeit probably a year or more ago. So, am now trying again with a bunch of recently scanned pieces that I probably haven't already posted. (Maybe.) A few words:
This partially colored piece (with tones added as a color test for future Dirty Pair color guides) is, a...
2021-04-28 14:48:57 +0000 UTC
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Regarding today's Empowered vol.8 page on the webcomic serialization, I just happened to have a fairly exhaustive set of photos saved on my phone that documented pretty much every step in the page's production (recorded back in January 2013).
Alas, I don't have enough time left to fully annotate the lengthy working process, as just relaying the pics from my phone to the Hot New(ish) PC and prepping 'em for this post ...
2021-04-27 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from December 2017, followed by an April 2017 set of quicker gesture drawings rather than the more detailed, rendering-oriented sets I was previously sketching.
Note that we've crossed an important threshold with these most recent posts, as both sketch sets are now from 2017, meaning that the end of my ...
2021-04-26 13:01:03 +0000 UTC
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Whilst trying to think of something interactive to put up on this here Patreon during my upcoming week off from artwork-based posts, I thought, "Why not get some kinda Empowered casting-call dealie a-rolling in the meantime?"
For the record, nary a nibble of interest in optioning Empowered has been expressed anywhere since a (luckily) failed MTV pitch 5 or 6 years ago, nor do I much give a crap any more. Still, I get the impression that readers like to discuss casting calls alon...
2021-04-16 20:28:10 +0000 UTC
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Spent half a g-d hour writing up an extensive commentary for this post, then lost it when I tried to schedule the g-d thing and my g-d DSL glitched out. (Serves me right for not copying the text before posting, of course.)
Will I have the patience to revisit said commentary before this post goes up on Friday? (I'm typing this on Wednesday morning, BTW.) Let's find out together!
UPDATE 1: Ehh, screw it. I strongly suspect that I've already posted at least a few of the pieces above, but don't have the ener...
2021-04-16 14:00:08 +0000 UTC
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Behold, the complete work stages on Empowered vol.2's still-charming (IMHO) back-cover illo of an inebriated Ninjette. Line art by me, colors by my buddy Ryan Kinnaird.
Can you spot the very subtle difference between Ryan's first color draft and the ones that followed? (Beside the background color, of course.)
TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON: Very likely more Vintage Con Sketches, methinks. (I'm creating this post on March 27, so who knows?)
2021-04-15 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Today, some fresh-off-the-drawing-board material and some late-90s damsel-in-distress commissions in an unusual format. First off:
A Big Spender from either the $10 or $20 tier made an art request for the long-suffering Hushed Half-Elf kinda but not really escaping captivity, hence the hastily sketched page above. (Co-starring some literally sketchy goblinoids similar to an ill-fated bunch that appeared in a
2021-04-14 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
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Note that these characters were originally created as part of my massive binge of chara design for the veritable cavalcade of capes in Empowered vol.9. I still had plenty of supervills left over once that volume wrapped up, which came in handy for later projects such as this one.
TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON: More Distressed Damsels content for the $5+ tiers, though at present I'm not sure what that content might be.
2021-04-13 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from December 2017, followed by an April 2017 set of quicker gesture drawings rather than the more detailed, rendering-oriented sets I was previously sketching.
Note that we've crossed an important threshold with this newest post, as both sets are now from 2017, meaning that the end of my formidable buf...
2021-04-12 13:01:02 +0000 UTC
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The last few images in my old CON SKETCHES folder include this trio of 2012 illos featuring Yoko Littner from the great anime Gurren Lagann. (Or Yohko, to use the now rarely used "h" in romaji to indicate a vowel extension.) If I recall correctly, the scarved & bikini-topped madness rolled onward from here in 2012, as I also sketched at least a few Emp cosplay pieces boasting the same outfit; stay tuned for...
2021-04-09 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Behold, the work stages for Empowered vol.2's cover illo. Line art by me, colors by my bud Ryan Kinnaird. Note that early versions of the image had very different background elements....
....before I wound up settling on just debris as a backdrop, however temporarily:
Ryan tried out some different takes on the BG, inclu...
2021-04-08 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Behold, my earliest design sketches for Empowered's Ocelotina, who popped up in vol.3 as a faux cape ripping off and monetizing Emp's "bondage-prone superheroine" shtick; I've also attached the first three pages of that vol.3 appearance at the end of the image gallery.
Note that, in one preliminary sketch, she was drawn wearing a mask...
...but for reasons unknown I experience massive difficulties drawing any ty...
2021-04-07 13:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Following up on a post from early March, here are more of my character designs from the 2015 one-shot Empowered: Pew Pew Pew!, in which Emp tangles with a series of supervills victimized by sentient "smart guns" goading 'em into firepower-intensive rampages. (Also, a few assorted jpegs of the story pages in which those designs appeared.)
Note that these characters, including the unused "Damselflyy," were originally creat...
2021-04-06 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from January 2018, followed by an April 2017 set of quicker gesture drawings rather than the more detailed, rendering-oriented sets I was previously sketching.
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON: Time fo...
2021-04-05 13:00:06 +0000 UTC
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The last dozen or so images in my old CON SKETCHES folder include a bunch of 2012-13 pieces drawn in Canada during, I think, the TCAF and FanExpo Toronto shows. I didn't have my own smartphone pix of 'em for some reason, so my bud Jim Zub sent along his own phone pix. Alas, that means the image quality for this gallery isn't the best, though I nonetheless like this set quite a bit.
UPDATE: Oops, forgot that the first sketch is a scanned piece from 2006. Note that I slightly tweaked Wonder Woman's way-too-skinn...
2021-04-02 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Concluding a serialized feature, here are the rest of my work stages for the 2007(-ish) 8-page story Empowered: Who Da Ubermench?
Story and initial art by me; color art by the fine folks of the coloring studio Guru eFX, working over B&W originals drawn on full-sized, 10" X 15" linen-finish cardstock, as opposed to the wee 8.5" X 11" copy paper I normally draw the series on. (This format seemed like a viable compromise be...
2021-04-01 13:00:07 +0000 UTC
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From sometime in the early 2000s, here are two kinda-sorta comic pages based on a a fairly generic and open-ended commission request for Dirty Pair's Kei getting distressed yet again. Or is this "Rose" from the alt-continuity "Rose & Lily" commissionverse of incongruously easy-to-capture versions of the DP? Ehh, maybe.
Anyhoo, as I was cranking through a bunch of similarly open-ended sketches one summer, I soon grew bored with doing DiD pinup illos of "Rose & Lily" and instead started doing montage set...
2021-03-31 13:42:58 +0000 UTC
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Behold, my early design sketches for a deliberately Shirow-Masamune-reminiscent armored suit worn by Domino in a 2013 10-page story I wrote and drew for issue #10 of the Avengers/ X-Men crossover anthology A+X.
As I'd not drawn anything along these lines in many years, I wanted to suit up Domino akin to Deunan in Shirow's Appleseed vol.4 (and the often overlooked Appleseed Databoo...
2021-03-30 13:01:01 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from January 2018, followed by an April 2017 set of quicker gesture drawings rather than the more detailed, rendering-oriented sets I was previously sketching.
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
LATER TODAY ON THIS HERE PATREON: Big ...
2021-03-29 13:01:59 +0000 UTC
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The last dozen or so images in my old CON SKETCHES folder include a bunch of 2012-13 pieces drawn in Canada during, I think, the TCAF and FanExpo Toronto shows. I didn't have my own smartphone pix of 'em for some reason, so my bud Jim Zub sent along his own phone pix. Alas, that means the image quality for this gallery isn't the best, though I nonetheless like this set quite a bit.
Note that the first sketch...
..is a reference to the th...
2021-03-26 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Yeahp, here are dem work stages on Empowered vol.3's back-cover illo featuring "Sexy Librarian Emp" and "Spartan-3000-Minion Thugboy." Final colors on the piece by the fine folks of the great coloring studio Guru eFX.
Note that the first rough cut the figures off at mid-thigh, as is so often my wont on cover illos and con sketches to maximize how figure size in the available image space...
...but I eventually decided to go "full-figure" on the two cosplayers.
Note that this im...
2021-03-25 13:00:03 +0000 UTC
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From some point in the second half of the 90s, here are a pair of Vintage Con Sketches featuring my version of the Dirty Pair bedamseled by chrome "nanogoop" along the lines of the hostile nanoware seen during parts of the SimHell miniseries.
Note that the colorized montage piece...
...was done by my buddy Ryan Kinnaird at a time when we were trying to fi...
2021-03-24 13:01:03 +0000 UTC
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Behold, from a 2016 8-page backup story that I wrote and drew for a Deadpool Annual, here my design sketches for a bunch of AIM biotech beasties that were derived from ol' Wade Wilson's perpetually regenerating flesh. (Final colors on the sample page by my buddy Ryan Kinnaird.)
Note that this Deadpool story costarred Go...
2021-03-23 13:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from January 2018 (note the chrome-painted model as Empowered practice), followed by a set from March 2017, still fairly early on in my life-drawing kick.
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD attachments.
TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATR...
2021-03-22 13:00:04 +0000 UTC
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Today, we're following up on an earlier post that showed the opening pages of an alarming scene from Empowered vol.12 featuring an alternate version of our heroine which I've dubbed "Scary, Badass, Violent Emp," for reasons that become especially obvious in this next bunch of pages.
"What the devil's going on?" might you well ask; wellp, right now all I can tell you is that Empowered vol.12 is a very, very ...
2021-03-12 14:53:52 +0000 UTC
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Following up on last week's post, here are more of my work stages for the 2007(-ish) 8-page story Empowered: Who Da Ubermench?
Story and initial art by me; color art by the fine folks of the coloring studio Guru eFX, working over B&W originals drawn on full-sized, 10" X 15" linen-finish cardstock, as opposed to the wee 8.5" X 11" copy paper I normally draw the series on. (This format seemed like a viable compromise betwe...
2021-03-11 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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Following up from a recent Empowered vol.12 preview featuring a page of Emp in civilian garb (however unclothed she might be) from a "secret identity shenanigans" sequence, here are more rough sketches I did whilst pondering further expansion of that scene. (Note that I attached the aforementioned page onto the end of today's image gallery.)
Note that this iteration of Emp has been unofficially dubbed "Fetchi...
2021-03-10 14:07:08 +0000 UTC
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Behold, a few of the opening pages of Empowered vol.11, along with my design sketches for the hiking outfits worn by Ninjette, Emp & Thugboy during this warm 'n' fuzzy flashback sequence. Yay!
TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON: More "damsel-in-distress" content for the $5 tiers and higher; very likely some Vintage Con Sketches, as I'll likely use the normal Friday Vintage slot for an Empowered vol.12 post (m...
2021-03-09 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
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Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from April 2017, still fairly early on in the effort, followed by a set from January 2018. I normally would post the latter as the primary gallery image above, but I found it marginally less striking than the 2017 set (for once).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw and untweaked grayscale scans as PSD atta...
2021-03-08 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
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