Friday, October 06, 2006

Teeny Bit of Fun...I


Teeny Bit of Fun...I
Originally uploaded by Gelatomettista.
[jimlee]

I am booked up with so much real work these days that I rarely do a piece for fun or for a friend...but this piece was an exception. My kids are big fans of the Teen Titan's animated show and with one of their birthday's coming up this weekend, I made time over 4 days to make sure I got this done so it could get framed.

Their least favorite character is Robin (how could you tell heh) and their favorites are obviously Starfire and Raven. I wanted to do something in the style of the show but also with some of my own quirks in there (otherwise why bother drawing something original...could have just lightboxed an existing cartoon drawing or even simpler, just buy a retail Teen Titans poster!) I took 'snapshots' after different days' work so you can see what I built up first and what critical decisions had to be made in terms of spotting blacks and emphasizing different line weights.

I knew that as a cartoony drawing, the line weights and the spotting of the blacks would be crucial in terms of giving the piece 'weight' and the feeling of being complete and also making sure it looked clear and understandable in one or two glances. Without the benefit of color, one has to resort to composition, and again line weights and spotting blacks.

11 comments:

Russ Sheath said...

Hey Jim,
this may seem a random question but its amazing to me how you can adapt your style so easily. The style we see in your books such as All-Star or Wildcats, is that your 'natural'style or is it a style that you adopt for your comic work. Is that vague?
I will give you an example, Ian Churchill said that his natural style is more 'cartoony' than the style he uses in his comic work.

Will Sliney said...

That's beautiful.
A touching gift

Dean Trippe said...

AWESOME, dude! :D

ccaprile said...

Do your kids get a real kick out of watching you draw, or does the fact that you draw a lot around them and have friends that draw take away from their excitement. I know my kids get a little excited when I draw a picture for them (Avatar is the new subject matter of choice), but I don't know a lot of people that draw. In short, do your kids know how cool it is to have a comic artist for a dad, or is it like you're an accountant- business as usual? Great picture. Thanks for sharing.

Chris Caprile

Ron Salas said...

That is an awesome drawing. Great cartooning, there. I especially love the hands of that girl at the front. Everybody looks really sharp. though.

Andrea said...

Sei sempre il più grande!Quando verrai ancora in Italia?Ci sarai a Lucca?
Ciao maestro,
Meneghin.

EJ Morges said...

What a great gift Jim!

So what will you be doing for my birthday!?! :)

EJ
www.pressolivion.net

Fochod said...

Fantastic present. It's fun to see your style mixed with the animated style.
I hope you had a great time celebrating your daughter's birthday.

Anonymous said...

that's great man - very different style that what I think of as "Jim Lee." I wonder what other styles you can pull off??

Vittorio Giorgi said...

Too bad Robin is their least fav character... :(
The main character on the front is your daughter, right?
The dream of every kid in the world is to be a hero of his fav cartoon!

VShane said...

Man, I don't think I've ever seen any cartooning by you. Well done Jim!
I bounce frequently between overly simple cartooning and comics and its difficult to change the state of mind. You handle it like the master you are.