Villains Untied!

The Academy of Art's Comic Book Club just hosted its traditional end-of-semester costumed figure workshop, and the theme this time was Supervillains!

The hyperflexible Ashton as Mystique. The little skull decorations just kill me - I'd forgotten that was part of her costume.

A couple more of Ashton, plus Whitney as Harley Quinn.

I haven't been keeping track of Harley Quinn's ever-evolving games and comics designs, but I think this would be a slightly more demure version of her "New 52" look.

And here's Lanie as Elektra. I was impressed by her sai-handling technique!

More Lanie, and Frank taking a break from his photo-documenting duties to play Punisher. That last shot of Elektra had a cool aura drawn with yellow highlighter, which completely failed to register in the scan.

And finally, Comic Book Club captain Matt Harding as the despicable Red Skull.

Costume Carnival 04/2013

This past weekend brought us the twice-annual Costume Carnival at the Academy of Art. The theme this time was "Paris in the Spring," which covered basically anything French, from mimes to the Moulin Rouge to Joan of Arc. Here are some sketches from the day-long drawing workshop.

First, Richard Aspen and Marianne Faulkner as mimes, with an exceptionally cooperative cockatoo.

Colin K in Napoleonic attire, and Marianne Faulkner in a cool hat.

Kat Meler as Joan of Arc, Colin K as a brooding emperor, and a bit of classy boudoir style.

Sarafina, the Illustration department's fabulous model coordinator, took a turn in the spotlight.

Eden Omari, swashbuckler.

Once more with the Maid of Orleans...

And "au revoir" with a very special promotional message from the Green Fairy!

Quick Studies and Costumes

A few quick drawings from yesterday. First, poses from the fabled Quick Studies workshop...

I also dropped by George Cwirko-Godycki's Clothed Figure class for a few minutes, and there was some pretty fun costume action going on!

More Mars Boards

Here's the next chunk of that storyboard sample. (Part 1 was over here). In this installment we have cheap conjuring tricks, newt-thievery, and butt-kicking.

Storyboards of Mars

One of the frustrating things about working on film projects is that they take years to complete, and until they come out, you can't show people what you've been working on. Since most of my previous animation storyboarding work is tied up in this fashion, I've been meaning to sit down and create some sample boards so I actually have something to put in my portfolio. So here goes!

In this sample, we catch up again with a couple of characters from my King of Mars story. This is the start of what's probably going to be a 200-board scene. The newt-cooking sequence kind of took on a weird life of its own...

Inking Demos: Oz and Tortoise

It's wacky inking demo time again! These each took about 30-40 minutes, with some ink wash and spatter and such. I didn't end up finger-painting this time, but you can't have everything.

This is, of course, a composite Wizard of Oz companion character made up of part Scarecrow, part Lion, and part Tin Man. He's having some trouble deciding what to ask the Wizard for.

And this, on the other hand, is what you get when you ask your students for subject prompts.

Odds and Ends

Clearing out the metaphorical basement, I present for your diversion and amusement...

A complete lineup of the Mu Gundam robots so far. All to scale, naturally; man, the Kingdam is really huge.

A silly inking demo for my comics class.

Another silly inking demo. Next week I'll be demonstrating ink wash, spatter, finger-painting, etc, which is always fun; plus, that means I'll probably have time to actually finish the illustrations.