Mr. Turkey

I've been really busy with work and waiting for a baby, so this post actually reuses a piece from last year.

Oh well.

Having a small T-Day here at home, as my wife's doctor is worried about her traveling away from the local area, as the baby is due anytime. So... no family meal today. Just something we're putting together last minute.

Just to get sentimental for a moment, I'm thankful to have a wonderful family, even if I can't see some of them today, thankful to have all the successes I've had with my work, and thankful to have y'all as fans and/or watchers.

And to you international folks, happy Thursday. ;)

Cheers to you all.

~B

THE RAPTOR: FPS - Inquiring Minds

Who knew that one of my favorite-to-color panels from a recent batch of Raptor pages would be this one from last week?

FOCers Sketch Blog: On Black Wings

And with this piece, I'm caught up on the FOCers Sketch Blog. This theme, "Golden Age Superheroes."

So, I went with a cover re-creation.

I can't be positive who the original artist was, but what we have here is "Amazing American Comics" number 27, from May of 1943 (as far as I can tell), featuring "The Black Raptor."

"Who's that," you ask? Well, according to Wikipedia;

The Black Raptor is a fictional character created by artist and writer Donald Clarence (under the pen name of Don Thumb [1]). A comic book superhero, The Black Raptor first appeared in Amazing American Funnies #12 (February 1942). His adventures continued on when Amazing American Funnies was renamed Amazing American Comics in April of 1942 [2].

In the original version of the story, The Black Raptor's secret identity is Barry Rogers, an American serviceman back from the war, wounded overseas, making him unfit for further combat [3], much to his chagrin. Returning to his neighborhood in New York City, he finds the streets overrun by organized crime, and the police out-manned, and outgunned.

Coming home one night, he sees an attempted break-in thwarted by the call of a city falcon [4]. Determining "these yellow rats that call themselves criminals" [5] would be easy to frighten and fight, Barry dons a falcon-themed costume, and calls himself The Black Raptor. He takes the fight to the criminals with a combination of his keen mind, soldier training, and trusty pistol, though he must always be aware of his weakness, his left elbow, which was wounded in the war [6]."

You can read the rest at the link above.

Go ahead. Click the link. I'll wait.

Yeah.

I lied. A lot.

No, you're not crazy. There is no Black Raptor.

This is a self-serving piece, as I'll eventually need it for The Raptor (as you can guess, the antagonist of the story might be partially inspired by this made-up Golden Age hero). Sorry.

As you can tell this is heavily inspired by All-American Comics, and the character himself is based on a bit of Batman (with gun!), Alan Scott Green Lantern, the Blackhawks, and The Red Cross.

A bit of a challenge trying to not drawn exactly like myself. I didn't totally succeed, but limiting my brush choices, and forcing some rendering choices helped.

May even do a Silver Age version of the character (and then gritty 80s version, and pouch-laden 90s, and... gritty Naughties reboot?).

Anyway, cheers for dealing with my oddness. :)

FOCers Sketch Blog: Making Points

My next piece of catch-up for the FOCers Sketch Blog. This theme, of course, "Dinosaurs."

As you can tell, I was looking at a lot of Frank Cho's rendering technique while drawing this. No where near as good, but I figure I might as well emulate the best (my own reptile skin rendering sucks). Figure the FOCers Blog would be a good place to test techniques that aren't my typical ones.

Also did a digital paint under the line work. Playing around. Left some of the sketch showing as some seemed to like that with the Thark piece.

As always, visit the link above if you'd like to see a larger, unwatermarked version of the piece (and leave a comment there while you're at it).

Cheers!

FOCers Sketch Blog: It's not news, it's Thark

A couple of catch-up pieces today for the FOCers Sketch Blog, including this Thark (the theme: "The World(s) of Edgar Rice Burroughs").

Wanted to keep it sketchy, so I left the sketch layer on. Also experimented with color again. Just having fun with it.

See the un-watermarked pieces at the link above.

More later today.

FOCers Sketch Blog: Hairy Bugger

Due to the big work load (not complaining) I've gotten behind. Trying to catch up this weekend. So, here we go. My Universal Monsters entry;



Loved "The Wolf Man" so much as a kid, I was a werewolf at Halloween three years in a row. Separated yarn, corn syrup for adhesive, and eyeliner for detail (there's a photo somewhere).

Not as accurate as I wanted, but, like I said, I'm trying to catch up.

So... there you have it. More soon.

...and my AXE.

Above's a commissioned piece I completed a little while back for the website of a blacksmith. I've worked with them before, in particular, on this piece.

This time, instead of a knife, the forged weapon in question was a hand-axe. My only instructions were a female warrior, a bit of sexy, while not having her run around in only a bikini, blonde, and perhaps some warpaint. The armor was cobbled together from everything from Brom paintings to Conan movies to Cosplay superheroes.

I kinda like how this turned out.

To see her in her "natural environment," head on over to Big Hammer Forge.

Cheers!

PS - You'll notice Blogger now has a default lightbox feature. I like it, and I'll leave it, but I won't be going back and removing the code I put into my pages to make my older images pop in a fitted window. That's a lot of work I really don't have time for. Sorry.