Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: Captain America

Jack Kirby's design for Captain America's costume has always been one of my quiet favorites in comics. That it was conceived so much in an ultra-patriotic era of jingoism yet has remained consistently popular and rarely been deviated from speaks to the strength of just how cool it looks. Who else but Kirby could make a guy wearing an American flag a pop icon outside the United States?

I did kinda a quickie sketch on this one, basically just taking a Gabrielle Dell'Otto Secret War cover and stripping down all the tricky details that make him a professional artist and me a guy drawing in my sketchbook...

I'm pleased with my effort, but I think a lot of that owes not only to aping Dell'Otto, but, again, the inherent quality of that Kirby design; it's just tought to screw up.

I will say this sketch showed me that Captain America just doesn't work as well for me in black and white or grey tones. I can do without the chain mail or glint off the cowl, but there's something about the balance of the red, white and blue that really does make it pop.

Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: The Wasp

Well this could have gone a lot worse.

Seriously, in all humility, I'm quite pleased with my first lady Avengers sketch of The Wasp.

Since I've always had trouble drawing women (I'm sure that speaks to some sort of issues, but I'll save myself some cash on counseling and just keep sketching), so I used this reference piece by an uncredited artist (Banks? As in Darryl?). However, I ended up doing a lot of "leg work" myself, including switching over to the character's original costume since I find it her most distinctive and because, hey, it's a Jack Kirby design.

So yeah, not too shabby. We'll see if I can hold it up as we continue.

Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: Thor

Over a year in the making!

Seriously, the last entry in this sketch blog was December 3, 2008. Yeesh.

I'll admit it: Thor broke me. I did not ever anticipate I would struggle so much with trying to draw this character. The face and hair came easy enough, but the body gave me hell. Something about a character who is supposed to be super-strong but doesn't have a freakish musculature like The Hulk presented a real conundrum to me, and obviously it took quite some time for me to solve it. After a few tries early last year, I just threw in the towel and quit drawing for a bit (I also got sick, got married, etc., so there were other excuses).

A month or so ago I decided to pick up my sketchbook and try again only to experience yet another false start. I wanted to do a real wild pose, with Thor's arms thrust to the sky, lightning jumping out of his hammer and whatnot, but I couldn't nail it. I also generally fall back on doing the head-on view of characters' faces when I draw, so I wanted to challenge myself and tilt his head slightly upward, but that was no-go as well.

Ultimately, I ended up having to rely heavily on Olivier Coipel's cover to Thor: Tales of Asgard #1 as a guide and came out with this finished product:

I'm pleased enough with it (though I really wish I had erased that original pose better) and think some parts look pretty bad ass, but it was really a lot of aping a great Coipel piece and not enough me for my liking. Also, given how long it took to finally nip this in the bud, I'm not sure anything short of something I could hand to Thor editor Alejandro Arbona to use as a cover would have satisfied me.

Anyhow, at the very least I'm off the shelf for now as far as sketching and will attempt to get myself together enough to move forward both here and over at the We Are The LAW blog that TJ set up. Fingers crossed!

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?

Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: Iron Man

Much like the Flash, Iron Man was a character I felt an affection for very early on in my childhood. Also as with the Flash, I knew next to nothing about the character of Iron Man or the man behind the mask, I just knew there was something about the visual aesthetic that I really dug. Did I just have a thing for the red and yellow color scheme? Maybe, but with Iron Man, I was also really into the smooth sleekness of the look and thought the integration of technology was cool as well. I always thought armored characters were cool, from Iron Man right on down to Prototype of Ultraverse fame.

(Note to self: write an entry on the Ultraverse some time; also see if Kiel read those books, because I bet he did)

So I was both excited and nervous to draw Iron Man because I think his look is so cool. I chose to go with the armor design I remembered as classic and seminal to my youth that he wore in the 70's and early 80's, with a few moderate tweaks on my part. Here's what I came up with...

Initially, I found myself extremely frustrated and having to redo this one more times than either of the others thus far. For starters, I felt like I couldn't find a dynamic enough pose and my rough sketches all had Iron Man looking too stationary, which I don't think of whan I think of the character. Ultimately, I don't feel like I totally licked this problem and the final product still looks a bit stiff and lumbering, but I find it improved from where I started, and sometimes that's all you can ask for.

I also had way more trouble with the helmet at first than I figured I would, but am pretty satisfied with how I handled that. For awhile my attempts looked more like a guy wearing weird facepaint than a helmet, until I realized that it's all about making the faceplate a separate piece from the rest. Once that clicked in, I think I nailed it.

Overall, not my strongest effort in my opinion, and that may be partly because I think Iron Man is an inherently strong design and have a better picture in my head, but not a total failure. I learned as I worked and think aside from the helmet, I did really well with the chestplate and tweaked boots. A learning experience, but an enjoyable one.

Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog Extra: GREEN Hulk

So Rickey got bored at work today and used Photoshop to color my Hulk sketch for kicks. Here it is...



Personally, I love it.

Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: The Hulk

I was very nervous about drawing the Hulk. Unlike Ant-Man, who has a weird helmet, neat costume and other little doodads I could use to distract from any major flaws in my work, Hulk is really just a jacked up guy wearing barely any clothes. There aren't any real bells and whistles in the Hulk's look, you just need to have a good grasp of anatomy, shadowing, and all the stuff I don't think I'm great at. I also remember trying to draw the Hulk as a kid and the face always looking ridiculous because when I tried to make it look like he was angry, he just crazy/constipated.

Given all this, I leaned on reference art more heavily here than I did last time. I mostly just used the reference to get the shadows and musculature right. For the face and the basic outline, I did it mostly on my own, and pleasantly surprised myself.

I was going to run the Bryan Hitch image I used for my main reference, but unfortunately the site I was looking at it on seems to have pulled it down. Bummer.

Anyways, here's mine...




Given my expectations, I'm very happy with the final results. I don't think I'd want to ever draw the Hulk on a regular basis (just figuring out where the shadows fall on his muscles would drive me insane), but I had a lot of fun with this. A big part of that was realizing along the way that nothing is too ridiculous when it comes to the Hulk's physique. Want to make his arm the size of Ant-Man's waist and then some? Sure! Feel like he could use a few more veins? Makes sense! Good times.

Speaking of good times, I totally spent a few minutes grimacing in front of my bathroom mirror trying to figure out how to draw the Hulk's face. Megan was probably pretty concerned about me, but ultimately I just ended up drawing heavily on that classic Joe Jusko painted close-up image, so it was all for naught I suppose. I still enjoyed it.

Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: Ant-Man

As I mentioned not too long ago, friend of the blog TJ Dietsch kicked off the Society Pages, his sketch blog devoted to the Justice Society of America. Today, I follow suit with the first installment of Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog, my attempt to create semi-credible images of every member of the Avengers, beginning with Hank Pym, aka the original Ant-Man.

Hank Pym is actually one of my least favorite Marvel characters, based more or less on a childhood bias rooted in not being able to understand why this blond guy in a red vest was on the same team as Iron Man and Hawkeye (he was in his particularly lame Dr. Pym identity at the time). Conversely, Hank Pym is Keith Giffen's favorite Marvel character, so there's a difference between Keith and I (also, he's a highly successful comic book writer and artist).

Anyhow, my personal feelings for the character aside, not counting the aforementioned red vest, Pym has had some rad costumes over the years, so I was glad to start my series with him...


Rather than go with Pym's current Yellowjacket get up, I chose to draw him in his original Ant-Man costume. I like this outfit, a Jack Kirby design (you can rarely go wrong with those), because it's simple but funky and has a kooky helmet I knew I'd have some fun with. At the same time, I was a bit worried I'd screw up the helmet, but I think I pulled it off nicely. Admittedly I cheatd a bit, adding that conveniently shaped hill type thingy so I wouldn't have to draw feet (I hate to draw feet), but I'm gonna try and stand up to that challenge in the future.

Overall, this sketch could have perhaps been a bit more dynamic, but I'm happy with it as my first effort having used very little reference material outside of refreshing my memory on the costume specifics.