Kickstarter Bonus: The Muppets

Today is the last day of my Kickstarter project. It's completely funded, but I'd like to overfund and add some other benefits. As bonuses, I'm offering some art that's never been seen and won't be in the final art book. In 2008, I was pitching Boom Studios on working on the Muppets. Plots were submitted, some even approved, but for a bunch of reasons, nothing ever went forward. That's the nature of the game, especially when working on a licensed property, so there are no hard feelings.

But, I still like to share them as I think they came out pretty well and show a different style and capability. And, since we've hit our 101st backer, this is the first reward.

(Depending on amount hit, I'll be showing off sample pages for The Incredibles, Up, and maybe even some stories.)

These pages weren't from an actual story, but a quick sample script I wrote to show how I could handle characters, environments and more. Click on any thumbnail to embiggenate!

The Girl Who Waited

It's an irritating truth that it's easier to place your friends and family behind other concerns. I've been working on client stuff and traveling and all that, so when my friend Jesse asked me to start off his new Doctor Who-themed sketchbook, it took way too long for me to get to it. But, three-and-a-half months later, I did.

There's part of the chain of events that works out, though. I felt I'd taken so long that I really had to up my game on the sketch.

The subject, which should come to no surprise to anyone who knows me, was Amy Pond.

I got to break in my new Copic markers on this one. I haven't done much with them in previous sketches, and I find I really like them. It gives them a lot of pop. I'd always had the idea of making Amy's hair the only color on the piece, but since the Doctor did such a great job describing how vivid a blue the TARDIS is, I scanned a rough and did a rare color test, to see if I should make the time traveling box blue. The tests are below. I leave it to you to decide if I made the right choice.

Click on anything for embiggimzation!

Come to the Cabaret

In my work for the fine folks at Learn It Systems, I was called upon to design a logo for an event called "Cabaret: Tip Your Hat to Learning". I had two guidelines:

1. Colors were black and red
2. They wanted to see at least one version with a mortarboard morphing into a derby.

I went through five rounds of revisions before coming up with a final version. The final was set so that it could be used in color, black and white, and grayscale versions. You can see the process here:

1. First round of designs
2. Second round of designs
3. Third round of designs
4. Fourth round of designs
5. Final round of designs

Do the Batdance

The second Powerful Women-type commission I received was this Batgirl/Harley Quinn piece. With this, Harley is starting to rival Poison Ivy as my most-requested comic book female.

This one came out really well. It's always a challenge to put two characters together, especially in a smaller image area (this one was done, as per request, on a special comic book backing board). The dark background works really well, too.

That's two down and 23 to go before I have enough for Powerful Women #3.

He'll save every one of us

There’s a universal constant: No matter what version of Flash Gordon there is, Princess Aura is always smokin’ hot.

This one is based upon those way-cool Filmation designs from their animated series. It was my first exposure to Flash Gordon, and one that stuck.
Heck, I even have a soft spot for that 1980 Sam Jones/Melody Anderson movie. With Ornella Muti bringing the sexy as Princess Aura.

Yeah, Dale was the one for Flash, but you could see why he was tempted, can’t you?

With this, I've got twenty-five new images for my second Powerful Women sketchbook. I think it's a great one to end on, too. As soon as they come back from the printer, I'll make it availble for order her on the blog and on the site. And, I'll have it in San Diego, of course.

One Good Drop of Poison

While I was sitting at CAPE, I did a warm-up drawing of Poison Ivy to help drum up some commission work. Poison Ivy might be the most frequently requested commission I do. She's tremendously popular, both with men and women.

I did a fairly simple pose on this one, but I colored her much more cooly than I did my first one (which has since sold). It wasn't until I started coloring it that I realized I basically drew Charlotte from Love and Capes. That's okay. If Charlotte dressed up for Halloween, I bet she's pick Poison Ivy.

Men of Iron

I do a couple covers a month for HGR Industrial Surplus. Each cover features photos of their employees in various cartoon situations. This month, their buyers get to pop into an Iron Man cover, to tie in with the new movie. (What? An Iron Man movie? Why haven't I seen this anywhere?)

This one was a lot of fun to do, especially getting to add a couple of the villains. I took some liberties with Iron Monger and War Machine, both of whom wear mostly black armor and wouldn't be as bright or colorful as is proper for this cover. It was cool getting to put in a MODOK and Cleveland's own Blacklash in the art.

I'm hoping to do a Batman one when Dark Knight comes out later this summer.

CleveLand!

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise, but the Mystery Game Board piece was done for Scene Magazine, in the issue that comes out today.

They're running a feature on Cleveland's screwed up politics, and wanted a CandyLand type game board with several Cleveland incidents on it. So, everything from the sink hole to the Ameritrust Building, to the County Commissioners, to National City Bank's troubles are illustrated.

Scene Magazine supplied me with a PDF of the finished version, which you can see by clickin' and embiggenin'.

I'm thrilled with the way this one came out. I think it's a great piece.

Youthful Indiscretions

A long time ago, or at least it feels that way, I did the illustrations and designed a book called Women Do and Say the Dumbest Things. I did this for Jimmy and Chip on WMJI, Cleveland's number one (and certainly my favorite) Lanigan and Malone Morning Show. The good-natured book did okay, but despite our best efforts all around, it wasn't the runaway hit we'd all hoped for.

Artistically, though, it was a watershed for me. It's here that I first used what would evolve into my Love and Capes style. I broke out of some of the traditional superhero stuff and did some cartooning that opened up a much larger world.

Now, thanks to Wowio, you can read this book for free. There are about 100 stories, all submitted by listeners to WMJI, as well as one submitted by me. It's a short, fun little book.

Jimmy, Chip and I always promised to do a sequel, Men Do and Say the Dumbest Things. "Buy this one and we'll do another," we said. We didn't get enough to do that, but here's a second chance for all of us. Download the book and if it does well enough, maybe you'll see another. And you can submit your stories at the book's website.

Lantern's Light

While I was in Orlando for MegaCon, I met a Green Lantern fan who wanted a sketch done. We wound up doing it through the mail for reasons which don't need exploring at this juncture. He asked which member of the GL Corps I wanted to draw and I gave him three choices: Arisa (I am looking for new pieces for the second sketchbook), Tomar-Re (the example I use for what cool action figures you can get now as opposed to when I was a kid) and a Guardian (the Guardians may have been modeled after Irwin Hasen, who taught me at Kubert). He chose the Guardian Ganthet, so I put this one together.

The customer wanted everything done on green paper, which is all kinds of appropriate for Green Lantern stuff, hence the emerald hue to the illo.