Captain America #34

The new Captain America makes his debut today as Captain America #34 hits the stores, written by Ed Brubaker, penciled by me, inked by Butch Guice, and colored by Frank D'Armata.


(click image to enlarge)

You may notice the cover is slightly revised from the solicited version. The muddy yellow background really wasn't working for me and in the end, I dropped it out all together.

Also, CBR is running an interview I did with them about this issue here.

Civil War Soldier

Just a quick value study to try out a new rake brush I made in Photoshop. I doubt I'll take this any further, but if I do I'll post the finished product here.


(click image to enlarge)

Black Widow

Pencils by me, inks by Butch Guice. From the upcoming Captain America #34.


(click image to enlarge)

Checkers

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I'll be posting more regularly soon, but in the meantime, here's a little something my daughter and I colored in a restaurant last week while waiting for our meal -


(click image to enlarge)

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.

(click images to enlarge)




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 -

(click images to enlarge)

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

(click image to enlarge)
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 -

(click images to enlarge)





Needless to say, I'm thrilled.

Return of the Hunter

(click images to enlarge)






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!

(click image to enlarge)
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

(click image to enlarge)

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

Batman

(click image to enlarge)

Sterankomage

(click image to enlarge)

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.

(click images to enlarge)

Rejected Cover Sketches: Thor 83

(click image to enlarge)
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

(click image to enlarge)
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

(click image to enlarge)

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

(click images to enlarge)



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

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

Deja Vu

(click image to enlarge)
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.