The lost weekend...

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving.  It was quite nice having a long weekend even though I had plenty of freelance to occupy the time I wasn't spending with family.
You'd think that in all that time I would've been able to draw more than just one Fan Request. I know I sure thought I would. In fact, I had planned on doing several drawings and had even started them, but realized I was running out of time and the freelance kept calling to me...if you know what I mean. I had even imagined that the weekend was so long that I'd have time to tackle a couple of personal projects. Silly me. Maybe next 4-day weekend, eh?

Anyway, I need to post this and get back to the freelance.
Someone suggested Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter. My son introduced me to her books some time ago (maybe a dozen years ago?) and I read the first one, but I must admit that was as far as I got. Maybe I'll have to re-visit the series at a later date. In my free time, of course. With all the interest these days in vampires I'm kind of surprised these books still haven't made it to film though it is nice to see that the books have been translated into comics.

I'd also like to thank Jessica Steele Allen who's photo I borrowed for this particular drawing.

Potterville

When Harry Potter was suggested for Fan Request Friday it seemed to be an obvious choice with HP7.1 opening to such a great opening weekend - especially considering the phenomenon that these books and movies have become. A whole generation seems to have grown up knowing these characters their entire life. I think what I like best about what JK Rowling did is how the stories aged and became more mature as the characters became more mature - as well as her audience. Or maybe she just continued to improve as a writer. Either way I thought I'd give Harry and his friends a shot. I didn't try too hard to achieve an exact likeness, but go for more of a nice setup (and that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

From the past to the future...

Ever since I saw my friend, Francesco Francavilla's drawing of an imaginary group he calls the First Avengers several weeks ago, I've been trying to put together this drawing. He did suggest for fan Request Friday, but it almost felt more like fan art to me and I wanted to do my best to get it just right.
If you're not familiar with Francesco's work you should be. He's finally starting to get some well deserved notice and some very high profile jobs. So go check out his web-site and his blog - as well as a blog that he and several other very talented artists contribute to called Comic Twart. That's where Francesco originally came up with the First Avengers and each week they fill it with wonderful new images.

This other image caught my imagination almost immediately, but it took me awhile to actually come up with a way to do it. I knew I wanted to try and do a straight version of these characters, but it wasn't as easy as I originally imagined. At one point I almost gave up and was about to select another choice, but I persevered and what I think I finally came up with seems to keep the attitudes of the characters despite the fact that I had to add chins to their faces.

A sad note...

This is running late even for me, but better late than never , eh?

Initially I wasn't going to do anything , but it seemed wrong not to note Michelle Nicastro's passing in some way. So I chose to do a request of my own.
Michelle Nicastro was the voice for Princess Odette in The Swan Princess, but oddly enough, even though she's known for her singing voice, she didn't do any of Odette's singing in the original film. The Swan Princessdidn't do very well in the theaters, but I know it meant quite a bit to a lot of people. In fact, while trying to refresh my memory as to what Odette looked like (you'd think after all the drawings I did of her I'd have her image ingrained forever in my memory) I came across quite a bit of fan art as well as several Cosplayers.  Once I started drawing Odette it all came back very quickly.

This suggestion was for the 1941 version of the Black Cat and since I've got kind of a thing for period superheroes and this one caught my attention.

Chun-Li is not character I know much about (other than the basics) since I'm not much into video games, but she'd been requested quite a few times and it seemed like it was time to do another video game character.

The Thundercats were actually a show that my oldest son used to like when he was very young and I kind of admired the animation in the opening credits. So this is my take on Lion-O though I'm sure it will upset a few purists, but hopefully not too much.