Stan “THE MAN” Lee. I’ve always credited other artists as sources of inspiration but truth be told a lot of them wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for this guy. I’ve been wanting to draw him for quite some time and finally found the spare time and scrap of paper with which to create it on. It’s done with a brown ballpoint pen, spray paint, guache and some china marker on 11″x16″ toned paper.
Here’s to THE MAN. ‘Nuff said.
Here’s a piece I did earlier this year for a great cause (even greater than my wallet:) This is a blank comic cover given to select comic illustrators to do an original mock comic cover to help those creators from comics past (how about that for overusing a word in the same sentence?). I made this piece a bit more interesting by showcasing the initial sketch next to the final illustration.
This link will explain it better… SEE MORE!!!
Learn more about the Hero Initiative!
I’ve gotten a little soft on posting on my blog as of late and figured that this was as good a time as any for an art-filled update.
A little while back I was asked to do some comic book style adaptations of this screenplay, Fleetwood and Deville which is written by James Victor Bulian. I sat down and ready through the 100+ page screenplay and loved it! Visuals were jumping off of the page as I read through it. We decided to do some pages from the opening sequence as well as some other character designs. The story has a Boogie Nights meets Starsky and Hutch kinda feel to it. I penciled and inked it and called on my buddy Jay Fotos who colored my work on ’68: Jungle Jim to lend his coloring skills to these pages which he graciously did.
This project is still very much in the works so hopefully I’ll have some good updates down the line. To keep up on this project please check out the Fleetwood and Deville Facebook as well as my Facebook Fan Page.
FIRST OFF… we have a pin-up of the two main characters (Fleetwood is in the foreground).
Here we have a cover treatment. The caddy is as important as the characters in a way. I’m not the best at drawing cars but I had to get them just right for this story.
Here are the comic pages from the opening sequence. I figured I’d show my inks followed by the end result.
Next we have a couple pin-ups of some of the supporting characters. Here is the old, blind black man playing his guitar on his porch. I thought I’d show the thumbnail next to the final so that you could see some of the process.
Following up porch dude is Jesus working on his Chevy. Yes, Jesus is a supporting character in this and a damn good one.
Het there,
I thought I’d share some process shots of how I went about creating a double-pager for my recent comic, ’68: Jungle Jim, which just came out through Image Comics. It’s written by Mark Kidwell, illustrated by me and colored-up by Jay Fotos. In any event, here is a flashback in the comic which I decided to ink in a choppy, watercolor-esque kind of way to best illustrate the change in story telling. All of the artwork from this comic is also available for sale right here…
http://n8vandyke.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/68-jungle-jim-art-sale/
Here you have my thumbnails, the finished inks and ending with the final print version colored by Jay…
My latest comic book endeavour has arrived. It is an Image Comics one-shot titled ’68: Jungle Jim. It’s written by Mark Kidwell and colored-up by Jay Fotos with pencils and inks by me. It’s stacked full of Vietnam, zombies, a shit-ton of blood and gore and it hits comic shops today, Dec. 14th. To mark the day I have put all of the original artwork up for sale! Feel free to follow the link to the PDF and buy ‘em up!
http://www.n8vandyke.com/temp/68_JJ_SALE.pdf
Just a little reminder that my new comic, ’68: Jungle Jim will be coming out in comic shops tomorrow, Dec. 14th! There are two different covers so go get a couple of copies. ALSO, I will be selling all of the artwork from it starting tomorrow. I’ll be sure to post it here when it’s ready to go.
I finally got it all together and running… I think:) It’s a little later than I had hoped to post it but I had to make sure it was all polished and ready. Feel free to pass it around. Just follow this link…
http://www.n8vandyke.com/temp/N8_Sale.pdf
Thanks, everyone! Hope you find something you like.
For the rest of November I’m giving you all $10 off my book!
Use promo code: BIGTEN at checkout. WOOT WOOT! (Book preview shows only 20 of 58 pages)
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I just finished up drawing the comic and have a somewhat open calendar. I’ve had people asking me to do tattoo designs, t-shirts, ink illustrations and so on in the past but I have been busy. Well, hit me up. Now is the time and it may not last long… Email me: N8vandyke@hotmail.com
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I mentioned a while back that I was lining up penciling/inking/cover duties for a Image comics one-shot. Well… the first glimpse of it is starting to emerge. It is written by Mark Kidwell with colors by Jay Fotos (with Nat Jones on the alt. cover campaign). I’ll be getting to work on the interiors shortly. We had to get the cover done first for promotional reasons. I don’t want to give away too much about the script but I’ll tell ya it’s gunna be a shit ton of fun to draw. Zombies and Vietnam… ’nuff said.
Now to show the goods. Here we have the final mock-up for cover “A”…
EVERYONE seems to love a look at the creative process… so why not keep that tradition alive? So… before I could really start in on the cover I had to design the star character, Jungle Jim. Here we have some early studies…
After toying around a little bit we decided to trade up his cloth mask for a gas mask. The cloth mask just kept looking like a face diaper of sorts.
I figured I was now comfortable enough to start in on the actual cover after feeling confident in his design. Here we have the REALLY rough pencil scribbles as I try and find a design I like. These aren’t intended to be shown but it is a part of the process so I gotta suck it up. I settled on him hiding by a tree with the zombies approaching him knee deep in the mucky waters of NAM.
Next came the full-sized ink cover rough.
Once I got the above sketch approved I started in on the final cover. I traced it onto a new piece of paper using nibs and sepia toned ink. I intended for this stage to be rough because it is going to help give me those nice brown undertones and work as a guide for the paint-over.
Add a bunch of paint and there you have it. The final cover.
N8VanDyke
