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 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!

~~~~

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

~~~~

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 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.

Sketch Card for April 23- Buffy Week 5/5

And Buffy wraps the week!

With seven seasons and so many cool-looking bad guys and new cast members added over time, I would bet there's gonna be more Buffy weeks i the future!

~R

Sketch Card for April 22- Buffy Week 4/5

Willow. I think I manged to NOT overwork this one.

Hard to believe she was 22 when Buffy started.

Sketch Card for April 21- Buffy Week 3/5

Good old Giles. Someone sure did mangle those glasses of his!

I actually "lost" the pencils as I built the values and should have redrawn them in before drawing the frames.

Copic Ciao & Multiliner markers on 2.5x3.5" smooth Strathmore Bristol.

~R

Sketch Card for April 20- Buffy Week 2/5

Angel! Ended up overworking the shadows, in my opinion.

Sketch Card for April 19 - Buffy Week 1/5

Since I'm re-watching Buffy while showing it to my son for the first time, I decided I'd do sketchcards of the cast from the first season. As much as I liked the character, I never found him believable as a high-school kid - considering he's only three years my junior and was around 28 when he started playing the 16-year old kinda stacked the deck against him.

I started another version of the card while still rather ill last week, couldn't get the mouth right and gave up in frustration, as you can see:

See ya tomorrow!

Dr. Sketchy's - Frenchie Fatale and Paralee Pearl

Managed to get to a Dr. Sketchy's for the first time in a while -- two models that night! Frenchie Fatale and Paralee Pearl were great models and an interesting study in contrasts.

Just before the evening started, Sketchy photog, Brynne was standing around in some decent light, so I did a few very quick gestures.

When the models came out, we started with the usual 1-minute gestures.

Then there were the 5-10 minute poses.

I wrecked one of the nicer drawings I did with my Sketchy challenge entry; drawing on the back of a nice conté drawing with Copics on sketchbook paper isn't the best of ideas.

Won a very obscene graphic novel that ends in Waffles, so it was almost worth it. Won't post the winning entry as it had yet another giant penis gag.

Sketch Cards for April 15 & 16 - The Batman 4 & 5/5

I should have mentioned I was going to do something different for the last two Batman sketch cards this week. I was going to post some of the doodles and sketches from this past Monday's Dr. Sketchy's event and mention just that, but I was under the weather yesterday (and still am today) and just never got 'round to scanning the Sketchy's sketches.

So, anyway -- here's 4/5, guest-starring Two-Face. . .

And here's 5/5, also guest-starring Two-Face!

And here's the reason why I posted both today:

I did few like these for the various Marvel Masterworks sketch cards -- was careful to make sure any given card would have something for the person opening them. I've heard them called puzzle cards, which works for me.

No idea what I'm doing for next week's sketch cards. I'll probably post the Sketchy's stuff later today or Monday.

Sketch Card for April 14 - The batman 3/5

Holy five-o'clock shadow!

I always figured Bruce would often forget to shave while working on a case, and, since most of his work would be at night, that stubble would be pretty advanced for such a testosterone-powered superhero.

Not sure Alfred could stop Master Bruce from leaving without a quick shave. . . .

Sketch Card for April 13 - The batman 2/5

Trying for a more painterly approach. I thought it apropos for Batman in the rain. Still falls short of the sort of rain John Romita jr. draws.

Sketch Card for April 12 - The batman 1/5

Starting off with a pretty vanilla batman portrait. Kinda fun to cut loose with sketchy comic-style rendering after the really careful tonal studies of the Beatles last week. Might try something like that with Bats this week.

Sketch Card for April 9 - Beatles 4/4

While Ringo was my favorite Beatle as a kid, George is my favorite as an adult.

Sketch Card for April 8 - Beatles 3/4

Ringo.

He was my favourite Beatle as a kid; probably because of HELP. Always been a bit of a sucker for the hapless hero/victim story and he was the perfect choice to play that in that goofy little film.