Stopping a Bullet Cold

I'll be showing off some of my commissions from Charlotte over the next couple of days. Here's one that was actually just me messing around in a moment of quiet at the booth. I don't have any huge issues with the swimsuit outfit, especially if it's drawn tastefully. I think it's more iconographic than realistic, but so are a lot of superhero uniforms.

I also like the expression and body language. She's really throwing that lasso and using it as a weapon, isn't she?

Girls' Night Out

So, I've been asked to draw a bunch of things over the years. Some of them have been, well, a little weird. But when I got this request, to draw Power Girl and Ms. Marvel hanging out, the requester originally mentioned the two heroines at a bar with "Power Girl with a glass of red wine and Ms. Marvel with a beer," I had to remind the buyer that Ms. Marvel was a recovering alcoholic and wouldn't be drinking beer. The requester had forgotten that aspect of her character, and when I mentioned it quickly agreed "Oh yeah, that wouldn't be appropriate at all."

I've drawn a ton of weirdness, but drawing Ms. Marvel with a beer is apparently a line I wouldn't cross. Carol is clearly drinking a Pepsi.

This one was a lot of fun. The little things, like making them sit on bar stools and have it look right, is always a challenge. And I like the body language between the two of them too. Click and see if you like it, too.

Another HeroesCon Commission

Here's another commission someone pre-ordered for HeroesCon. Did I mention that I'll be at HeroesCon? And that I'll have exclusive prints for the show, among other Love and Capes goodness? I really should mention that more.

Anyway, this piece was Crusader and Abby as Titania. I've done more than a few Titania-based commissions, and given that Abby only had powers for eighteen or so pages back in 2009, I think the story must have really struck a chord with people. I'm glad it did, because it's one of my favorite Love and Capes stories.

Go For the Gold-- Booster Gold

I've been putting out the call for commission requests as we run up to Charlotte, and it seems to be working. One of the most recent was to draw Booster Gold and Skeets. Booster was one of my favorite books back in the day, and I think Dan Jurgens did a good job creating a character with staying power.

I had to research to get the most recent version of the costume as well as the current Skeets design. I think I like the old one better, but hey, at least he hasn't been turned into a bluetooth headset.

It's Shark Week in the Dallas Metroplex

The best way to get work is to leave town. And the afternoon before I left for Spider-Man Weekend, I got an e-mail from the Fort Worth Weekly, one of my favorite clients. They needed a cover talking about shark-like lawyers in the public school system.

Later that night I was telling my Dad about it. "What are you going to do?" he asked. "Well," I said, "I sent them the rough half an hour ago…"

After I got back into town, I had to take it from rough to finished. It's actually a pretty standard turnaround time for newspaper-based work. Besides, I worked at a newspaper for four years in my early days, I'm used to the pace. So I hunkered down and got to work.

The story runs today and you can see the final cover at their site. I'm posting the roughs and inks, and the final without type, too.

A Heroes Con Exclusive

So here's the thing I teased on Twtter last night. I'm going to test out doing extremely limited-edition, locally-focused prints at conventions.

My next show is HeroesCon in Charlotte. So take a gander at this piece of Love and Capes art featuring Charlotte and, well, Charlotte.

If this goes well, I'll do a series of these this year. So there'll be Miami, San Diego, Toronto, Columbus, Detroit and more. Each one will honor the host city of the convention. This one, for instance, is playing off the statue of Queen Charlotte at the Charlotte airport.

The prints will be 12x18 and, like I mentioned, these will be extremely limited. I'm going to make only 26 prints, each signed and numbered. I'll sell numbers 1-25 at my table for $20.00 each. The 26th will be marked as "number zero" and will donated, along with the original art, to the art auction. So not only will I have local prints, but new auction items for the shows I'm attending.

Big thanks to Jesse Jackson, who put the germ of the idea in my head, and Jeni, @zatannamomma on Twitter, who told me about the statue.

I Should Really Do This as Product Placement

I was asked to draw the Love and Capes trinity, Crusader, Darkblade and Amazonia. I thought of a bunch of typical superhero poses, but given that Love and Capes isn't really a typical superhero book, I rejected those and decided to do something a little closer to the tone of the book. So, here, our three heroes are drinking coffee.

There's something about this pose that reminds me of those Clark Bar contest ads from the 80s where you could be drawn in an issue of a comic book.

Commission - Mark and Abby

I've drawn Mark and Abby together a lot over the last five years, both through the book itself and commission requests. It's always a challenge to find something different. It's also a challenge to find a way to make them work together. The cartoony nature of the characters and the body types and proportions don't always mesh well together. You have to work to make sure they belong in the same universe. I think I've mentioned it before, but any scene where Mark and Abby are drinking is work to make both their hands hold the same size glass.

When asked to draw this, I took advantage of having studio time and pads of tracing paper and worked with the pose. I was able to do one of those hugging-from-behind poses. I further cheated just a little by making the two of them flying so their feet didn't have to be on the same plane.

I really like this image, and I think you'll be seeing it again somewhere…

Lois and Clark and Mark and Abby

There's a commissioner (is that the right term?) of mine who loves Lois and Clark the way I do. I've done a Superman and Lois/Crusader and Abby piece for him before. Here, he wanted Lois in her Ultra Woman identity from the ABC TV series, and Abby as Titania from Love and Capes #10. It's always fun to draw Superman, especially to make sure he looks different than Crusader given their commonality.

Of course, you'll can't see Mark and Abby in the preview. You'll have to click and embiggen.

You Can Do Magic - Zatanna Commission

Commissions are starting to pick up. Or maybe I just let them pile up while I was churning on the last issue of the current Love and Capes miniseries. Either way, there's a lot of drawing going on.

First up is a Zatanna piece for a customer in Charlotte who wanted to see Zee magically choosing between her classic and Eighties outfit. The second Eighties outfit, of course. He'll be picking it up at HeroesCon. So I think this is a fine time to mention that if you know I'm coming to a show (my full schedule is here) and want to get on the sketchlist early, I'll be glad to do that. Since I color digitally, it means that you'll be able to get the digital print at the same time, too. Just shoot me an e-mail at tz (at) thomz.com and we'll get you set up.