I was asked to be part of a big gallery show in LA which opens today, May 2nd at Hero Complex Gallery. The theme of the show is Hellboy, who recently turned 20 years old. I figured this would be a good time to get a little grisly and play with some paint. Below I’ve attached my original sketch, the final version and the flier. I will not be in attendance for the show, though I wish I were as it is sure to be quite the party with Hellboy creator, Mike Mignola on hand.
Batman’s 75th Birthday was yesterday and I wanted to do a quick sketch to honor the old bat. I haven’t posted on this blog as often as I’d like. Hopefully I’ll get together an art dump soon…
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…
https://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
N8VanDyke
