More X-Men Fan Art

Drawing/designing some more of my favorite childhood heroes! The new characters are Archangel (blue), Colossus (orange) and Storm (purple). Thank you for stopping by and checking out my art. These were super fun to sketch up and a lot of fun to make.

X-Men Pop Art Sketch Cards

More sketch card fan art! These started out as an experiment in style and basically to have fun/do some art for my self. Simplifying and playing with shapes on some of my favorite mutant super heroes was the goal with these drawings. I'm trying not to fall in love with a drawing right away, and so I brought the first couple of cards to my wife for her advice and critique. She's a graphic artist and has a really great eye for design so I always welcome her thoughts. After making some changes and redoing several characters, I was very thankful I had let go of my pride and asked for another artist's insight. These where really fun to make and didn't demand a lot of time. A nice way to get a quick sketch in and have the feeling that you completed a piece of art. :)

The bottom four images are an experiment to see what the cards would look like mirrored in Photoshop and to play with symmetry.

Top Row, Left to Right: Cyclops, Beast, Magneto, Wolverine, Sabrertooth, Psylocke
X-Men Sketch Cards: 3.5"x2.5" Pen, Colored Pencil and Neon Sharpie Markers on Illustration Board

Green Goblin Sketch

Heidi and I just saw the new Amazing Spider-Man movie and loved it! I was inspired to do some drawing after the movie, so here's my take on the Green Goblin.

A couple weeks ago at our wedding, my cousin showed me his sketchbook and asked for a critique. He's about ten years old and really getting good! For advice, I thought about it last week and this came to mind.

1. Have fun with it (drawing)!

• This sounds simple, but it's easy to forget.

2. Seek wisdom.

• Read scripture/books, hang out with good people, serve others, follow God.

Any advice you would give to an aspiring artist or to yourself when you where ten years old? 

Thank you for stopping by. :) 

Gambit Sketch Card

Playing the X-Men video games on Sega and SNES growing up, Gambit was one my favorite characters to choose. He had the long range attack with his playing cards and a long reach with his bow for a short range attack. So many great memories. :)

I love drawing these sketch cards. It's super fun to make art for the peer joy of it. I recognize that I need this time (off the clock) to play and make art for myself. Sometimes it's hard to justify if this is worth my time or not. "Should I be exercising? Should I spend more time in prayer and reading scripture? Should I be with and make time for friends and relatives more. Should I be doing something else...? Is this just a hobby?" These are some of the questions I wrestle with. Is any of this familiar to you?

Cyclonus Sketch

From the sketchbook, this is drawing of Cyclonus the evil Decepticon Transformer. When I was a kid, most of my drawings were of Transformers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's still just as much fun today as it was then! This was done with Prisma Pencils and Markers on tone paper. I think I'll do some more of these Transformer drawings... just brings back so many good memories of growing up. :)

Life Size Batman

I'm really happy to share this with everyone. This was a personal project done for a couple friends at church who have two boys that love the Batman. I thought it'd be cool to create the Dark Knight and give to them as a gift (something to hang up at home). To be honest, this project was more for me... I had a BLAST creating this start to finish. In my spare time, I like to draw comic and cartoon characters for fun... the difference with this project was that it was going to be for someone, and that made it all the more fun and close to my heart. Also, my girlfriend Heidi was away on a mission trip for three weeks, so this was a nice way to keep busy :)

The first step was drawing little thumbnails. Then, when I found a pose I liked, Heidi took some reference photos of me modeling in the front of the mirror. It was pretty funny and I realized how cool she is and lucky I'm with her :) Even though the photo shoot might have been unnecessary, I really wanted to "kill it" on this project, so I did my homework and gathered as much reference before starting the project (anatomy books, photos, etc.)

Next, I drew out Batman with pencil and inks on bristol board and scanned him into the computer for digital coloring. Since the final piece was going to be around five feet tall, I scanned the artwork in at 1200 DPI! The final digital file was under 300 megabytes, but my PC is sort of dated so every time I opened it or saved it in Photoshop, it took about 3-4 minutes to finish. After the coloring was finished, and I showed the art to a few friends for critique, I made several more adjustments and brought him to the printer. At work we have a plotter printer that I used. I think it's inkjet instead of laserjet so the colors where a little "less true" to what was seen on the computer.

The file took 30 minutes to be read by the printer and printed! The funny thing was that it didn't print the whole image and cut off a little bit of his foot! I tried it a second time with different adjustments in white space around Batman and the same thing happened. It wasn't a big deal though; I just printed off the part of his foot that was missing on the laserjet printer and pasted it on top of the big version.

The color difference of the laserjet and the inkjet is a little obvious but not a big deal. Prior to the printing, I found a big piece of cardboard at the recycling center and used it as a backing to the print out. The print out was spray mounted on top of the cardboard and then using scissor and box cutter, I cut out a silhouette of Batman from the cardboard leaving a white boarder around the figure.

And here's the final digital artwork.

My favorite part of this project was coloring Batman on the computer. The coolest part though is that I got to do something I love and then share it with others. With the second print out that cut off at the foot, I gave to my coworker who also has kids who love Batman and it was hung up above one of their beds. He sent me a picture and his kid's bed has Batman bed sheets so it looks rad hanging above it!

Our pastor at church said something really cool that stuck with me. He encouraged us to use our passions and find a way to fill a "need" in the world. I can remember experiencing this amazing feeling of joy when I was drawing caricatures at theme parks. There's something about doing a piece of art for someone who really loves and appreciates it that is so rewarding. When you can give someone something that you loved creating... it's pretty awesome.

:)