Happy Tofurkey Day!

Hey ya'lls, hope all is well. I'm sure you've been building up an appetite for a new posting by me since it's been a little while....so here's a double dose!

I've been really playing around/practicing my brush inking techniques these past few weeks. I primarily use pens and sometimes the quill and only really used the brush to fill in blacks..(such a waste of a fine tool!), mainly cause the brush intimidated me and I didn't think I had a steady enough hand. I'm officially hooked and love, love the rawness and all the line variations you can get.

After being at WildStorm for a couple of years, I've been exposed to and have falling for the work of such artists as John Paul Leon and Tommy Lee Edwards, artists whose styles are way different than mine but styles that I'm studying and trying to incorporate into my work because I admire the gestures, the line work, and the freedom of it all, not to mention being inspired by some of the best inkers in the industry that I work with under the same roof!

I drew two of my fave characters...which should be no suprise to anyone who frequents this blog and finished them using only a #2 Raphael brush (the brush of choice amongst my fellow WildStormers).

'Death' I took more time to be as clean and precise as I could and doing the background in a simple ink-wash. 'Joker' was more of an exercise in 'rawness' and line weights.

I'm still learning and honing my craft but I am very pleased with the outcome of the two pieces. Anyhoo, hope you like and untill next time!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

[Joel]

Hey all, hope everyone had a great Halloween...haven't posted in a bit and wanted to share my latest doodle. My buddy, Jonathan (Ferryman) Wayshak drew a piece in someone's sketchbook and I was so inspired by his cross-hatchety approach that I just had to try my hand at it too (apologies my friend!)

Anyway, this is what I came up with.

JOEL

Harley

[Nuñez]

A piece of the devious Harley Quinn. I didn't know what or how much to do with her. I wanted to keep her cutesy attitude but I added the stuffed bat toy with the nails in the cape to show a little evilness :)

Hope you likes.

LBCC '09

[Joel]

I did this Joker piece as a comission for the Long Beach Comic Con '09, which turned out to be a really fun show! I had the opportunity to meet some really cool people and hang out with some industry folks that I haven't seen in a while. There were quite a few big names at the show and everyone seemed to get a little time with their favorite comic book creators.

Eric Canete's new sketchbook [e]LEMENT : SHAPE and chatting very briefly with Eric himself was a big highlight for me; as well as catching up with two of my favorite artists, Dan Panosian and Dave Johnson- I look forward to a Drink-n-Draw in San Diego soon! For those who didn't get to attend LBCC '09, I highly recommend marking your calender for next year's convention, hope to see you there!

JOEL

Comic-Con isn't a joke, ya'lls...

[Oliver]

Hello everyone, hope all is well and hope those of you who are going to Comic-Con are ready for the non-stop craziness! All of us artist's here at Wildstorm are scrambling to get things ready for the show, we'll probably be scrambling to the last minute;)

Anyhoo, I posted this 'Joker' piece I did a lil while back and my bud Eddie Nunez did a fantastic job of coloring it and we'll be selling it as an exclusive 'Comic-Con 09' print, the first one that I've done that way. There will only be fifty printed and numbered, so stop on by and get yers, if not, stop on by and say hi!

Hope to see you guys!

Lee Bermejo Blog

(entry Rich)

I just wanted to give a little heads up that our good friend Lee Bermejo started up a blog...If you know Lee's work, you are already rushing over there to check out all the goodies..

so 'nuff said; check it out!

Link

LOL, LOL, LOL...

[Oliver]

Hey guys, how's it going? Here's another piece of my fave villain Joker that I just did for fun. It may be the cover to my Comic-Con '09 sketchbook.

I just wanted to do a close-up and make it high contrast with a little gesture thrown in. I found a really cool photo of actor Vincent Cassal (who I think would make a great Joker) and it was perfect reference for what I had in mind. I did a few tweeks here and there and this is what came out.

I use my fair share of photo reference, but it's what you do with it and how you interpret it that counts as far as artistic integrity goes. So don't be afraid to use photos for inspiration, it doesn't make you less of an artist:)

Hope you like...

Original Art Deck

[Eddy]

Dave Johnson got the ball rolling on this deck to help support a local charity and now, you can win the final piece for yourself! This deck features illustrations by Jim Lee, Dave Johnson, Tommy Lee Edwards, Frank Cho, Mike Mignola and Bruce Timm. All proceeds benefit the Burbank Arts Education Foundation, which "is the only organization dedicated to ensuring permanent and equal access to a quality arts education for Burbank’s 15,000 students."

As the auction description reads, "This rare collection of drawings on a single project by this elite group of artists is almost certain to never be repeated." With less than 3 days left, you can starting bidding now and bidding often: eBay

You can also show your support by donating directly to the charity itself.

Joker Time

[Joel]

I always wondered what the Joker would be like in contemplative moments...maybe swimming in ideas for his latest scheme. I feel the character is always more complex and multi-layered than how he can often be portrayed. I also feel there can be more than one 'look' for this super bad-ass character...I wanted to sketch a 'portrait' of the man you would believe to beat Batman.

JOEL

Ha-ha-happy Holidays!

[Nuñez]

Hello,

Hope everyone is excited about the holidays. I know I am :) Here's a piece for all you Joker lovers out there. I have always loved the Joker.....then again I pretty much love all the Batman villians.

I started this little bad boy sometime last week and just got around to finishing it. I did this piece just for fun, but I also did it to practice my inking techniques. I have been trying to apply myself to ink a lot more I just have a fear for it, so I have to keep reminding myself just to have fun with it. I think one of the reasons I freak out is because it forces me to be a lot tighter on my pencil work and I like to keep things loose.

Anyhoo hope you guys dig.

Peace out

Just add water!

[Eddy]

I didn't have my video camera on me that day, but here are some work-in-progress pics of Jim sketching Joker. Obviously, one of the more popular and fun characters for him to draw because of his extreme personality.

The only color markers on-hand were ones you had to apply water onto, so Jim quickly laid some water on the page and sketched out the general shape of Joker's head in green.

After he let it dry a little, he went back over it with a black marker and added some red and white highlights for those finishing touches.

Including drying time, this sketch took about 10 minutes.

Happy Birthday Joker!

[Eddy]

This one was done in Melbourne, Australia for one fan as a birthday gift for his brother. After I shot the video, Jim also went back to add some more pencil shading on the face too.

Not bad for a free sketch, huh?

New Nuñez

[Nuñez]

Hello everyone, hope everyone had a good Labor day weekend! I feel like it went by too darn quick :( Anyhoo. I wanted to post up a couple of things I was working on over the weekend.

I wanted to do a Batman/ Joker Piece so after seeing the badass job Carlos did for Game Informer mag I decided to swipe his idea and do my version of the two. On this piece I used Copic markers ( they rock) for the gray tones. I just love the control you get with the brush tip.

The next piece is of Kaneda. I have always been a fan of Otomo and as a kid I loved AKIRA. I never really drew Kaneda much it was always about Tetsuo, so I wanted to take a crack at him. I have to say as simple as Otomos caharacters are, there a pain in the @$$ to get them right.

And last is a pinup of the Batfamily. This one I drew a couple of months after starting here at the studio. This one was supposed to serve as a practice for my phobia of backgrounds. It took me a loooong time to complete, but finally I had to sit down and complete the damn thing.

Btw, if anyone's interested in these pieces, you can contact me here.

Lates

D'Anda Asylum

[Carlitos]

Waddup y'alls! long time no see!!!

My excuse?...besides being a procrastinating MASTER! (ask my girlfriend), I've also been VERY, VERY busy with work... this here, is a video game project I've been SUPER stoked for and quite fortunate to work on!

All I gotsta' say is that I am a lucky man! ...during the day, I get to work with the rest of the talented bastards at WildStorm on the DCU MMO, and for the past few months, I've been working on "Arkham Asylum" at night (designing all the main characters), alone with my headphones and some good tunes! (NIN, SOAD, and TOOL all help in this kinda game!)

The most enjoyable part of this game has been getting to see the amazing models and renders from the VERY talented crew over at Rocksteady! These guys RULE!!! (I mean, look at the stuff!!!) It doesn't matter how hard I work on my designs IF the person modeling isn't very good, but in THIS case, these dudes just KNOCKED it out of the park!!! ...they took my ideas and just RAN with it...can't say enough good things about those guys (AND girls), Y'all RULE!!!

My favorite so far? KILLER CROC!!!

Anyway... the images above are the two covers I recently did for GAME INFORMER magazine (without all the text and stuff) AND below are a few screenshots, PLUS here's an article with some more game images, see what y'all think!

Peace y'alls!

Carlitos

Ha, ha!

[jimlee]

Here's the piece I did for the annual SDCC art auction which helps pay for services for the handicapped at the con. I drew it over the course of 3 days and it went for $4500.

Fifth year in a row I pulled down the top bid allowing me bragging rights for another 365 days!

Smiles Everyone

[Oliver]

Hello again ya'lls. Here is a li'l piece that JJ Kirby and I jammed on. We started this at Wizard World L.A. and finished it last week.

I did Joker and he did Harley and we both did the backdrop. Been wanting to jam with him for awhile and we thought the two of them would be perfect for our styles and personalities.

More "jams" to come, hope u like:)

Happy April Fools' Day!

Rest In Peace