Day 14: Starfire #tzadvent

Day 14: Starfire

It's time for another color piece, this time, Princess Koriand'r, Starfire!

I learned even more about ruler/guides on this one, building specific ones for her armbands. I'm getting much better at it, and that's going to make me more productive as I go forward.

Tomorrow, back to black and white. Remember, if you have any suggestions, tweet them at #tzadvent or send me and email or message me on Facebook!

Day 13: Storm #tzadvent

so no time for notes on this. It's done, and I'll do another one tomorrow. See you then.

And congratulations to Robert and Sunny!

Day 12: Loki #tzadvent

Day 12: Loki

Recently, I read the Walter Simonson omnibus and, man, is that pages upon pages of cool. There's so much story there. It's great classic comics storytelling and it still holds up. I'd love to see someone bring a lot of his Thor approach to Aquaman, actually. The book is a great balance of fantasy kingdom stuff and superheroics.

He also tended to draw characters draping themselves in their throne. That was in mind when I drew this.

Art-wise, I finally figured out how to make custom rules for objects. I wish Manga Studios had bezier curves and a little better control, but I'm sure that fine-tuning will become natural to me as I practice, and that's what this whole December project is about, right? I used the custom curve rules for Loki's horns and some of the chair.

The costume is a combination of the Simonson costume redesign and the cool horned helmet. I couldn't not draw that helmet.

Day 11: Darkseid #tzadvent

Day 11: Darkseid

This doesn't always happen, but I really like this one. I wanted to see if I could get the full range of brush effects I could with an actual brush. Darkseid has rocky textures and craggy skin and a metal helmet, lots of stuff to play with.

Plus, I admit I'm a latecomer to Kirby. Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger and George Perez were the first artists I really liked. They're all slick in one way or another. Kirby isn't slick, he's raw and powerful. As I've gotten older, I like his stuff more and more. And the more I learn about what Kirby did, Kirby the creator and innovator can't be touched.

So, I tried to get some Kirby in this. Some of it is the Kirby-esque textures on Darkseid's skin. And some of it was combining Kirby's range of Darkseid. In the original stories, he was a little more a stony monolith with glowing eyes. Later, he was a little more animated and wild eyed. I love the glowing eyes thing, but I wanted some of that anger and energy in the character,

And, of course, Kirby dots.

Day 10: Firestorm

Day 10: Firestorm Well, this one was inevitable, wasn't it? Firestorm the Nuclear Man, one of my favorite characters.

Firestorm was DC's version of Spider-Man, if Spider-Man could have a bad day. He's never been as fun as the Fury of Firestorm run in the Eighties. What, you want to know why? Let me tell you: The core of the book was the mentor/mentee relationship between Professor Martin Stein and Ronnie Raymond. And just as important, Ronnie, the least qualified guy in the pair, is the guy driving the boat. It's that dynamic that makes the character so interesting to me.

He's gone through different iterations, and had a strong finish in his recent New-52 version, but honestly, the classic version will always be the one for me.

Day 09: Doctor Strange #tzadvent

Day 09: Doctor Strange Okay, look, I know this is going up today, but it was totally done yesterday. I just forgot to post it after the Alter Ego post. As further proof, Day 10's drawing will go up a little later today, too.

Doctor Strange is just cool. He's so powerful that it's hard for writers to keep him in line. Magic stories are tough, because you can arguably do anything. Creating a believable set of rules, or at least guidelines, is important to give the story an internal consistency.

Not only is the good Doctor a great character, with one of the better origins and personalities, but he's got an awesome costume. Drawing the embroidery in his cape is just fun. It's a great combination of colors and style.

I'm sure he'll be getting the movie treatment soon. Let's hope it's a good one!

The Alter Ego Comics Holiday Special

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of being a guest of Marc Bowker's Alter Ego Comics as part of Lima's downtown Christmas celebration. Marc was a great host, as always. He introduced me to the tasty food and great people at the Met. If you're ever in Lima, I can't recommend it enough. I was doing sketches for a $5 donation to the Our Daily Bread soup kitchen. They do a lot of good, and in my four hours at the store, we managed to raise over $250. I'm proud to have been able to help.

The best part, though, is the people. Working on My Little Pony has brought me a new group of fans. It's wonderful to see so many kids excited about comics. It's the best part of doing these appearances.

I was also interviewed by the local TV station and taught a class on drawing MLP. There should be pics of the class and (shudder) even the video should be posted at some point. When it does, I'll let you know.

In the meantime, here are pictures of some of the happy customers as well as Marc's Holiday Display, celebrating the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Day 08: Plastic Man #tzadvent

Day 08: Plastic Man

Today's drawing is a mixed bag for me. I think it looks pretty good, but I wasn't able to do the thing that I wanted to with it:

I wanted to make custom curve rulers to ink the arms here. But I couldn't figure out how to do it, it was getting late, and I just decided to handle it traditionally. I did tweak some of the brush settings to make the arcs a little slicker. I'm not sure how well that worked.

I dig Plastic Man a ton, but stretchy characters like this are hard for me. Sure, it seems like you could do anything with them, but it's that freedom that makes them a challenge. If they can do anything, what do you have them do? And trying to get the right mass to stretch ratio isn't as easy as you'd think, either.

I'm sure I'll use the technique I didn't on this on something else, or someone will suggest Mr. Fantastic or Elongated Man or Metamorpho. It's just delayed for now.

Day 07: Shade the Changing Man #tzadvent

Day seven: Shade the Changing Man.

Did I say I might be late? I don't miss deadlines.

(I say that and who knows what will happen tomorrow.)

I had an awesome time at Alter Ego today, and I'll write about that more later. For now, let's do some drawin'!

I've arbitrarily decided that every seventh one of these will be in color. This was a perfect one to start with. The distorion field surrounding Shade was inked in Manga Studio as per usual, but on a separate layer. This made it easy to convert the whole thing quickly to the green color.

Not a lot of program or Nostromo experimenting here. Mostly I wanted to see how I would handle a transparent layer like the field around Shade.

I read a few issues of the original Shade: The Changing Man series when I was a kid. I kind of liked it, even if I totally didn't understand it. And I didn't. I really liked the Vertigo series that came years later, too, but I'd love to see the classic version revisited.

Day 06: The Creeper #tzadvent

Day six: The Creeper Not a lot to say about this one, actually. I'm doing some work on my house, and I'm appearing at Alter Ego in Lima tomorrow, so time was at a premium. I wanted to do a different character, actually, but the limited time meant I didn't have the time to do the experimenting I needed. So instead I went for loose, and tried to give the drawing a sense of energy.

Speaking of the store appearance, day 07 may be delayed. I mentioned that I may skip a day or two and catch up on the other side. Depending on what time I get back and how tired I am, I might let it slide to the next day.