Hellboy Pamcakes Commission

People love their Hellboy and Hellboy loves his pamcakes!

coloured pencil and ink on 12x16 Canson Mi-Teintes pastel paper

~R

Hellboy development work

Some people really like the occasional look at the process.  I was tidying the studio and crumpling the piles of layout bond that accumulate and realised there was stuff worth scanning and sharing.  Some of the material was already too crumpled to scan well, but the remainder.

I generally start everything with a pile of sketches of the main characters get to get the look into my hands.  Then I usually do 10-20 thumbnail sketches of layout ideas -- often with a thick pencil or marker to keep details from slowing me down.  I reduce the thumbs to two or three 'good' ideas, then do three or more pencil sketches developing those and then run with my favourite.  I then do sketches of the 'parts' of the image - -foreground, background and figures can often all be on their own pieces of paper.  Sometimes they're drawn at a comfortable size instead of a similar size to how they'll fit on the image -- tiny figures might be drawn 200% larger to better capture form and gesture. for example.  The lot gets scanned, manipulated, cleaned up and assembled in Photoshop.  The result isn't what I would have considered finished pencils a few years ago, I save about 25% of the finishing in the drawing for the inks so i'm not just tediously tracing over my pencils.  I convert the image to 22% Cyan and print it out on the art board.  The rest is ink and white paint.

Hellboy's 20th!

Put this together to join in the celebrations for Hellboy's 20th Anniversary month.  I mangled my hand a bit last week at the gym, so this took wayyyyyy longer than it should, but managed to get it in on the last day!



Despite a very different approach to drawing, Mike's been a major influence as a cartoonist and how I look at the industry.

I don't know about you, but I'm more than looking forward to seeing what he brings us over the next 20 years!

Hellboy Day

Yesterday was Hellboy day!

I started a drawing, but didn't finish it yet, but I realised I have a few HB drawings sitting around already, so I could share those  in the meanwhile.

Threw flat colours under a quick pencil sketch:

Grey copics on bristol:

Did a few 2.5x3.5"  sketchcards - like the top left one the most.

Pencil sketch -- inspired by some Facebook comment

Ink on bristol -- for Hellboy's birthday last year. 

It's great seeing how broad the love and support for Mike's creation has grown over the last 20 years.

~R

20th Anniversary Hellboy!

Wow -- it's been 20 years.

I remember getting all excited when I saw the weird red guy with the goggles (yeah, I thought the horns were goggles)  in a tiny preview in a Dark Horse comic way back when.

Congratulations to Mike Mignola, his family and Dark Horse Comics for two decades while still going strong!

~R

Toronto Comicon 2013 Day One

Sketches!!!
First day of the 2013 Toronto Comicon has wrapped and I'm off for the second in a few hours.

~R

Burning Itch: Squirmy

Sharing a few thoughts about tentacles. . .

~R

Sketch Card for March 19 - Hellboy 5/5

Yay, Copic colour for the last Hellboy this week. I get to show off how poorly my old 11x17" Mustek handles colour scanning.

It's always awkward drawing like someone else, but there's something so wonderfully attractive about the way Mike lays down shapes. The last two cards were kinda fun for playing with elements from Mignola's style, but I now feel I should draw another two cards that are more honest .

Sketch Card for March 18 - Hellboy 4/5

Second last Hellboy. Finally working on a smooth surface that I can live with. I tried to simplify towards Mignola's style, and I'm not sure I was very successful. I liked the pencil sketches of today's and tomorrow's cards better than the finished pieces.

Sketch Card for March 17 - Hellboy 3/5

Brush and ink on tiny, tiny illustration board.

Sketch Card for March 16 - Hellboy 2/5

With this one I used the last of the rough textured cards from the Strathmore sample pack. Lots of sloppy bits and things I'd like to redraw show up when I upsize these things, but I figure it just gives me incentive to get better.

Sketch Card for March 15 - Hellboy 1/5

Opted for a batch of Hellboy sketch cards this week. I'm still using up the last of the Strathmore sampler pack and so I decided to stick with pen & brush & ink for the first 3.

~R