Nosferatu page 8

Another page I like the basic layout of in spite of how poorly executed everything other than the cross bursting out of the silhouetted building is.

Ghost Rider heads-up -- had a few approvals to go ahead on an assignment run late and I was completely wiped out yesterday by a migraine so I'm playing catch-up for the next two-three days. The GR redesign project will pick up Friday barring any other things popping up.

Nosferatu page 7

I kinda like Nosferatu's gestures in the first and third panel, but not much else.

She-Dragon

Found a photocopy of the pencils for this -- no idea if it was ever inked, colored or published.

I was showing the pencils I did on Pitt: In the Blood around at either a New York or Chicago comic convention and I had the pleasure of meeting Erik Larsen, who liked my work enough to offer me a She-Dragon mini-series.

At this point in my career I didn't really know how to say no to work -- so every job that came along while I was writing this series ended up getting put in front of it since they had deadlines and this mini-series didn't. Eventually, Erik couldn't wait for this series as he had plans for the character and we let this drop.

In hindsight, had a deadline been set from the start, even if I ended up dragging my ass and been late meeting it, it would have been finished instead of sitting on the to-do eventually pile until it died. Erik's highly self-motivated -- I mean, just look at his work at Image -- so it must have been hard for him to be continually working with artists who needed the crack of the whip to move forward.

While I believe I'm considerably more self-motivated than I was way back then, I still prefer to work towards an established deadline.

Nosferatu page 6

I still like the idea behind the layout for this page even if the execution is hampered by my being so overwhelmingly inept in 1991. The deadline must have already been pressing on my thoughts at this point since I used such a weak dry-brush technique to handle the walls.

~R

Another Pitt page

Pitt getting blasted by tons of giant mechs and guys in powered battlesuits. Was a fun page to draw even though I ended up completely covering up Pitt with impact bursts.

Nosferatu page 5

With the previous page I seem to be developing a real injury-to-the-eye thing here.

No Ghost Rider stuff today or tomorrow, some sketches got approval after some delays and I'm going to be playing catch-up over the weekend.

I'll probably dig out some more art from ages past when I take breaks, though.

Ghost Rider Overhaul, pt2

Thought I should give another view of the worst version of Ghost Rider in case anyone wasn't sure based on the image I shared before:

And here's a Ghost Rider villain, which is really just the base Rider with bigger spikes and teeth. Shown for completeness and to consider as I move a little in this direction.

So, disregarding the original cowboy Ghost Rider, we have a few versions to look at; Johnny Blaze with his red hair and sideburns-to-die-for, his kid brother Danny Ketch with his darker and brooding look and. . .

. . .the movie version.

I think we can ignore that one here.

Actually, I think I'm going to ignore all of them. There origins are some of the worst parts of the characters --especially with the added medallion stuff pasted on later which I'm not going to get into at all.

Here's why their origins are bad: both of them essentially made deals with the devil for other people and then got screwed. Any moron knows that the devil doesn't play fair so the writers already decided Blaze and Ketch were morons from page one. They were written better later on, but I prefer to write smart characters who are capable of doing smart things and being able to out-think their enemies.

Now, I really like the Hulk, but you know he usually operates in one mode.

So, I want a Ghost Rider host who's smart - -which immediately means jettisoning the established GR methodology to getting a good guy to work for Mephisto. The answer is already there and I'm more than stunned that it hasn't been mined already. He starts out as an outlaw biker.

The host for this revamp isn't a good guy working for the Devil, but an evil bastard who should end up in hell and being host for the spirit of vengeance is his chance to avoid all that infernal poking and prodding.

A criminal nomad. An outlaw in the old west cowboy sense. Young enough to be physically capable, but hard as the road and the heart of a snake.

I want him weathered and worn with hard edges, but handsome enough to know he could clean up nice. The sketches above took a few minutes each to start getting the idea of want I want. They aren't what I want yet, but they're moving in that direction, I'll be doing another dozen or so, retaining the bits from the previous versions that I like, but I don't want this blog entry to be nothing but developmental head sketches.

Especially when there's a few larger issues to play around with.

The one on my mind at the moment is the Ghost Rider anatomy. Or, really, what the heel is he when he transforms? He fills out the jacket and pants as if he had flesh. His skull scowls as if it were made up of a more flexible material.

Now, I like the scowling skull, but I want to play with a more thought-out character, so things are going to be played with a great deal.

Next time.

Nosferatu page 4

Staging of this scene is pretty bad with the action in panel three going right to left. I think I only found out well after drawing this scene that the woman was barefoot in the previous issues.

Apart from the generally horrible draftsmanship, I think the stairs aren't badly drawn as much as more appropriate for a patio than a crumbling church.

Ghost Rider Overhaul, pt1

I wasn’t around for the first version of the Ghost Rider, but thinks he looked swell on this cover.

I’ve been a fan of the more contemporary Ghost Rider since I was a kid in the mid-to-late 70s. Something about the character just jump-started the neat-o-meter in my head and stuck there; flaming skull, flaming motorcycle, complex hero – all gold. Even though what I thought was cool changed as I hit my teens and again in my 20s, Ghost Rider had that nostalgia bump to keep it going.

Marvel gave the character another shot in the 90s, sprucing up his look but keeping the core elements while giving him a more hardcore (for comics) edge with the spikes and such. The writing was pretty lousy for the most part, but he still looked cool, especially when Ron Garney or the Kubert’s took a turn at drawing him.

Sales sagged and, I would assume either panic or madness fueled the next fashion update for ghost Rider. I understand the intent even as I know just how wrong-headed it was. I suspect it was either an editorial or the writer’s decision to move the character in this horrible visual direction. If this change was artist driven, I’d argue that the artist surrender his pencils. I’m all for new costumes as long as they don’t look stupid at the time. This one looked stupid before it was even published.

Nic Cage got his superhero vehicle with Ghost Rider and it was a mish-mash of the 70s and 90s versions of the character (ignoring the orange version) and Marvel relaunched Ghost Rider with a return to the 90s model. I was actually a little disappointed with how traditional the movie and marvel’s return to the character was.

Eventually Jason Aaron took the reigns of the book and steered the book through some weird 70s-style goofiness partnered with some gutsy (I’m assuming European) artwork. The dozens of new Ghost Riders showing up was crazy-fun and the plot was opening things up to go in interesting new places with the characters, but, then, it just wrapped up.

A few days back the most excellent Tom Raney popped this up on his blog and at his deviantART page.

Tom’s drawing set me to thinking; I don’t think Ghost Rider’s visual development has gone far enough. I think it’s time to approach it as a conceptual art development process. To do that we have to break down what is essential to the character.

You have to start with the biker-guy.

A devil – mainly as a source of power.

And a flaming skull.

No. Not that sort, more a combo of these two:

Probably quite a bit of the fire, too.

I'm probably going to quite a bit of reconceptualizing the character from the ground up as I go, so we'll probably end up with something having little to do with what Marvel is using - -or even would want to use.

More later. . . .

Nosferatu page 3

Quite a bit of bad drawing going on here -- hard to believe the guy's head in panel one is actually a patched in correction!

The Vampire Cassandra

I've described the aborted Vampirella mini-series before, but I just found this piece in that stack of old art. After reconstructing the cyborg vampires from the future idea I'd written for Blade at Marvel (which got cancelled) into the cyborg vampires from the future for Vampirella at Harris (which got cancelled) I was left with a large pile of story and plot elements dealing with cyborg vampires from the future.

Considering that the only thing in common between the two stories were time travel, vampires and hover-cycles, I had quite a bit of developed material to play with and I considered yet another new story, but this time spinning out of a few plot elements and one of the characters, Cassandra, I developed for the Vampi series. I did a few sketches, the above drawing, did a little writing and then got really busy doing something else.

I just realised this makes yet another instance of a vampire project I put some effort into.

I don't mind the costume so much, but the arms and hairstyle would certainly have to go if I ever dusted this off and the drawing itself shows my limitations at the time. The scan is from a photocopy -- if I find the original I'd probably makes some changes before posting.

Nosferatu page 2

Homeless guys, rats, vampire, protagonist, hero & victim all in one place - -pretty much sets up the issue.

Was thinking last night about the number of vampire or vampire-like projects or characters I've worked with over the years:

1. Lestat
2. Nosferatu
3. Terror, Inc (immortal and needs to replace rotting body part to continue to live)
4. Blade (wraote and was going to draw an issue before it was cancelled)
5. Vampirella
6. Rune
7. Vampire, the Masquerade
8. A video game project I signed an NDA for that only expires when the game ships and it's never shipped, so. . . .
9. Two different vampire properties I generated and may still do at some point -- well, one of them. The other's main plot points have been done since.

That seems like a fair amount of vampire for one guy.

Charcoal Witch

So, for some strange reason I decided to do a charcoal drawing in my studio. I love working with charcoal while demonstrating life-drawing or life drawing for my own benefit in a life drawing studio. There I don't have to worry about all the charcoal dust getting everywhere.

I think what spurred this on was finding a bag of broken charcoal pieces. I always wanted to make one of those porous charcoal bags for stamping down a grey value on the paper to control base values, so I made one (I had some time to kill yesterday). And, having made one, I decided to use it.

It's been a long, long time since I tried to use charcoal as an illustrative medium and I had a number of moments where I realised I was working rather haphazardly, building the drawing out of order. Being completely out of practice can do that to you. I also realised I'd need a chamois if I really want to do more of this.

Anyway, about an hour into it I decided to let it go and just play with the materials at had and see if I could wrap this up into something. My recently acquired Moo erasers did some impressive work and clean-up.

I think I'll try this again in the future, but for portraiture or longer life studies and on much larger paper. This was on 10x14"smooth bristol.

Nosferatu page 1

Still in way over my head, I started the flesh out the issue and draw it as I went. Doing this issue was, in many ways akin to what I've heard others comics guys describe what it's like to work on the last issues of a cancelled series. As I recall, the writer/co-publisher, Mark Ellis didn't really seem to care what happened with the final issue as long as it ended. I'm pretty sure this series was a sales failure. He rewrote the dialogue and captions Marvel style after he saw the issue.

Anyway, every issue started in a church, with a woman doctor being held captive by Nosferatu, his homeless servants and a bunch of rats. The previous issues had flashback sequences revealing the long history between Nosferatu and an immortal crusade knight, William Longsword, this was the climax and essentially a long fight scene between all the players.

Art-wise, I decided I didn't have the skill to render my way through this, so I simplified where I could. I inked with brush and Pigma markers throughout on double-thickness Mayfair coverstock. The lettering was, I think, computer-generated on a Mac and pasted on. This being 1991, I think this makes Millennium one of the early adopters of computer-lettering technology.

Red Sonja warm-up

Did some sketching last night before I crashed, but nothing worth sharing came of it.

I did this really quick Red Sonja sketch this morning. It has some potential if I come up with an idea to go around it. Looks kinda pose-y. Perhaps a more developed version could be part of a line up of (the comic book version of) Conan's Women; Valeria, Belít, Red, Zenobia, etc.

I dunno -- not that I have time for it now. . . .

In Over Your Head, part 2

So, after leaving Innovation's vampires behind I found myself in contact with Millennium Publications and was talking about working on their vampire book, Nosferatu: Plague of Terror.

The series had already started, the first issue was either about to be or was already published and the artist had left for Marvel. I was asked to paint a cover -- which I did. It was a pretty good one, as I recall I had stepped above my skill level on that one. The couple handling the publishing end in Florida said they were really happy with it, but lost it. I recall the phone call pretty clearly; they had moved during the production of the issue and the painting just disappeared. The wife explained that they needed another cover as soon as possible and, here's a good part, I'd get paid some sort of kill fee for the cover they lost. Kills fees are usually reduced payments for projects where the freelancer's work is deemed inappropriate for the assignment prior to completion. Their partner who was the contact for all the financial elements, in Rhode Island, paid me in full for the lost cover.

The cover above is the quick replacement I did. Given less than half the time and while actually drawing some pages inside the book this painting is decidedly a result below my abilities at the time. I only recall drawing anything from this issue in the most vague way. I remember gathering reference and. . . well, that's about it. I think I only drew a portion of the issue, but I'm not even certain of that. While this was going on my fiancé and I had moved into a house in Hamilton, Ontario that was turning into quite the nightmare. After everything having to do with the second issue of Nosferatu was dealt with, we'll have moved into a better house and I'd start partially writing, and penciling and inking the entire fourth issue.

And I still had no idea what I was doing other than getting further away from what I thought I wanted to be doing; painting edgy comics.

In Over Your Head, part 1

So, I get out of Sheridan College and I want to make a go of it as a comics artist. However, inspired by the likes of Bill Sienkewicz and Dave McKean, I don't really want to do superheroes at the time, but I want to do painted comics.

I was told I was the best painter in my graduating year, but that, in retrospect, is a little like being the lightest rock in an all rocks swimming race. I may have wrote this already, but our first year painting instruction was wasted by having the program's worst instructor run it. She had no art background but she had an education degree and was required to be on staff and the rest of the faculty thought she would do the least harm in 1st year painting. The only instruction of value I would get was in second year where we were introduced to Hawthorne's book and learned a little about the high palette as well as actually doing some painting studies that taught us things. The last year was another waste of time and the instructor was more interested in drinking coffee than anything else. The few times I asked for help, he said he had none to offer.

So, with that level of skill I went forward and started putting a portfolio together, did some work here and there and eventually stumbled across a mention in some comics news pamphlet that Innovation was actually looking for artists to expand their line of Anne Rice comics.

Next thing you know I'm painting a few pages for an art test which weren't good enough to get me the gig painting The Interview With the Vampire, but were enough to get me onboard painting over Daerick Gross's pencils for the very, very late The Vampire Lestat.

It was a weird and frustrating experience. After busting my ass on a couple of double-spreads I read that Innovation, the company publishing the series, had a rather unorthodox method of getting the book ready for print.

In the early 90s artwork would either be photographed for a transparency or it would be affixed to a large drum-scanner. Film would be shot from the scans and then the pages would be put into -- a forget it. It's complicated and no longer how things are done. Let's just say publishers could very easily turn double spreads into pages in a book with nothing adverse happening to the art.

Innovation decided the treatment of the artwork wasn't a concern. The artwork was physically cut wherever needed so they could save a few buck in production costs. This meant the double spreads I had just finished were going to be cut in half and probably trimmed on more sides as well.

Yeah -- that was my first nasty experience dealing with publishers at the low end of things. Daerick Gröss was a heck of a nice guy -- he had to be to work there as long as he did. I think he went on to do his own superhero or erotic comics at another company -- the memory is vague over that.

I wanted out. On the way I was asked if I was interested in their newly acquired Nightmare on Elm Street license. I read the script and decided I had better things to do with my life.

So I spent a few months painting in a style not mine for a publisher I was embarrassed to have worked for. It wasn't quite the step forward into professional comics I was hoping for.

From there, I ended up connecting with a couple who were, from what I was told, happily ex-employees of Innovation. I'd do a fair amount of work for them, including my first entire comic.

~R

Vampirella Study

I had other things I could have worked on right now, but I felt like drawing something sexy. So I started doodling different thumbnails based on gestures from my sketchbook until something stuck.

As I started working out anatomy and, being a comic geek, figured it was going to be a Vampirella drawing. Guess I'm kinda hooked on the character.

It reminds me of an unfinished Red Sonja piece I started a long time ago. I might try and turn this into a painting for the upcoming Hobbystar convention in August.

The Hills Rise Wild!

Another piece from the art cache!

I did some art for various sorts of non-computer games around 2000 or so; D&D, Call of Cthulhu variant and a really cool one called Unknown Armies. The publisher of Unknown Armies asked me to do some art for a Lovecraftian board game they were publishing.

Lovecraftian in that it was based on his stories, not that you'd realize we were all merely insignificant ants in the face of the ancient and uncaring powers of the cosmos. Felt I should clear that up.

Anyway, it was a bit of a goofy-riff on The Dunwich Horror where the monsters were all backwoods rednecks in addition to being genetically corrupt monstrosities. I think there's a redundancy in there. . .

So, the main image was a deep one in torn jeans with a shotgun.

Painted this in acrylics -- might be one of the last few things I did in that medium before going digital. I used gesso to build up the textures on the book -- the Cthulhu clasp is practically a relief sculpture.

The original is 14 x 20" on primed 140lb. watercolor paper.

Tempted to rework this a little, but that sort of thing is always a question of finding the time.

The deadline was approaching faster than I planned so I did the inserted images with markers on vellum -- no idea what happened to those pieces, but I expect they'll have faded to nothing by now.

I found a small jpeg of the game online -- apparently some outlets are still selling it. No idea how you play it since I can't recall ever seeing a copy of the game.

Happy Canada Day!

Wasn't planning on posting anything today. However, while in the middle of finishing some other work and I just had to put it aside.

It's Canada Day and the news that DC decided Wonder Woman couldn't fight crime in her old outfit kinda commingled in my head and I just had to quickly draw the above.

Happy Canada Day, everyone!