ECCC Portfolio: Hellboy Returns

I wanted to include some looser, more moody pages in my portfolio that were a little bit more natural "me" feeling than some the other stuff I did that I probably over-thought to the point of making some poor storytelling choices. This is supposed to be Hellboy returning to Earth from Hell, only to discover that Hell beat him there.

 I love drawing animals.

 I think that last panel is one of my better renditions of Hellboy. In his panel at ECCC, Mike Mignola said he designed Hellboy to be a character that A) he'd never get tired of drawing and B) he could draw really terribly and have the character still be recognizable.

That Ogdru Jahad (based on Mike Mignola's design) was a lot of fun to draw, but overall this piece feels rushed to me. I wanted to do a lot more with the sky.

ECCC Portfolio: Breakfast with the Avengers

This is the most elaborate set piece I've ever drawn. For some reason I thought it would be hilarious to draw the Avengers in their civvies, with the guys making breakfast for the ladies, only to be rudely interrupted by a swarm of MODOKs. The cast (in order of appearance): Luke Cage, Steve Rodgers (Captain America), Clint Barton (Hawkeye), Natasha Romanova (Black Widow), Jennifer Walters (She Hulk), Jessica Jones, Baby Cage, Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel).

If those bacon and eggs don't get me a job at Marvel, I don't know what will...

I'm not sure if the panel flow, or implied carnage really work in these middle pages, but I needed to get from breakfast to MODOK somehow and also really wanted to draw She Hulk leaping out of a sky scraper.

I'm happy with how this 2-page spread turned out. But I hate drawing buildings.

ECCC Portfolio: PLATYPUS

Here are is the "finished" line art for my 12-page "Bill the Platypus" short I'm including in my comic book portfolio for the Emerald City Comic Con. I plan on showing these (and some more traditional superhero stuff I hope to finish this weekend) to as many artists, writers and editors at the big comics publishers as I can. The ultimate goal is to eventually earn a living illustrating comics and while I've got a long way to go, I feel like I've worked with more focus in the last three months to improve my drawing than I have in the last three years. Please be brutally honest with your critique, I've still got some time to polish these before I print them off and head up to Seattle for ECCC.

A few things to keep in mind. People looking at these won't know these characters (and neither do you, really) so this is sort of an introduction to what a "Bill the Platypus" comic might look like, without being a proper origin story. Hopefully you can follow the action, even without the dialogue (which I may add later). Feel free to point out specifics that work or mistakes that need fixed (like in page 9, first panel, guy isn't wearing  a jacket).

1

2

 Text would be: 3 weeks later, somewhere in Mexico.
Dialogue is Mr. Goodfellow (glasses, works for Bill's boss) introducing Bill (platypus, bounty hunter) to Dr. Sanchez (hat, veterinarian/paranormal investigator). They are here to capture a creature that is slaughtering livestock. Locals are calling it the "chupacabra".

3

 Dialogue: Sanchez tells Bill he was attacked by the creature. Says it's twice the size of a grizzly bear. They are driving out to the site of the last attack.

4

5

 Bill: Think the doc might have been exaggerating about your size a bit.

6

7

8

 Originally the Doctor wasn't a character, there was just the farmer, so that's how I forgot to draw his jacket on this page. Will fix before comic con.

9

10

11

 I'm not sure what sound a tranquilizer gun makes.

12

So this is the condensed version of a full 24-page comic script I wrote. Eventually I'll add a flashback scene of Dr. Sanchez's first encounter with the creature (spooky, cliche horror movie night scene) and a few pages at the end of the Doc getting a blood transfusion, thanking Bill for the help and Goodfellow's men packing up the chupacabra's to be transferred to a research facility.

Dwarf Commission Process

Commissioner sent me a very detailed description of a dwarf character with a burning lava hand. I was scratching my head for a bit but he said he liked my first pass at the character so I got lucky.

Initial rough sketch

Made a few slight changes per request, such as redesigned hat and larger beard, and began to tighten up the line art slightly. Added a little fire elemental as well.

Revised sketch, rough background

At this point I'd usually jump to doing flat colors and then shading/rendering those layers, but I wanted the final piece to have more of a painted vs. comic book look, and I wanted to try something new, so I did the whole thing in grayscale before coloring.

final lines and gray scale

Jumped back and forth a lot between grays and colors after a while and had a real tough time getting the colors to balance. Not sure if I succeeded, but this is still probably one of the most elaborate things I've drawn. The pose is a little static, but I had a hard time figuring out how to include all the elements of the character's description without having him basically standing there on a rock. Commissioner was happy with the final piece, which was a relief.

final colors

I'd usually charge $35 for a piece like this ($20 for colored character + $10 background + $5 fire elemental), but I did it for $25 as part of a holiday price special. Now I'm back to drawing comics.

Monster Month Days 29-31

After drawing so many creepy monsters, I thought I'd end things on a goofier note. C is for Cookie, that's good enough for me.

Requested by my Mom, but I was actually already planning on doing these guys. Mike Wazowski and James P. Sullivan from Monsters Inc.

Last and maybe least, a monster of my own creation: the Mucous Man.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Monster Month 26-28 A Few Things...

Mike Mignola's Hellboy and its spin-off B.P.R.D. (published by Dark Horse) are the only comic book series I still follow. From what I remember, the movies are so tonally different than the comic that they are basically a bad parody. The comics are steeped in mythology, folklore and classic literature from all over the world. In one comic, Hellboy finds himself in Japan fighting evil decapitated heads (based on an actual folk tale) while later, in Hell, he watches a puppet show of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It's crazy stuff. This is actually a drawing I did a while back for a fan art contest - I didn't submit this. You can see the one I did submit here.

One of my favorite monsters from Marvel Comics. I first learned about the Man-Thing from a Spider-Man collectable card set (apparently they had a "team up"). Man-Thing is a silent hulking swamp creature who guards the nexus of alternate dimensions and whose touch burns the flesh of fearful evil-doers.

Believe it or not, I don't remember ever having owned the book Where the Wild Things Are but I really like the Spike Jonze movie.

Almost finished!

Monster Month Days 24 & 25

I think I've got most of the evil and scary creatures out of the way, so now it's time for some heroic and more lovable monsters.

Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King, from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Goliath, from the epic '90's cartoon Gargoyles.

Monster Month Days 21-23

Sort of a randumb set today.

Super Mario Bro's

I'm not sure how this turned out so awesome, but I'm glad it did. I've been wanting to do a series of realistic drawings of the original Super Mario Bro's characters, but this will have to do for now.

Fellowship of the Ring

 Wish I could have spent more time on this one.

Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

I don't remember much about this '90's cartoon show, but tonally it was sort of Monsters University meets Ren & Stimpy. The monster designs have had a lasting influence on my sketch life.

Monster Month Days 18-20 More Villains

I can still remember gathering with friends to watch the episode where Lord Zedd made his debut on Power Rangers. Lord Zedd replaced the annoying Rita Repulsa as a more worthy nemesis for a show about ninjas who ride robot dinosaurs to fight giant monsters. He's up there with Shredder and Darth Vader as greatest villains of all time. I only just realized while drawing him that he is wearing a metal bikini.

Another cool villain from the '90's. I'm hoping Krang makes his live action debut in the next Ninja Turtles movie. Tentacles crossed!

We need more movies like The Dark Crystal.

Monster Month Days 15-17 Villainous Dump

In the original book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, the Witch only has one eye.

Based more on his reptilian appearance in the books.

And his pet Kowakian monkey-lizard, Salacious B. Crumb.

Monster Month Day 14 - Gojira

King of the Monsters! I tried a couple other poses and quickly realized that Godzilla should always be seen from below. This is more or less the version from the recent remake.

Monster Month Days 11-13 (more 80's classics)

Gremlins (1984) is tied with Home Alone (1990) as my favorite Christmas movie and is easily one of my top 10 favorite films of all time.

I always forget how much I love "Little Shop of Horrors" (1986). What ever happened to Rick Moranis?

Little bit of trivia: Bill Murray's masochistic dental patient character was played by a young Jack Nicholson in the original 1960 version. For most people, the dental scenes are probably the scariest part of the movie.

If you know me, you knew this was coming... Stay Puft from the first Ghostbusters (1984)! Although, to be honest I was far more terrified of Vigo the Carpathian and the pink slime from Ghostbusters 2.

Monster Month Day 10 - The Fly

Was going to draw the super disgusting "Brundlefly" from the 1986 Jeff Goldblum version of "The Fly", but then I remembered the original 1950's version of the Fly wore a suit, which was just too adorable to pass up.

Monster Month Days 7-9 - 80's Sci Fi Classics

Trying to catch up. Everyone's favorite sci-fi monsters from the horror renaissance of the 80's(ish). Stuck close to the original designs on these since they are trademarked characters (as opposed to creatures from mythology or literature). Change Predator too much and he's not really Predator.

1979

 Wanted to include a facehugger, but had to hurry things along.

1987

1984

Not sure if the fleshy eye works on this but I wanted to make it clear that this is THE Terminator and not just any endoskeleton.

COMING SOON - More awesome monsters from the 80's!