I should take more time to come up with catchy titles to my paintings. As some may know I working on some stuff to send to Marvel and here is an additional piece to that end. Cyclops has always been one of my favorite characters and the image of his optic blast is a striking visual.
Here is a little something I did in Photoshop. When I first saved this I wondered what I should call it. Man with gun seemed to fit since it was a man with a gun but as I am prone to do I shortened that to Mangu. Kinda catchy don’t you think?
A few weeks ago I started an oil painting of the Hulk as seen here.
I finished the oils a few weeks ago but have only just now gotten around to posting them.
I just finished a commission of the Incredible Hulk which was fantastic fun. To those of you that don’t know the Hulk is my all time favorite character. Some of my best memories are watching the old Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno Hulk television show. I’ve got every one on tape and I got them the old fashion way. By recording them on VHS when cable would show reruns.
Even though it’s different from the TV show the version of the Hulk in my mind has always been more Gorilla like. A real square shaped caveman type with the features of a Silverback. He should be unintelligent but gentle with a childlike innocence and always feel like smashing. I don’t think that I could get all that in my illustration but hopefully a lot of it comes through. Below are some progress shots I scanned as I went.
ProcessThis commission was done on 14×17 Bristol board in pencil, then inked and colored with acrylics and colored pencils. You can see the progression above from pencils, to line inks, to filled in inks, to color wash and finally the finished product with a few more layers of paint and some colored pencils.
Through my progress I’ve found that I hate using a ruler on anything including architecture. I love that loose contour line. There is so much more life and energy to it even in things that are more defined by their mechanical or processed nature.
I’ve also found that I need to catch up on the materials curve a little bit. There are these wonderful things out there called Copic markers that apparently are the bomb. (Am I dating myself here or what) I plan on ordering me a set and hopefully use them on future commissions.
If anyone out there wants to send me Hulk swag (or Copics), don’t hesitate. Until next time…
There’s a scene in an old Frankenstein movie from 1931 where ol’ Frank is sitting beside a little girl at a lake. The little girl makes friends with Frank and they end up picking flowers together and throwing them into the lake. To me it defines the character of the Hulk. Despite all his strength and power he’s really just a child that wants to play. Now, I know in the end of that scene he runs out of flowers and throws the little girl in who drowns but that doesn’t diminish my point.
This is the pencils for an oil painting. It’s a commission for my best commission client. I got the idea after playing hide and go seek with my own 3 year old. I was after that expression of wonder, of discovery through innocent eyes that I think is really a defining characteristic of the Hulk. Did I mention he’s my all time favorite character?
But then again, there is always that part of me that wants to have Hulk smash so I drew this in a way to be both. If you cover up the right side of this face (his left) Hulk want to smash but if you cover up the left side (his right) Hulk just want to play. I purposely tried to be a little coy about his expression.
Below is the clip from the Frankenstein movie I was telling you about. Enjoy.
A few months ago I finished a cover for a comic called Dragonstorm, put out by Unstoppable Comics. I didn’t know if I had permission to post it or not so I would just check out their website from time to time to see if I saw it. Alas, I’ve yet to see it but I did run across an email from them saying it was OK to post on my website, so here we are. I really loved doing this and it’s my favorite digital piece I’ve done so far as the process was the closest I’ve gotten to my traditional painting. It hard to explain but to me there is a difference between doing something in Photoshop and painting in Photoshop. This piece felt like I was painting.
