This one came together easier than most which was nice.

James:


His guitar:


And since I don't know anything about guitar, I asked him to give me a hand placement for general accuracy.


When I was almost done I came across this picture on Flickr that reminded me to add the rim light:


Here's the rough sketch and the flat color. I notice now in the rough sketch I'd puffed his chest out a bit more and tilted his head back, those elements sort of got lost in the process.

Labels: comical

Looking back over my reference images, I feel like I could do two or three variations on this design, maybe push it a little further or clean it up.

I've always loved Project Rooftop, and I was really bummed that I missed out on their Iron Man contest, I had a lot of ideas, most of them revolved around making it "old-timey" and "atomic/deco/chic" and it turns out the winner of the contest did all that and more. I adore Daniel Krall's style. I felt the actual suit design was a little too busy and clashed with the streamline/atomic nature of the time period, but holy cow does this image just bowl me over every time I look at it.


For the pose:


The bi-plane:


In Cooperstown I'd seen an old Baseball uniform that had a shield on the chest, similar to Superman's. I couldn't find that style online, but I found this:


And I've always been in love with the Rocketeer's design. Looking at it again now, I think I made the border and buttons around the S too small.


I went through dozens of S's trying to find one that would work best on that off center jacket flap. I finally settled on the Alex Ross Kingdom Come S, but a little less angular and more animated.


The last piece of the costume to come together was the spats. I was still taking my cue from the baseball uniform, and the lighter socks under the darker knee socks, or sock-stripe stirrups. And I was thinking about the red boots, more like shin guards, similar to Darwyn Cooke's Wonder Woman. But once I drew the off white over the boots I was like "spats! that's it!"


Here's the uncropped:


Notice how the shading is inconsistent to the light source. Originally I didn't have the sun behind them, but as I tinkered with the image, this unexpected hot spot showed up behind the plane and I thought "cool I'll make that the sun and flare it out a little." But I didn't want to redo my shading, especially since this was a costume design contest and it would have defeat the purpose to put him in silhouette.

I also feel like maybe the blue-grey leather vest is coming across as evil? I tinted it blue to keep his color scheme, but I wonder now if brown leather would have come across more friendly.

Labels: comical

The first Team Ellie commission to have an iconic backdrop. To make sure I had the setting right:




Dorothy:


Rough sketch and flat color, notice how much I had to correct the proportions. Yikes! Someone's gotta go back to the figure drawing class.

Labels: comical