Doctor Who "Journey's End" Commission

Rose Tyler and the Duplicate Doctor as they appeared in the series four finale "Journey's End", for a very nice fellow Whovian. I'm not the best with likenesses, but I did alright here I think--the Doctor could stand to have a weaker chin but that's what drawing superheroes all day gets you. Fun to do and it reminded me of how much I loved the Tennant series, which I'd forgotten, being all caught up in Matt Smith's run.

Firestorm Commission

Here's a Firestorm I just did for an awesome cat! I'd never drawn the character before, so it was fun for sure. You can't get much more "It's 1978 and you're reading a DC comic book" than Firestorm.

1-Hour self Portrait

I call it a self portrait. Others may call it a desperate cry for help. I draws 'em like I feels 'em.

Recent Spitballin' Sketches

Time once again for me to dump a bunch of my recent contributions to the awesome group sketchblog Spitballin' Comics here. First is my attempt at making the New 52 revamped DC universe Red Robin costume work. With a few small adjustments, I actually really like it. I still don't like the version they've gone with though...

And here's Fox McCloud from the Star Fox video games. If you're ever challenged to keep a drawing of a fox from looking like a drawing of a long-snouted cat, pray I'm not your phone a friend.

David Bowie's in space. Whatcha doin' up there, man?

And this week's contribution, Goku from Dragon Ball Z. As always, head over to Spitballin' to check out the other submissions to these theme weeks from a bunch of other awesome Toronto cartoonists and artists. It's a good time!

Happy 70th Birthday, Aquaman!

I plum forgot it's my favorite DC Superhero's 70th birthday today so I had to squeak this in before the clock struck 12. I drew this last month at Fan Expo, and since never have I ever liked a drawing I've done of the classic Aquaman (too much pressure!) I sat on this until now. Would have liked to do something brand new and better as a tip of the hat to the Sea King, but I remembered too late, so this'll have to do.

Happy birthday, Aquaman!

Recent This and Thats

It's been a good long while since I remembered to update this blog. Truth told, Spitballin' and worky work I can't really show off take up most of my time, and double posting work I do for Spitballin' here doesn't always seem worth the effort. But here are a few recent Spitball sketches I was happy enough with to share twice, starting with Grunge Josie and the Pussycats, above.

Next is M.O.D.O.K., the Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, villainous mastermind and butt of many jokes in the Avengers comics. M.O.D.O.K. week ended up being one of our better ones overall, lots of fun stuff and a cool guest post.

Finally, what I assume/hope will be a traffic-puller-inner, this week's Spitball--Marvel Zombies, featuring X-Men mainstays Cyclops and Wolverine. Everybody's doing someone different as a zombie, so it should be cool to see once they're all up. I've got some other zombie-related work coming up this fall in Moonstone's Zombies Versus Cheerleaders, so this was a nice warm up for that.

Wrecking Crew commission

(Click to Embiggen)

Kind of a fun commission--this guy and his friends play some Marvel Comics Magic the Gathering-type card game that's no longer in production, so they make their own cards for private use and wanted some original art for them. The background was misappropriated and edited, but a BG wasn't part of the commission price, and it's not a commercial card so everybody be cool. 

I have a soft spot for the Wrecking Crew. None of their designs are very inspired, but I kinda like the idea that some people who get super powers at Marvel just don't have a flare for names or costumes and just kind of wear whatever. Almost invariably these types of characters are villains, but Kitty Pryde and Cannonball have worn some hard-looking disasters, too. They can't all be Dr. Doom.

White Violin

It's gonna be a different kettle of fish at Spitballin' Comics this week. Instead of us all just doing one character, we're each taking on a member of the Umbrella Academy, from the titular comic by Gabriel Ba and Gerard Way. As always with these Spitballin' things, click the link above for a better look at my entry, and check out below for the black and white line art. This marks our sixth week doing the group sketch blog thing. We've got some great characters yet to come, too, so here's to six more.

Spitballin' Starfire

It's Starfire Week at Spitballin' Comics, courtesy of Gerard De La Costa and Gerard De La Costa's libido (I kid--we'd asked him to pick a woman haha). Click the image to head on over to the Spitballin', and see below for the lineart!

Spitballin' Hellboy

This week at Spitballin' Comics we're doing Mike Mignola's Hellboy, and it's shaping up to be the best week on the blog so far. Click the image to head over to my contribution where you can enlarge it and what have you. Gonna include the lineart here for behind the scenes bonus goodness.

Cap and the Invaders

Captain America and the Invaders plus Wolverine--Captain America week is almost wrapped up over at Spitballin' Comics. So far we've seen awesome work up from Ken House, Michael Walsh and Selena Goulding so far, with Neil Tavares and Meaghan Carter still to come! Check it out!

Astro Boy

Over at Spitballin' Comics the crunch crew and I have been doing a week devoted to Atom/Astro Boy in all his various forms (uh, two, I suppose). I figured I'd feature a different version of my Astro Boy piece here, with a simplified mouth I couldn't decide if I liked better or not. It's really hard sometimes to go with the simpler version of something when you put more time into the other version, so I'm presenting them both to pussyfoot around making a decision..

If you haven't yet, do please check out Spitballin'--tons of cool art posted there every week by awesome up and coming illustrators here in the Toronto scene. Astro Boy week wraps up this Sunday, and there's more cool stuff to come!

Spawn - Spitballin' lineart

The lineart from my first post over at Spitballin' Comics, the artists collective sketch blog I formed with some fellow Toronto illustrators for love of the game. A character a week is the goal--let's see how we do! Check out Spitballin' Comics for the finished colour sketch and more of my rambling!

Spitballin' Comics Launch

Sunday, myself and some of my fellow GTA* illustrators launched Spitballin' Comics, a brand new artists collective sketch blog. Every week we'll pick a different character from the wide world of comics and nerd-dom and draw up our takes on the characters. We're rolling alphabetically, so first choice is mine--Todd McFarlane's SPAWN! Michael Walsh is a human dynamo, and he gets us started with the awesome piece previewed above. Check it out and give us a follow!

*Greater Toronto Area, not grand theft auto, for out of towners and non-Canadians.

Fan appreciation con day 2

Slow day today but managed to snag a few fun commissions--first is Living Lightning, who I thought I only vaguely had a notion of, but it turns out I was thinking of Living Laser anyway. I love the goofy, obscure guys so this was one of my favorite commissions ever. Kinda wish I hadn't looked through the book before hand, though--Marcio Takara, Francis Manapul, Marcus To, Leonard Kirk, Dan Parent, Agnes Garbowska, J. Bone, on and on and on, and all awesome work. Did my best to live up to the standard (Leonard Kirk "sketches" like most people draw diligently for 8 hours).

And another Deadpool! I brought my markers and totally managed to kill my deep red. Had to switch it up to do the job--the contrast between reds seems harsher on camera than it did in person. Did this in a mad rush in the con's closing minutes--came out alright.

Fan appreciation con day 1

Some sketches from the Fan Appreciation con today. Forgot to take pictures of some of them (it slips my mind I have this capability). I was super excited to get to do a sketch on this blank Wolverine #1 sketch over--my first time ever being asked to do something like this. Deadpool as Wolverine. Bummed I forgot to bring some markers.

Electro, for some cool dude.

Deadpool in the army. The guy that got the Deadpool sketches (and often gets Deadpool sketches) is always super enthusiastic and complimentary--I count him as one of my two fans. Yep, two, baby. The big leagues.

More tomorrow, if I remember.

Sinister Nine dans la colour!

Spider-Man versus nine of his most fearsome foes, now with colours by tag team troubadour Adam Metcalfe. Slick!

Hack/Slash sketch card commissions

Had a couple blank sketch cards lying around from last Halloween's Hack/Slash set, ended up being commissioned to do these by a nice guy in the UK--one of Vlad, one of Cassie. I tend to use pretty simple colouring when I do these, both because I'm a sucky colourist and it's fun to see how far you can make the simple application go. Given that, I was really pleased with the way the chalkboard came out--neat effect, I think.

Sinister Nine preview!

Lineart preview of the print I'll have on hand at the Toronto Comic-Con Fan Appreciation event, April 9th-10th in the north building of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (gods willing). Managed to squeeze in nine of Spider-Man's sinister foes, including the original Sinister Six, Goblin, Rhino and Venom. The two-day con is completely FREE and cartoon heroes like Manapul, Sprouse, Darrow, Van Sciver and To will be there (as well as the whole Northern Guard team) so come by and say hello if you're cool.

Sheena sketch card 4

I think I said I was done posting these Sheena sketch cards I did for the 5Finity set, but I lied. Now I'm done posting them. Pr-probably.

Just Playin'

Scanning marker is merciless, I have no idea how to do it at all--but these are some sketch card size sketches of Marvel superheroes I did the other day, in chronological order. I think I got the hang of it better as I went through.

Sheena sketch card 3

One final Sheena sketch card--I know she's the queen of the jungle and that's not where ostriches live, but ostriches are cool and leggy dames are cool so there you have it.

You almost wouldn't believe how dramatically different the colours are from the original, to the scan, to the upload. This stuff gets frustrating.

Nightcrawler

(Click to embiggen.)

Kinda like how this one came out. Really fun character to draw.

Iron Fist

One half of everyone's favorite comic book bromance, I used to think Danny Rand was the lamest guy ever when I was a stupid kid. Now I've grown to love his Spider-Man dew-rag and little yellow slippers. Proportions on this are a bit silly (bit of a running theme with me lately) but I figured I'd post it anyway.

Click to embiggen!

Northern Guard #2 5-Page Preview

So according to publisher Moonstone Books, The Northern Guard #2 is available in finer comic shops next Wednesday, March 9th, at the crack of whenever your comic shop opens. In anticipation of this momentous occasion I'm posting some of the inked pages for the issue, sans colour or whatever to give you humans a look at the process. 

As always, click to embiggen! Hope you guys like it!

[Edited to adjust shipping date.--DJC]

Sheena sketch card 2

Another sample from the cards I did for 5Finity Inc's sold out Sheena sketch card series, shipping out tomorrow. Skies are purple, I guess, man!

Voltron Tribute

Voltron: United and Drawn, the official Voltron art book, came out early this month and is in stores now, as well as being available for purchase on the official website. This the piece I illustrated for it, line work by me with Adam Metcalfe on colours. It's full of great art and history and such so if you grew up on Voltron and you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. It is so choice.

Sheena sketch card

I recently did a series of Sheena queen of the jungle sketch cards for 5Finity Inc, and some of them turned out pretty alright. They're already sold out I guess--pretty cool.

The Aquagent of Victorian England

Done to submit to Superhero Cocoa, a superhero redesign blog that's taking part in a redesign Aquaman month crossover with a few other sites. Their theme is to re-imagine Aquaman as he'd appear in a different culture/time, so I went with a turn of the century British Aquagent, protecting the waterways and the lost city of Atlantis' magics and riches from his rogue admiral half-brother Ocean Master and the deep sea plunderer Black Manta. Aquaman's pretty much my favorite superhero so I took the redesign to his supporting cast as well. Topo's still an octopus.

Voltron Art Book out this Wednesday

The Official Voltron Art Book is out this coming Wednesday from 5Finity Productions and Moonstone books. It's got a pinup by myself with incomparable Adam Metcalfe on colours. You can get it through most comic shops or online at www.voltron.com. I'm pretty sure owning one will finally make you popular.