Red Sonja Sketch card

Decided to do another Red Sonja -- experimenting with a touch of colour as well. Lips shifted when I inked, making her look rather depressed. I guess I would be a bit depressed if part of my thing was only being able to have sex with someone who could beat me up!

Few newsy bits

1. I'm a guest at the upcoming Fan Appreciation Event in Toronto next weekend (June 5-6). I might do another print just for that show if time allows, but I'll be available for con sketches all weekend.
2. I've decided to drop the sketch card frequency from 5 a week to 3. Although I can do these quite quickly, finding the time to do them regularly has been an issue. I'm looking at a Monday-Wednesday-Friday frequency, with less reliance on week long themes. I'm more likely to spread a theme across a month with other pieces thrown in as the whim strikes.
3. Now that I'm not sticking to a rigid theme, I think I can open these up to commission requests. Contact for details.
4. Remember the Iron Man 2 cards I posted that started this sketch card trend here? Well, I was hoping to get the artist proof cards and offer those as commission pieces, but it seems Upper Deck is a mess right now. They announced a deadline for approval of the artist proof cards with all unfinished cards to be returned by the 1st of June -- four days from the time of writing. Thing of it is, I still haven't received the artist proof cards from Upper Deck.
5. I really enjoyed the Iron Man sketch cards and was looking forward to doing the artist proofs -- I guess I'll have to look into whether any other companies do stuff like this.

Take care!

LLAMA! Sketch Card for May 26

The best thing about this past week was the shenanigans between Dan Panosian and Dave Johnson over at deviantART. They decided to see who could rally their friends and followers to give them the most llama badges. Dan's Team Urban-Barbarian prevailed, but going over and reading their often brilliant smear-campaign attacks on each other in their journals means were no losers here (other than Dave, that is -- the nature of the contest means he's really a lloser).

I wanted to commemorate Dan's victory with a drawing paying homage to Robert E. Howard, Frank Frazetta, llamas and Angela Jolie's breasts, but I could only fit the llama's head on the 2.5x3.5 inch sketch card.

~R

Robert E. Howard Illustration

Years ago there was a half-assed publisher supposedly dedicated to the works of Robert E. Howard, Cross Plains Comics. They only published a handful of books with some good talent but really weak design and production choices. Like any Howard fan, I immediately had high hopes for the company upon hearing about it, but saw them dashed pretty quickly despite a few really good projects sporadically coming out before the company started publishing weird super-hero things.

I did contribute to one of the books they published, Robert E. Howard HORROR, illustrating a Howard poem. Never saw the printed book, either at the store or received a complimentary copy from the company, so I have no idea if the black and white book was worth the 5.95 cover price back in 2000. I had completely forgot I drew the piece until I stumbled across a print-size copy in a drawer today. Might have the original art somewhere around -- no idea. The above image is a scan of the slightly battered copy.

CPC faded away -- no idea what happened to the guy running it -- I think he was a former Marvel editor. Hope they landed on their feet somewhere.

Sketch Cards for May 21 - Star Trek 4/5 and 5/5

Here's the last two cards from last week's series. A vast number of things had to take priority over finding the time to finish these or do any other cards for this past week.

The photo-reference studies have been a good way to keep up with seeing values in black and white, but they've been hell to try and capture likenesses at that small a size; 2.5 x 3.5 is small. I'm really used to drawing much larger than reproduction size, so these have been an additional challenge and frustration when I usually feel I quite adept at capturing likenesses.

When the work weeks aren't so onerous, doing the five cards has been easy, but it still doesn't allow me the time to get ahead or do something else on top of the cards for the blog. I think I might change the schedule I set myself for these tiny drawings starting next week and start adding more non-cards stuff.

Take care,

~R

Sketch Card for May 12 - Star Trek 3/5

The first and best captain.

Sketch Card for May 11 - Star Trek 2/5

Yeoman Rand may have been one of my first childhood TV crushes, despite the strange hair! It was either her or the Orion dancer, and I mentioned how pointless doing a green skinned girl in B&W marker would be.

For the record, I would have done the Yvonne Craig Orion, because I think Batgirl made a pretty damn hot Orion girl!

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Just a not, the eBay auctions I put up last week are ending within 18 hours as of this writing -- only one set has been bid on, so these might go really cheap!

See them here: cards

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I was pretty crushed after learning Frank Frazetta passed away yesterday. Several other people, mostly artists, have already written some very beautiful tributes to this legendary artist. I still haven't wrapped my head around the loss.

~R

Sketch Card for May 10 - Star Trek 1/5

"Dammit Jim! I'm a doctor, not a brick layer!"

2.5x3.5" Strathmore Plate Bristol, using a .2 black and Cool Grey Copic Markers.

I'm getting a great range of suggestions as I keep going with these sketch cards, which is great for two reasons; people are enjoying these to some degree, and it means I not on my own for coming up with weekly subjects.

So Star Trek, the original series (or ST:TOS to fandom), is the subject this week. I've been a long time ST fan -- I think the first two words I learned how to spell were star and trek. I recall watching the series pretty much daily in syndication through the 70s. I enjoyed several of the films and a few of the spin-off TV series as well, but, in the same way Sean Connery will always be Bond to me, that first TV series will always be what i think of when it comes to Trek!

My first impulse was to draw the classic green alien chick to start this off, but green just ends up being a darker skin tone render in cool grey Copics.

By the way, at the time of writing, there's about 44 hours left on the sketch card auctions I put up last week here. Surprising (to me, anyway), the cards I received the most requests to sell seems to hold the least amount of interest so far. So people looking for a deal on the Batman set I did a few weeks back, you might be in luck!

See you all tomorrow!

~R

Sketch Card for May 7 - Vampirella 5/5

And with that Vampirella week ends. I really, really enjoyed drawing these and, based on the hits my blog received this week I think it's safe to say a number of people enjoyed looking at them.

All of these cards were created on 2.5x3.5" on Strathmore bristol plate with Copic markers.

Since I started these sketch cards I've had a number of requests to sell them, either individually or as a group. Deciding on a price is always somewhat stressful for me, so I've decided to let the cards determine their own value at eBay. I've listed three of the more popular sets today and I hope they find fine new places to live. You can click on the set names to go directly to the auctions

Batman set:

Buffy

And this week's Vampirella cards

See you all next week.

~Richard

Vampirella Pin-Up Pencils

I keep forgetting that I drew this.

A couple of years back I just wanted to draw Vampi again and I started this for the hell of it. I got really busy teaching and never got around to finishing the pencils (more dead ivy on the ground as well as some metal studs and bolts in the doors) or inked it.

I might go back and finish it, colour it and make a print of it for the Toronto cons this summer.

~R

Sketch Card for May 6 - Vampirella 4/5

Tried for a pin-up style pose, and managed to flip the armband and forearm bands she wears -- oops! Good thing this isn't in panel to panel continuity.

Did a quick search through my blog history and found that I have talked about the cancelled Vampirella mini series I worked on.

Sketch Card for May 5 - Vampirella 3/5

Only two more days to go.

I could do a Vampirella month, I'm enjoying this so much.

Sketch Card for May 4- Vampirella 2/5

I like the idea of Vampirella being more mysterious and a little alien rather than many of the alternate takes on her that've been floating around over the years. My visual touchstone is still that first Frazetta painting.

Love to hear everyone's favourite version of her.

Sketch Card for May 3 - Vampirella 1/5

Back after an unexpected and unwanted week off.

We're having a pretty severe allergy season up here and it literally put me on my back at the beginning of last week. I made attempts to do the sketch cards, but was pretty disappointed with the results and I was barely able to meet the schedule for my other assignments.

So, I decided to put aside my theme for last week for some other time and go to something a little easier on my still-itchy eyes! Vampirella. Love the character and I'd love to do something with her at some point in the future. I developed an interest beyond drawing her back in the 90s when Harris Comics tapped me to write and draw a 4-issue mini series. I think I might have described what happened on the blog before.