There's a Storm a-Brewin'!

Here's my entry to Project: Rooftop's Storm redesign contest.  My first thought was to make it where whenever Storm is using her powers, her hair kind of comes alive and becomes this crazy, living storm cloud.  I tried to convey that idea here, with varying degrees of success.   

When it came to her costume itself, I mostly tried to keep it sleek and basic black, with silver highlights.  The lightning bolt design on her chest let's you know what she's about (if the crazy hair and lightning bolts flying from her eyes and hands didn't already tip you off), and the flowing cape lends itself to the "living cloud" concept.

My weak attempt to illustrate her in cloud-form.  Though I'll admit, this illustration was a little rushed! 

Green Lantern: Emerald Ensemble

Here are my designs for Project Rooftop's Emerald Ensemble contest, in which they challenged artists to redesign Green Lantern (any incarnation).  Being indecisive, I decided (yay!) to redesign 4 different incarnations: Alan Scott, the Silver Age Green Lantern, Hal Jordan, who I consider to be the definitive Green Lantern, John Stewart (military man & architect) and Kyle Rayner (artist).  I came up with several different sketches for these but the following are my finished designs:


For Alan I wanted to give him a more regal, almost formal look.  I pictured him as the older mentor of the group, and wanted to reflect that in his costume.  I kept the red and green from his original look but ditched the yellow and the crazy disco color in favor of black and a more armored-looking collar.  I also loved how in the comic book "The Golden Age", they talked about Alan as this great powerhouse, so I hoped to convey some of that power here.

For Hal's look I stuck pretty close to his original design, but tweaked/simplified his lantern logo a little bit, and added some geometric shapes to break up the large areas of green.  I originally wanted to put him in his Air Force jacket, but I didn't want it to cover up too much of his costume and skipped it. 

 For John's look, I wanted to reflect his history as an architect, so I gave him a black bodysuit with green lines reminiscent of blueprints.  So, greenprints?  I don't know.  Anyway, I liked in Geoff Johns' run on Green Lantern how he described the different personalities of the various Green Lanterns and how it affected how they looked/what constructs they created.  Kyle created monsters and abstract things, Hal created simple fists and hammers, and John created complex, detailed constructs.  That always stuck with me as a cool concept.

While designing Kyle I wanted to keep his trademark mask, but other than that I figured as an artist he would try to streamline and simplify his costume.  I always thought the large area of white on his chest looked pretty striking, so I went with that, turning it into an abstract representation of a lantern.  I ditched the gauntlets and boots though- I thought they were too clunky.

And here's my group shot of all 4 Green Lanterns!  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

 
And a line-up of their different costumes that I used while initially designing them:

 
Also, here's actually my first take on Hal, done fairly quickly right at the start.  I at first pictured him as more of an astronaut, and gave him a streamlined space suit.  I like it for its simplicity and sleekness, but went with the group take instead.

And here's some bonus prelim sketches: 

Let me know what you think of my Green Lanterns!

Black (and Red) Widow

I have a few pen sketches where I started redesigning the Avengers just for kicks.  I'm going back  and coloring them for even more kicks.  Here's one I just finished today- Everyone's favorite female-Russian-spy-turned-superhero!

 I didn't veer to far away from previous versions in my redesign, except to add more athletic footwear and place the large hourglass Widow symbol across her chest.  I mostly tried to stick with the black and red color scheme, leaving out the gold belt that's sometimes used in the comics.  

I'll be slowly adding more of these as I get around to finishing them.  I've already finished my Black Panther redesign and uploaded it to my Deviantart page if you want to check it out (link) but I'll probably upload it here later as well. 

God of Thunder

Just a quick drawing of Thor that I just finished coloring in Photoshop.  I changed a few things up on his costume, just playing around.  I wanted to incorporate a representation of the Nine Realms into his armor, so I have the nine circle plates on his chest and shoulders (yeah, I know, he has two on his knees, but disregard those- ha). 

And just to show the process, here's my initial inked sketch, which I scanned in then colored.  The second pic is my basic blocking-in of colors, before adding the finishing touches.

Initial inked sketch

Blocking in of colors and BG

 Let me know what you guys think in the comments!  Hopefully more to come soon...

Boy Wonder

Here's a redesign of Robin I did a little while ago, just for fun.  I basically wanted to give him a more toned-down, realistic color scheme.  Most robins I've seen at least have a red breast, and mostly different shades of gray plumage.  I liked the two-tone grey look, with the red accent.  And, I feel like it even goes with Batman's color scheme better than bright yellow, red, and green, not to mention it's stealthier.  I kind of played around with adding a muted-down yellow somewhere in the boots and to make a "beak" but didn't really like how it looked.  Anyway, would love any feedback on this look.  Oh, also experimented with a new logo- a more streamlined rendition of my standard T A signature. 

Scary Monsters, Just in Time for Halloween!

Been a little while since I've posted on here- trying to work on that.  I've actually been pretty busy lately working on, of all things, art projects!  Pretty varied projects as well, including character designs for a video game in development (nothing serious, unless it gets picked up), a book cover, and trying to get around to my next epic portrait.  I have a background on a canvas just staring at me.  Don't worry canvas- I haven't abandoned you.  

Anyway, here's a taste of some of the sketches I did for the "evil character" for the video game.  Creeped myself out a little bit with some of these!

  

Let me know what you think!  Happy Halloween!

Fantastic Fashion Redesign

Here's my entry to Project Rooftop's Fantastic Four redesign contest: 

I was really inspired by the suits worn by the characters in "Fantastic Voyage", and I felt that they fit with the science-adventurer feel of the Fantastic Four.

For Johnny I wanted to make him look volatile, a literal "hot head'.  His suit features vented sections over his shoulders, elbows, thighs, and knees, which allow his heat to escape, and also hearkens back to his classic look. 

Reed's the field team leader on their scientific expeditions, and he always makes sure to bring a backpack full of gadgets. 

I wanted to give Sue a 60s kind of look, feminine but practical. 

Ben was one of my favorite designs.  I drew inspiration from space suits worn by chimp astronauts- I kid you not.  I came across a bit of a predicament:  the other members of the squad had their "4" insignia and blue armbands, but I wanted Ben to be sleeveless.  But I figured "What the hell.  He wouldn't care to paint on his arm."  I kind of like how it looks.  

As always, let me know what you guys think!  Meanwhile, keep checking out Project Rooftop- hopefully I make Honorable Mention!  Fingers crossed