So What? So There!: Marvel

Showing posts with label Marvel. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Iron Man 2 Sketch Cards

Time for another round of sketch cards for the fine folks at Upper Deck. These are for the Iron Man 2 set, I got to do all my favorite variations of Iron Man's armor, and of course, M.O.DO.K.! The Beetle and Stingray were always great costume designs, so I threw them in there too!

More Iron Man armor variants, The Iron patriot, a couple versions of Titanium Man, Blizzard, the super cool Iron Man Space Ninja Stealth Armor!

Some more villains, Force, Boomerang and Doctor Spectrum! That's right, Doctor Spectrum! With the crystal and the Rainbow Brite rainbow waves! The Mandarin is my favorite Iron Man villain so I did the Acts of Vengeance armored version, the I'm Too Sexy For my Shirt version, The GQ Jim Lee version, a couple of the emperor looks and classic original flavor!

Hawkeye, Doctor Doom, The Ghost, Grey, Red and Green Hulks and a whole lotta Hank Pym! Ant Man, Yellow Jacket (loved that goofy costume!) and Giant Man.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Ed Hannigan Tribute

Ed Hannigan's covers all but jumped off the spinner rack and into my ten year old hands. The innovation, design and heightened sense of drama promised an earth-shattering story inside every month. Especially memorable to me is Mr. Hannigan's run on Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man. His Cloak and Dagger covers were pure genius. Looking at them now, makes me feel like a kid all over again. Thanks, Ed!

The fine folks at The Hero Initiative are putting out this tribute to Ed Hannigan's amazing art and I was lucky enough to be a part of it. You can see previews on CBR or Newsarama. The solicitation info is below:

ED HANNIGAN: COVERED
Artist: Ed Hannigan
Contributors: Mark Millar, Mike Oeming, Jim Valentino, Herb Trimpe, and more
Cover: Ed Hannigan
Publisher: Marvel/Hero Initiative
Cover Price: $5.99
Release date: Wed, January 13, 2010

Master artist Ed Hannigan did many of Marvel's cover layouts of the late '70s and early '80s. Over that time, Ed created some of the most innovative cover designs ever. His covers for The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man still stand today as some of the finest of all time!

 Today, Ed is 58 years old and has multiple sclerosis. Through special arrangement with the Hero Initiative, Marvel is offering Ed Hannigan: Covered, a massive 48-page collection of Ed's covers, designs he created for other artists, and even rare glimpses at licensing and merchandising art Ed did. Best of all, proceeds benefit Ed Hannigan directly! 

This volume also features a new cover by Ed, and new tribute pieces from Michael Avon Oeming, Jim Valentino, and more! 

NOTE: There will be ONLY ONE PRINTING OF THIS BOOK EVER! Get it now so you don't blow your chance! 

48 pages full-color $5.99 UPC: 5960607056-00111

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Variations on a Theme: The Hulk

More sketch cards for Upper Deck's Marvel Masterpieces series 3 done in hurry... I did simple variations on each character I drew to save time! Here's the original classic gray Hulk as designed by Jack Kirby.

And the green Hulk we all know and love!

And the lesser known Mr. Fixit Hulk from his time as a mob enforcer in Las Vegas! Seriously, I'm not joking! From Peter David's run, look it up!

The new red Hulk from the recent Hulk #1 by Jeph Loeb and Ed McGuiness. Who is he? What does he want? Why is he red? What about the rest of the Hulk Rainbow Army? Oops, I've said too much... spoiler alert!

And we can't forget World War Hulk, the baddest Hulk of them all! He's like Hulk crossed with Conan if he was raised by Spartans and trained to fight by Russell Crowe. The Russell Crowe from Gladiator, not the Russell Crowe from A Beautiful Mind. Forget "Hulk Smash!" Now it's "Hulk crush enemies, see them driven before Hulk, and hear the lamentations of Hulk's women. Also, Hulk might like to be governor one day..."

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Variations on a Theme: Wolverine

I had to do a lot of original sketch cards for Upper Deck's Marvel Masterpieces 3 in a short amount of time, so I decided to do variations on each character I drew. Hey, it's easier than coming up with new poses every time! And think of all the cool costumes that Wolverine alone has had! Here's a few of my personal favorites. First, the John Cassaday costume from Astonishing X-Men.

Then there's the costume he took off of Fang, one of the Shi'ar Imperial Guard, during the Dave Cockrum or John Byrne run on X-Men when I was a little kid. I love that Claremont just added apostrophes to names to make them sound alien. Aa'ron S'owd. Sounds exotic!

Then the Jim Lee take on the classic Kirby X-Men basic training suits. This was circa Uncanny X-Men #275, I think. Jim added a lot of belts/straps everywhere that served no purpose I could see, save looking really cool in an S&M kind of way!

Ah, the classic brown costume designed by Dave Cockrum, I believe. Is there a better costume designer than Dave Cockrum? Maybe Jack Kirby, but Dave has to be in the top tier!

Lastly, the Weapon X costume from the Barry Windsor Smith mini series. Can you really call this a costume? He's pretty much naked with a cool helmet and a few boxes hanging off him. I love the way BWS used color in that story and all the wires and pins sticking out of him are great (hard to draw on a tiny little card, though)!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Heralds of Galactus Cards

Last year I did a few of the Heralds of Galactus cards for Upper Deck's VS card game. Fun stuff! I hardly ever get to see the finished cards, but I found a few of them online. They turned out great, mostly due to the masterful colors of Dean White. Damn, that boy's good! He even makes me look like I know what I'm doing!

Saturday, January 05, 2008

Happy Hulking New Year!

Happy New Year! Hope you're having a great 2008!

Sketch cards are all the rage with the kids these days! They're more popular than POGs! Hmmm... wait, POGs were never popular. But you get the point, sketch cards are big. Fun to do, too! Unlike a full sized commission which can get put on the back burner and then back up for months and become daunting simply because of the time involved, you can crank out a little sketch card in an hour or so. I try to put a little more work into them then a con sketch. These were for collector Mike D who has a cool gallery you can see here.

Sometimes they turn out pretty cool. The main thing I have to do is loosen up on my inking! Having been an inker for so long, I immediately gointo inking mode with a pen and try to make lots of pretty lines! I need to knock that off! Sketchy and loose is the way to go! That's my #1 New Year's resolution for 2008: forget everything I know about inking so I can draw better! Resolution #2 is to actually draw better! What's your New Year's resolution for 2008?