Con Piece: Brave

Last piece before Heroescon!

Brave comes out this weekend, which I'm very much looking forward to. Pixar consistently knocks their movies out of the park, and it seems like each movie raises the bar on the last. Water's hard to render? Let's do Finding Nemo. Hair is hard? How about Monsters, Inc.? Let's make our protagonist an 80-year old guy. Up. Every one does something new.

It's at the point where if Pixar said they were going to do a black-and-white movie about paint drying, I'd be there opening night. Their track record is so solid that I just assume every movie is going to work until they prove me wrong.

So, I've drawn Merida from Brave, as well as her brothers. It was a challenge, since I don't know the characters or the movie yet. But it was fun, especially drawing her hair. And I tried to make the archery accurate.

And you know where I'll be Friday night. No, HeroesCon. I won't see Brave until Tuesday when I get back. But that's because I put my fans and convention appearances over even my movie schedule. The things I do for you.

Gettysburg!

Author, friend, and San Diego and Seattle boothmate Ben Thompson is a the author of the awesome Badass history books. The third one will be coming out sometime soon, and he was kind (or, arguably, drunk) enough to ask me to illustrate one of the sections for him. I pulled The Battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg.

I got to tweak my style and do a very different subject than I normally do. I'm pretty happy with it, too. I'll be sure to let you know when the book is on the stands.

And be sure to read more of Ben's Awesome Writings at his site.

Con Piece: MJ and Gwen's Tug of War

When I was at FanExpo last year someone commissioned me to do a Mary Jane vs. Black Cat piece of them fighting over Spider-Man's uniform.

I liked it a lot and decided to revisit it for my portolio piece. I thought Gwen was a more natural foil, especially since she's prominent in the new movie.

I guess I have a running theme of Redheads vs. Blondes going. Tomorrow's post won't be that, I assure you.

Again, there's some nice body language here. They both look like they're really yanking on that uniform, and they've both got different poses. I scanned the pencils, too, so you can see what it started out as.

This, too, will be in my portfolio at HeroesCon and available for purchase at table AA230. It's the standard 9x12 brstol, colored with Copics.

And I'm not doing FanExpo this year, but its never far from my list. Hopefully next year they'll bring me out.

Con Piece: Queens Black and White, in Color

The newest piece in my con portfolio is this duel of wills between the Black Queen and White Queen from X-Men's Hellfire Club. Originally, it was going to be a Scott and Jean piece, and then it became Scott, Jean and Emma, and then I decided Cyclops was superfulous. I love Cyclops, and I'm still bothered that he ever dated the White Queen, but I thought he got in the way of the duel of wills here.

I think drawing one of these nearly every day, along with drawing a page of Love and Capes close to every day, is helping push my drawing again. I love the poses here, particularly the White Queen's body language and the Black Queen's hands. It's nice to see things start to click. That doesn't always happen, so I'm riding that wave.

I scanned the pencils so I could reduce them to transfer them to board. Pencils always have a little more life to them, so I wanted to share them, too.

The final piece is 9x12 on bristol with Copic color and will be for sale at my table, AA230, at this weekend's HeroesCon.

Avengers Auction Piece for Heroescon

I finished my auction piece for HeroesCon! Avengers were on my mind because, you know, there was a movie and stuff, so I thought they might make a good subject. I decided to marry that with my Child of the Eighties heritage and do the movie lineup as they looked back then. I was really tempted to give Thor a beard, because I do like that look, but it would have placed it outside the era I was going for.

The original is brush and pen on bristol, 11x17, and there will be a full color digital print along with it that will be donated to the auction. I also took the original pencils, moved some figures around and made a 9x12 version that I will have for sale at my table.

I'm still aiming at getting another couple of commissions done before Heroes. I'm thinking of doing The Marvel Family, because I'm such a fan of them. Maybe one more super couple.

And, if you want to get on my commission list, be sure to e-mail me and make sure you have a spot!

Commission: Stopping a War With Love

Here's todays available-for-purchase piece: Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor. I think this couple would be really interesting to write, and it's one of the things that's been lost in the repeated reboots of the Amazon Princess.

I also like the dynamic that Wonder Woman is taller than the Colonel. Obviously, since I try to make sure Amazonia is taller than Darkblade in Love and Capes.

Click for the biggity-big.

Clearing Out the Commission List (2 of 2)

Here's the second of commissionpalooza! In this set, we've got a friend of mine (and big Kings fan, yay Kings!) getting beaten up by his kids' three favorite characters (Pikachu, Rapunzel and Katniss), Han and Leia having a moment on the Millenium Falcon, Captain Kirk taking on the Gorn, and Kitty Pryde and Colossus.

The Kitty/Colossus piece is an original colored with Copics and is available for sale at HeroesCon. I'm trying to do some original art for the show, kind of a pret-á-porter of sketches. So it will be available for sale in Charlotte. The Han and Leia, done in my standard black and white original with digitally colored print, will also be for sale there.

Vote for Me in the We Love Fine Star Wars T-Shirt Contest!

I'm a contestant in the WeLoveFine Star Wars t-shirt contest. Basically, participants were asked to make Star Wars themed t-shirts. I started with one design, figuring "I'll just try with this one." I wound up doing four designs, shown below. Click the image to be taken to the WeLoveFine site where you can sign in for an account and then vote whichever designs you like.

Please like mine.

You may have to click back here to get the direct link to my designs, but with a little effort, you can vote for mine. And then you can vote for some of the other two-hundred thirty. There's a lot of good stuff there, and a lot of stiff competition. I'd say that all I can do is try, but there is no try… there is only do.

Unusual Suspects

Jabba's Palace

Bad Feeling About This

All Right

Clearing Out The Commission List (1 of 2)

This weekend I cleared out my commission list. That means that I worked a lot, and that I'm available for more commissions. My next show is the excellent HeroesCon in Charlotte, so if you're going to be there, give me a shout at tz (at) thomz.com and we'll set one up. And if you won't be there… hey, I do these through the mail, too.

This is the first what will be two postings of commissions. In this set, we've got Amazonia and Charlotte, a caricature of someone's dog as a ballerina, a Captain America putting on the Green Lantern Power Ring. The last one is a piece with the characters of the excellent webseries Shelf Life, done for the ashcan comic that they'll have available at Comic-Con in San Diego!

Conventions Mean Commissions

HeroesCon is in just two weeks (Holy Moley! Who let that happen?) I'm trying out some new things for the season, and definitely trying to do more original art. So I'm starting with doing more commission style couples sketches, even some in color now that I have my new Copic set. These will be available for sale at Heroes and Comic-Con and more. I'll also be taking original requests as usual, too.

If you've got something in mind already and want to get on the commission list early, you can send me an e-mail at tz (squiggly at sign) thomz.com, too.