Sunday, May 10, 2009

Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog Update

It's been more than five months since my last entry into Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog. Admittedly, this is in large part because I've focused on other stuff and fallen behind, but I haven't abandoned the project altogether. In fact, for quite some time after that last Iron Man piece, I was hard at work ("hard at work" being a relative term here, of course) trying to draw Thor, but I had a lot of trouble with it.

I didn't expect the Thunder God to be such a challenge, but he's really tough to draw. I got through the head (and that long luxurious hair) a lot more easily than I thought I would; I even did what I thought was a decent job with the arms and upper body, but trying to draw Thor's legs was giving me fits.

The challenge I found with Thor was one I imagine I'd encounter with Superman as well, though to a lesser degree. When I drew the Hulk, conveying his physical prowess was relatively easy because you can go very over-the-top and exaggerated with his musculature. With Thor, he's supposed to be a big dude with huge muscles, but he's not freakish; I had trouble balancing giving him a bodybuilder physique and not overdoing it, wanting to keep him somewhat slender.

So I'm starting over from scratch and think I'll probably cheat a bit on this one and use reference, most likely from Scott Kolins' awesome work on Thor: Blood Oath (I love that book). Hopefully I'll have something to share sooner rather than later (fingers crossed).

And despite slouching on the sketch blog, I have done some successful art work since 2008, as Rickey and I did a jam piece of the Superman Family for our buddy Kevin Mahadeo, who moved to North Carolina. I drew Superboy, Mon-El and Brainiac. We actually told Kev we'd toss a few more figures on it before we send it to him, but maybe we'll post it here first or after.

Have I mentioned how much I respect actual artists lately?

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