After stumbling across this material at random t'other day, thought I might as start posting my work stages for the 2007(-ish) 8-page story Empowered: Who Da Ubermench?
Story and initial art by me; color art by the fine folks of the coloring studio Guru eFX, working over B&W originals drawn on full-sized, 10" X 15" linen-finish cardstock, as opposed to the wee 8.5" X 11" copy paper I normally draw the series on. (This format seemed like a viable compromise ...
2021-03-05 14:03:18 +0000 UTC
View Post
Yeahp, just like it says on the tin (or the post title), here are my work stages for Empowered vol.3's cover illustration, including a very different initial rough that wound up having its Emp pose repurposed for vol.5's cover illo. Gosh!
Note the unusual jpeg of the cover's finished pencils, which is a work stage I rarely bother to scan before moving on to inking the piece. Enjoy?
Final colors on the piece by Lee Duhig of the fine coloring studio Guru eF...
2021-03-04 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Behold, a mostly Kenichi-Sonoda-related assortment of commissioned damsel-in-distress con sketches. A few words:
The concrete block bit with poor Rally Vincent from Gunsmith Cats is an old joke and/or 70s pop culture reference, one I revisited later on in Empowered
2021-03-03 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Here are a few of my character and gun designs for the 2015 one-shot Empowered: Pew Pew Pew!, in which Emp tangles with a series of supervills victimized by sentient "smart guns" goading 'em into firepower-intensive rampages. (Also, a few assorted jpegs of the story pages in which those designs appeared.)
SIDE NOTE: Wellp, the beginning of this month had the biggest dropoff in quite a while as almost 5% of all Patrons cancelled their pled...
2021-03-02 14:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from April 2017, still fairly early on in the effort, followed by a set from January 2018. I normally would post the latter as the primary gallery image above, but I found it marginally less striking than the 2017 set (for once).
Below, enjoy the higher-...
2021-03-01 14:00:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
Sure hope I find the time tomorrow morning to expand this paragraph before this scheduled post goes online!
UPDATE IN THE MORNING: Barely!
In fact, these aren't the gory, mayhem-intensive pages from later on in the Empowered vol.12 "Scary, Badass, Violent Emp" sequence that I'd planned on showing, because I still haven't scanned those originals yet.
Instead, you're seeing the first three pages of said sequence, inc...
2021-02-26 14:00:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
UPDATE #1: This was originally scheduled as a Friday post, but as I haven't yet scanned the Empowered vol.12 pages I meant to post today, I bumped this one up to the Thursday slot. Needless to say, folks, every-weekday posting is becoming more and more difficult for me to pull off as I grind away at vol.12 full-time (and then some).
The last dozen or so images in my old CON SKETCHES folder include a bunch of 2012-13 pieces drawn in Can...
2021-02-25 16:10:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
Behold, s'more Vintage Con Sketches with varying iterations of my take on the Dirty Pair winding up in distressing situations.
Note that, in the first commission in the gallery...
...Y**i's pose is based on a panel from a famous (infamous?) 70s issue of Spider-Woman that has been the basis of a fair number of Di...
2021-02-24 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Behold, in the gallery above, my design sketch for the civilian version of Sistah Spooky seen in the Empowered vol.10 story "My Dinner with Spookums," along with jpegs of the first few pages in which that redesign appeared.
Note that the "H" on her hoodie's chest stands for "Hannah," of course.
And here's the random photo I dug up online that was the photoref bas...
2021-02-23 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from March 2017, still fairly early on in the effort, followed by a set from February 2018. I normally would post the latter as the primary gallery image above, but I found it less striking than the 2017 set (for once).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw a...
2021-02-22 14:00:05 +0000 UTC
View Post
I'm finishing off the last few pieces from my old CON SKETCHES folder, this time featuring a trio of illos with "letter V characters." Yay!
First up is a sketch based on "Valkyrie Wylde," the faux videogame character that the Playstation magazine PSM created in the early 2000s as a "nude-code Tomb Raider" knockoff game for an April Fools' joke. I did a few pieces of alleged promo art for the character, which I'll have to dig up s...
2021-02-19 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
One of my favorite Empowered back-cover pieces, in fact! Final colors on the illo by the fine fellas of coloring studio Guru eFX, as I recall.
TOMORROW ON THIS HERE PATREON: More Vintage Con Sketches, I'd assume.
2021-02-18 14:00:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
Following up from a recent Empowered vol.12 preview featuring a page of Emp in civilian garb (however unclothed she might be) from a "secret identity shenanigans" sequence, here's a quick post of rough sketches I did whilst pondering expansion of that scene. (Note that I attached the aforementioned page onto the end of today's image gallery.)
The first three sets of sketches are pret...
2021-02-17 19:48:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Folks, here are a bunch of random design sketches from various latter-day Dirty Pair miniseries. A few words:
Yeahp, that's the "aquasuit" version of Kei's morphing smartsuit from issue #2 of 1999-2000's Dirty Pair: Run from the Future.
And anot...
2021-02-16 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from March 2017, still fairly early on in the effort, followed by a set from February 2018. I normally would post the latter as the primary gallery image above, but I found it less striking than the 2017 set (for once).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw a...
2021-02-15 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Behold—if my worthless, garbage-tier DSL will ever stay connected long enough to allow me to post this morning—an unusually strong 2005 con sketch that I wound up repurposing as the illo cover for the concluding issue #6 of the Livewires Marvel miniseries.
I had stalled out on working up one final cover for this clearly ill-fated project either from burnout o...
2021-02-12 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
More from Empowered vol.12 today, folks! Above is the second page from a scene featuring the Emp iteration I've dubbed "Scary, Badass, Violent Emp," for reasons that will become obvious in successive pages.
Haven't corrected or done white-line overlays for the Emp intro page above, so consider that a work-in-progress preview. However, can't say the same for the next pag...
2021-02-11 13:33:44 +0000 UTC
View Post
Months later, folks, I'm popping back to a rather chatty "paused" story from Empowered vol.12 and continuing to whittle away at the g-d thing. (My vision for the book has changed completely since I was initially working on this chapter, but I'll be dipped if I'm gonna contemplate tossing out 30-40 completed pages, even if they're narratively at odds with the rest of the volume.)
Anyhoo, 2021-02-10 16:10:58 +0000 UTC
View Post
Very short on time today, so a quick note of explanation: Here are the earliest character designs for the titular mercenary magical girl from the miniseries Empowered and the Soldier of Love.
The first two images are the first sketches (including magical mascot Senor Pangolin) by the series' excellent artist Karla Diaz, while the rest are my initial design roughs suggesting visual concepts for the character and her costume.
TOMORROW ON THIS HE...
2021-02-09 13:13:54 +0000 UTC
View Post
Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from March 2017, still fairly early on in the effort, followed by a set from February 2018. I normally would post the latter as the primary gallery image above, but I found it less striking than the 2017 set (for once).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw a...
2021-02-08 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Just about done with the pieces in my older Con Sketches folder; here's another bunch from the the dwindling supply.
A few words:
This 2012 piece, one of my stronger high-contast Sharpie sketches, wound up tacked onto the Sistah-Spooky-centric Empowered vol. 8 as a bonus feature.
2021-02-05 14:01:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
Yeahp, just like it says on the tin, here are the work stages on the cover illo for Empowered vol.4; note that I went through a number of roughs before finding a composition I liked. Can't find my coloring guide for the piece, oddly enough, so perhaps I shouldn't label this post as the complete work stages.
Final colors on the piece by Lee Duhig of the fine coloring studio Guru eFX, who have worked on a whole bunch of cover illos and comics for me. Nic...
2021-02-04 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Behold, folks, the concluding page of an Empowered vol.12 riff on secret identity tropes that were unused in the series as a whole; the previous two pages have already been previewed to the Big Spender Patreon tiers, by the way.
A few words:
This page is a riff on an especially amusing subcategory of "
2021-02-03 14:00:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
For most of my time on Empowered, I would produce, at best, a quick sketch of a new character before drawing a comic page; often, in fact, I would just design new capes on the actual page. ("Just in time" character design, I suppose.)
However, Empowered vol.9 featured so many new characters during Emp's book-long run through a gauntlet of supervillains that I sat down and cranked out twenty-odd pages worth of chara designs before...
2021-02-02 14:01:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from March 2017, still fairly early on in the effort, followed by a set from February 2018. I normally would post the latter as the primary gallery image above, but I found it less striking than the 2017 set (for once).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw a...
2021-02-01 14:01:04 +0000 UTC
View Post
Okay, this trio of con sketches is stretching the definition of Vintage a tad, but what the heck. The Slave Leia pieces are from 2012 (almost a decade ago, ouch), though the soapy Emp is notably more recent, as the photoref-based shadow rendering might hint. Always good to get in a li'l life drawing whilst knocking off commissions!
NEXT MONDAY ON THIS HERE PATREON: Yet another double dose of life drawings (and high-res Photoshop scans)...
2021-01-29 14:00:00 +0000 UTC
View Post
Per a post (and poll) I put out to the higher Patron tiers earlier in the month, here are my early Empowered vol.12 design sketches for an John Wick-ish Emp iteration I've dubbed "Scary, Violent, Badass Emp". (I shan't spoil things by telling you why vol.12 features this variation.)
LATER TODAY/TONIGHT ON THIS HERE PATREON: As mentioned yesterday, I'll be putting up another Exclusive Bonus Post for the $10 & $20 Patron tie...
2021-01-28 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Behold, a trio of recently unearthed Dirty Pair damsel-in-distress con sketches from the 90s. Pretty straightforward, though I should add one note:
The label on poor Y**i's thigh is referring to a line from the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Wild Rebels, when one of that crappy movie's biker thugs tells the hero...
2021-01-27 14:01:06 +0000 UTC
View Post
For most of my time on Empowered, I would produce, at best, a quick sketch of a new character before drawing a comic page; often, in fact, I would just design new capes on the actual page. ("Just in time" character design, I suppose.)
However, Empowered vol.9 featured so many new characters during Emp's book-long run through a gauntlet of supervillains that I sat down and cranked out twenty-odd pages worth of chara designs before...
2021-01-26 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
Once again, I'm doubling up with this week's set of life drawings from random photoref. (Someday I'll have to downgrade to a single piece per post, but my buffer of these pieces remains reasonably large.) First above is a set from March 2017, still fairly early on in the effort, followed by a set from February 2018. I normally would post the latter as the primary gallery image above, but I found it less striking than the 2017 set (for once).
Below, enjoy the higher-res, raw a...
2021-01-25 14:01:01 +0000 UTC
View Post
