Captain America #36 Cover

Marvel's March 2008 solicitations are out, including Captain America #36. Here's how Marvel describes the issue:

CAPTAIN AMERICA #36
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Penciled by STEVE EPTING & BUTCH GUICE
Cover by STEVE EPTING
THE SECOND ACT OF THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA COMES TO ITS SHOCKING CONCLUSION!
The new Captain America fights the Red Skull's minions with Black Widow at his side and chaos erupting all around them! Meanwhile, Sharon Carter, still under the control of Dr. Faustus, makes a horrifying discovery about the next stage of the Skull's plans! By Eisner and Harvey Award-Winning Best Writer Ed Brubaker with art by master storytellers Steve Epting and Butch Guice.
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

I did another montage for this cover, and though I think there was some potential for a decent cover in the rough, I'm afraid I didn't quite pull it all together in the final version.

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The image above is the finished version of the cover. Unfortunately, the cover being used for the online solicitations is an earlier, unfinished version that was rushed out for the catalogue.

Captain America #33: Sneek Peek

A few random panels from the upcoming Captain America #33. Inks by Butch Guice -

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Old News

Last Wednesday Newsarama ran an interview with me about my work on Captain America. It can be read here.

Also last Wednesday, Captain America #32 came out -



I'll try to post something a little more current next time.

Captain America #35 Cover

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It's that time again - Marvel's solicitations for Februaray '08 are up, and Captain America #35 is among them. Here's how Marvel describes the issue:

CAPTAIN AMERICA #35
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Penciled by STEVE EPTING & BUTCH GUICE
Cover by STEVE EPTING
THE NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA FIGHTS FOR THE HEART OF HIS COUNTRY IN A CITY GONE INSANE!
Last issue was just the tip of the iceberg, as the Red Skull's master plan kicks into motion, and chaos begins to take hold of the US, with only one man to stand in its way, but is he up to the task? By Harvey and Eisner Award-Winning Best Writer Ed Brubaker with art by master storytellers Steve Epting and Butch Guice!
32 PGS./Rated T+…$2.99

You may notice a new name in the credits. Butch Guice will be inking the next several issues, starting with #32, which comes out tomorrow. Butch and I have been wanting to work together since our days at Crossgen. Here's a little sneak peek at some random panels from issue #32 to give you an idea what the collaboration looks like -

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Needless to say, I'm thrilled.

Return of the Hunter

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I finally got a copy of the El Cazador trade paperback that came out a few weeks ago. It's nice to have a collection of the series, since Crossgen folded before the first trade could come out. I remember having lunch with Chuck Dixon one day right after he arrived at Crossgen to discuss the future of Crux (the book I was drawing at the time, and which Chuck would be taking over as writer), and Chuck said his plans were to "ride it out for another year and then you and I will do a pirate book". And though it was not in any way as easy as it sounds, that is exactly what happened. I think I may have enjoyed working on this book more than anything else I've done in comics, and I wish that this type of book could actually be a litte more viable in today's comic market.

The Falcon Fights Alone!

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Quickly roughed in panel from an upcoming issue of Captain America. The title of this post is borrowed from the cover copy of Captain America #177 (which coincidentally also features the phrase "Captain America is no more!").

Female Orc

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Another older speedpaint - this time it's a female Orc warrior that was done for a weekly contest on a concept art website.

Batman

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Sterankomage

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Now that I've cleverly titled this post with a made up word (thus insuring that it will never turn up in a search), I'll get to point and post some art. Several people have already posted the Steranko homage that ran in Cap #31 on various blogs and message boards, so in addition to those pages, I'm posting the black and white line art above. Ed Brubaker has made no secret of his love for Steranko's all too brief run on Captain America (which I share, by the way) and included this scene as an homage to Cap #111 (1968). I'm really pleased with the way it turned out, even down to Frank D'Armata riffing off of the color palette that was used in the original.

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Rejected Cover Sketches: Thor 83

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Back in 2004 when I returned to Marvel, one of my first assignments was to do covers for Oeming and DiVito's six issue run on Thor. This sketch was for issue 83, which quite obviously featured a few guest stars - Captain America, Iron Man, and the Hulk, who are seen posing politely behind the star of the book, Thor himself. Sadly, It was later decided that Hulk wouldn't be appearing in this issue after all. The cover sketch wasn't technically rejected, I was just told I needed to remove Hulk, since he was previously engaged and would be unable to attend the festivities in Thor #83. Since this composition clearly wouldn't work without Hulk's massive frame in the background tying everything together, I scrapped it and started over. Here's the final version - colored by Laura Martin:

Soldier

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So here I am, looking through some older speedpaints, and I realize how much I enjoy the look of the looser strokes I was using when I didn't really care about the outcome, and I knew nobody would be seeing the end product (unless I wanted them to). Part of the reason for this look is that I was teaching myself how to paint in Photoshop and wasn't bothering to noodle in the details - just focusing on the broad strokes and learning how the brushes behave. I don't necessarily dislike the tighter rendering I've used on the Captain America covers, but I really want to use a more painterly style eventually. We'll see if it happens.

For the record, this was done from reference sometime last year.

Full Circle

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As a follow-up to my last entry, which featured the oldest surviving artwork from my childhood (both of which just happened to be drawings of Spider-Man), here's my most recent version of Spidey - a speedpaint from sometime late last year. Unfortunately, there's some pixelation of this image, but I couldn't find a higher resolution version.

By the way - yes, I changed the layout of the blog again. I'm still trying to find a template I like until I learn how to build my own.

Old School

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Bear with me for a little bit of stupid self indulgence. Today I was going through some unpacked boxes from our last move (3 1/2 years ago!) and came across some very old artwork. Sadly, there is no date on either of these masterpieces, but it's safe to say that they were produced when I was quite young. If I had to guess, I'd say I was somewhere between 7 - 10 years old when these were drawn. No doubt that titanic Spidey/Electro battle was inspired by a reprint of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, which was my all time favorite comic book as a kid. You can supply your own sound effect for extra awesomeness.

Captain America inks

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Page 3 of the upcoming Captain America #31. See this page in color (along with 4 others) here.

Deja Vu

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An upcoming flashback panel depicting a scene that should be familiar to Captian America fans.

A Little Bit of J.C. Leyendecker Greatness

I discovered something great earlier this week - this blog.

So far there is only one post on it, but damn, what a post! - 31 huge scans of J.C. Leyendecker Saturday Evening Post covers. They were posted back on August 2 and there's been no new activity since, but I hope we'll see more eventually. In the meantime, if you can tear yourself away from the sheer awesomeness that is the Leyendecker blog, be sure to check out these essays at the always excellent Illustration Art Blog.

Cap For Sale

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See that up there? That's the Captain America Omnibus featring issues 1-25 of Captain America vol 5, as well as the 65th Anniversary Special and the Winter Soldier one-shot. It also has tons of extras including sketches, cover roughs, character designs and interviews with Ed Brubaker and myself - all in one handy volume. It's 744 pages. It's also heavy. Since it's past midnight here on the east coast, I can legally announce that this one of a kind collection of the best in comics liturature is available TODAY at finer comic shops everywhere.

And no, the madness doesn't end there, because also on sale today is Captain America #30. It looks like this -




Okay, that's it. Commercial's over.

Captain America #33 Cover

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Marvel has leaked out some of December's solicitations a day early, and as luck would have it, Captain America 33 was among the chosen few. Here's how Marvel describes the issue:

CAPTAIN AMERICA #33
Written by ED BRUBAKER
Pencils & Cover by STEVE EPTING
The Winter Soldier faces off against Iron Man!
The man at the top of Bucky's hitlist is finally in his grasp... but saying anything more than that will spoil all our surprises! Still, the final moments of this issue will stun fans just as much as the final moments of Captain America #25 did!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

Wow. That sounds pretty good!

Armored Warrior

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Nothing original here - in content or composition. This is an old speedpaint that I reworked with some new brushes. Something occurred to me while working on this - if I had done this as a pencil drawing first, I would never have ended up with the armor as it appears here. By going straight in with color and using light to define planes spontaneously, you can get some unexpected results. The Frazetta influence is obviously quite strong here. I wasn't consciously emulating him, but Frazetta has cast a shadow so long and pervasive that virtually every fantasy painting seems to be informed in some way by his work. After I finished some color adjustments, I was certain that this was very derivative of a specific Conan painting, and sure enough, a quick search proved me right -




Like I said, nothing original here.

Viking Barbarian

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This morning's speedpaint is some sort of Viking barbarian. There's a bit of a cartoonish element about this one that I kind of like, but there was no real thought put into it at all. Still, I definitely wasn't going for realism here. This was done in about 20 - 30 minutes in Photoshop 7.

Captain America: Fallen Son Sketch Covers

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Two Fallen Son sketch covers I did that eventually found their way to the magical land of eBay.These were both drawn with one of those PITT brush pens (and a little bit of prismacolor pencil). Surpisingly, the cardstock cover was actually a pretty decent drawing surface. I've got a few more of these laying around here somewhere that I'll post eventually.

Battle Angel

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Another recent speedpaint based (very loosely) on the Battle Angel Alita Manga. I threw in the U.S. Army star as a design element. Incidentally, IMDB reports that James Cameron is slated to direct a Battle Angel movie scheduled for a 2009 release. Check it for yourself here, and a 2005 interview with Cameron about it here.

Mighty Avengers

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Here's a painting I did of the Mighty Avengers that was used as a background element for Tony (Iron Man) Stark's press conference in Captain America #27. I tried to keep it sort of simplified and muted so it would not compete with the foreground elements of the page, which were done as traditional line art. After it was pasted in, our colorist Frank D'Armata lightened it and softened the focus a bit more to integrate it into the colored page.

Centurion

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I've decided to post a few recent speedpaints that I've previously shown anonymously on another digital art site. While trying to teach myself digital painting, I wanted critiques that wouldn't be colored by the fact that I'm an employed artist. First up is a Roman Centurion, with and without background.

Captain America 32 Cover

Marvel has released their Nov.2007 solicitations which includes Captain America 32. Here's how Marvel describes the issue -

CAPTAIN AMERICA #32
Written by Ed Brubaker
Pencils & Cover by Steve Epting
THE EPIC DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA STORY CONTINUES!
The Falcon and Black Widow hunt together! Can they save the Winter Soldier from becoming a tool of the Red Skull again? And if they do, will he just go kill Tony Stark? And what of Agent 13, Sharon Carter, who shot the final bullets into her true love, Steve Rogers, and has seen her life fall apart since then? Those answers, much action, and more! From the Eisner Award-Winning Best Writer Ed Brubaker and Fan-Favorite Artist Steve Epting, who brought you the biggest selling comic of the year!
32 PGS./Rated T+ …$2.99

The entire list can be seen here.

This is my tenth cover painting (!) and I'm still experimenting with the process I'm using to produce these. This one (like the last 2) started with a pencil and ink wash drawing that was then scanned for painting in Photoshop.

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Hellboy!

Yeah, I know...just what the world needs - another blog. Well, needed or not, here it is. I'll be using this blog to post sketches, paintings, experiments, thumbnails, layouts, unpublished art and anything else I feel compelled to inflict upon anyone unlucky enough to stumble onto this page. I'll try to update it fairly often with whatever I happen to be working on, and you can relax - my rambling comments probably won't be nearly as long as they are in this first post.

To kick it off, here's a little Hellboy sketch I did sometime last year and recently decided to paint. It was done with markers and inkwash and then scanned into Photoshop to be subjected to my "coloring". Despite the fact that the good folks at Marvel actually allow me to do painted covers for Captain America, I'm a real novice at painting. Plus, I've only been doing color work in Photoshop for a little over a year, so I consider myself a beginner not only as a painter, but as a digital artist. These little speedpaints (which I define as 2 hours or less) are a good way to experiment and learn - and hopefully eventually bring something new to the published work.

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