For the past few years most of my artwork has been created and existed in the digital realm, however in continuing my comic eduction I decided to get down and dirty with some old-fashioned (a.k.a. traditional) art in this physical plane. I know, it’s a novel concept but just go with it. Anyway, as I’ve mentioned in a few posts, I’m working through the comic instruction book Drawing Words & Writing Pictures. Their lessons are great and I’ve done a few (see Jack and Jill) but I’ve never been one for doing everything the teacher says, so rather than following their Sunday comic strip lessons I decided to ink a bunch of Marvel superheroes from an 80s Marvel Universe handbook!
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| Source material circa 1987 |
This Marvel book was acquired in my tween years while visiting relatives in Wyoming and sat dormant in my parents attic for the last couple decades until it was once again pressed into service! But enough about that, let’s get to the inking. My setup is pretty simple, a drafting table (another recently re-acquired prize from my parent’s attic), pencils, erasers, a bottle of ink, some nibs/holders and a few brushes.
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| The setup… not a cg render, at least I think it’s not? |
My process was to use a profile picture from the Marvel Universe book as reference and sketch a couple quick studies. Once I had a feel for the character, I would sketch him/her out on bristol board using various pencils. I stared with a 4H which was a bit too hard and wound up using a 2H. On one I tried a 2B but it got way too smeary. I then inked right over my pencils with a Hunt 56 school nib or a Hunt 102 crow quill nib. On the first couple I didn’t use any brushes for spotting blacks (filling in large black areas), but once I got more experience I started using the brush because it is so much easier for filling in large areas. Here are my inking attempts in order of completion:
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| First off is Dr. Lemuel Dorcus, a 1960s villain. This one I tried digitally coloring too. |
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| Got a bit splattery on this Yellow Claw drawing. |
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| The Marvel Universe’s Zeus, waiting for you to pass him the beach ball?? |
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| Crazy villain Blizzard, even his stance looks insane which is awesome. |
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| A female version the Antman villain Yellowjacket. |
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| Last but not least, the angry mullet-wearing Wonder Man! |
That's it for now, I'll leave you with a random photo of a number of these on my desk just because? For some reason Wonder Man was left out, the poor bastard.
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