Sunday, June 24, 2007

The (original) Uncanny X-Men!


Again, my apologies for not updating this blog much recently -- work and other projects seem to be taking up all my time lately, so I haven't had much personal work that I could post here. However, to make up for that, I thought I'd share this recent two-colour painting I did of everyone's favourite mutant super-team -- the Uncanny X-Men!

Now for some of you, this may not be an X-Men team that you recognize, as I've chosen to draw up the original Stan Lee/Jack Kirby created team instead of a more modern incarnation of the merry mutants. All I can say is that although I grew up reading the classic Chris Claremont/Dave Cockrum/John Byrne version of the team in the 80's (the one with Wolverine), I've always had a desire to draw the original lineup of Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Marvel Girl and the Beast (along with the ubiquitous Professor X).


I've always liked that team a lot, especially since they were actually teenagers and often acted like it. So, for this picture, I thought I'd try to emphasize that point. Cyclops is still Slim Summers here, Bobby Drake is the youngest kid on the team, Warren Worthington is a rich fashion-plate, Jean Grey is a society deb and Hank McCoy is a jock with the heart of a nerd. I Hope you like it and don't mind the few bits of redesign I did on their appearances!

And in keeping with recent tradition, you can check out the intial concept idea and rough pencil sketch for the drawing on the right.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Orion Fights for Earth!


Whoa! Sorry about the delays in updating this blog, folks. Its been a hectic week or two with the recent Toronto Paradise ComicCon and a couple of other signing events. My thanks go out to all the nice folks who stopped by my table to say hello -- I had a great time doing sketches and selling some fancy new giclee prints I had made.

Now, when I got back into to my studio after a few days away from the drawing board, I realized my artistic chops were stiff, stiff, stiff! Luckily, I was able to work out some of the kinks by drawing and colouring this little picture of one of my favourite Jack Kirby superheroes -- Orion of the New Gods! And since I was doing it purely for fun, I couldn't resist going all "super-deformed" with it and giving him a big head. It kinda makes him a bit more cute than killer, I know, but hey, its my blog and I'll draw what I want to!

And of course, as is usual lately, you can check out my original pencil sketch for the piece below.