It's a miracle....

...two post in one day (actually two posts in one month would be pretty fantastic all on it's own).

As I'm getting ready to mail some prints and commissions it occurred to me that I never mentioned the prints that I have for sale on the blog (or maybe I did and I'm just getting old). So that is what I'm going to do...

I have several new prints that my wife essentially designed (she's the smart one in the family) that everyone seems to like quite a bit. Usually I sell them just at Cons, but I realize not everyone can get out to a Con to see me so I decided to make these available to everyone. Here they are:

and these are the prices:

Every print is $10 (+shipping)

Choose any 5 prints for $45 (+shipping)or choose and 10 prints for $90 (+shipping)

Just message me and let me know what you'd like.

AND while I'm at it I be remiss if I didn't remind you that my two current sketchbooks are still available through the CTN Store (just click on the links beneath the books)...

2013 Sketchbook

                                              The Art of Steven E Gordon

Bringing everyone up to date...

...in theory.

In May I'll be headed up to the Big Wow Comic Con in San Jose, CA - May 18 - 19 and sitting in Artist Alley. I've never been there but I understand that it's one of the better conventions and definitely worth going to. I'll also be going to several other cons after that one and I'll let you know as soon as those are locked into place. As far as SDCC goes it doesn't look like I'll have a table (I'm on the waiting list for what that's worth) - though I might be on a panel. If you know of any other cons that would like to invite me I'd be willing to discuss it with them....

And with all Comic Cons in mind, my wife (being the genius that she is) figured out the type of prints I should be printing to sell at these cons. X-Men: Evolution-centric prints. Seems obvious after she points it out, eh? She even art directed them to make sure they suited her taste - which is better than mine in almost every case. I had a test run at the CTN RoadTrip last weekend and she was right they sold great - and that wasn't even a comic or animation crowd like you see at conventions. In fact, they sold so well that I need to re-order a couple of them and I decided to create a few new ones prior to Big Wow if I have the time.

I'm taking a survey of sorts and trying to decide who else to include. At this point it seems like Jean and Toad are definites and maybe a Logan. I'm also considering a brotherhood group shot and possibly Walk on the Wildside groupshot. So if you have any other suggestions feel free to include them in the comments.
Also if time permits, I might venture outside of XME and create a Holli Wood and Lonette (from Cool World) and one from Swan Princess.

I'm also considering putting them together to sell as a set for on-line customers. If that happens I'll let you know....

Also don't forget I've got two new sketchbooks for sale via the CTN Store (where you can also get other artists' work as well).

The direct link to the "art of Steven E Gordon is here. It sells for $11.95 and comes signed and with a doodle on the first page.

And the direct link to my 2013 sketchbook is here. It sells for $15 and also comes signed and with a doodle.

AH! inspiring....

I was having a discussion with someone on my "art of..." page on FaceBook about the different face and body types I designed for the ladies of X-Men: Evolution and I thought I would share it here as well.

The obvious reason I designed different body and face types was to help try and create specific personalities for each of them. Though if you're familiar with animation (and comics) you know that's not really necessary since so many other animated shows create cookie cutter faces and body types and just change voices, hair color and costumes to differentiate one character from another. The other reason is because I was inspired early on in the process.

Boyd Kirkland showed me a lot of artwork he admired from comic artists to try and get the ball rolling. Comic artists I was unfamiliar with since I hadn't really looked at comics much since the glory days of Buscema, Kane, Kirby and others from that era. The art he showed me had one particular piece of art by Adam Hughes (who since then I've become quite enamored with). It was this piece he created for Wizard magazine of these super heroines ladies all lined up.

Every one of them had a unique face - and a face I'd never seen before in comics or animation. Even though I greatly admired the great artistic abilities of the legends Buscema, Kane, and Kirby, I recognized that for the most part each of these great artists had an idealized version of a woman they drew and all their women were all basically cookie cutter designs.

I was so impressed with the unique and individual faces Adam Hughes gave each one of these women (as well as their body types) that I decided that was how we should proceed with our show's designs and, thankfully, Boyd agreed.
From that point on I strove to make Jean different from Rogue who was different from Kitty and they were different from Mystique/Raven who was different than Storm.

This carried on into the second season when we introduced Boom Boom and the other new recruits.

Jean was more athletic and had a runner's figure and wasn't very large on top while Rogue didn't have much of a butt even though she was very busty ( in fact she was the bustiest of the girls). Kitty was very slender and somewhat gawky while BoomBoom had a more curvaceous bottom though her bust was pretty non-existent.
The details on their faces that made them different from one another are too many to really list, but I will say that almost all of them had different head shapes, types of lips and often different eyes and noses.


I also carried this through with the guys as well, but that's not quite as unusual in animation  - or even comics.
This idea also followed through when I designed attitude poses for each character and their walk cycles. No one was ever posed or moved the same way. They were all unique and kept in character as i perceived it.

Needles to say the KidsWB execs were happy to see that not every female was built like a Playboy bunny.
Of course, by the time the animation came back from overseas some of that was lost, but I think enough of it still came through that it was clear to most of the audience we had tried to do something a little different....

The winners are...

...Jim McClain and Blaze Rocket who correctly identified the original inspirations for the character designs for three of the X-Men: Evolution characters. Jim correctly guessed Rogue was inspired by Xenia Seeberg from Lexx and Wanda was inspired by Fairuza Balk of the Craft and Return to Oz. Blaze Rocket correctly identified BoomBoom's original inspiration as singer Gwen Stefani of No Doubt fame


For all their effort I promised to do a drawing of a character of their choosing. Blaze Rocket chose Wanda and Jim asked for a drawing of Jean in her normal uniform and what she would look like if she had ever turned into Phoenix on X-Men: Evolution. Before the questions or misunderstandings start I want to make clear that this design is just something I came up with to respond to Jim's request and was not something that was ever considered all those years ago on XME

So congratulations and thank you to Jim and Blaze Rocket for playing along. I might try this again sometime in the future since there were many more characters that were inspired by celebrities in XME as well as on The Ultimate Avengers.

Who's that girl....

This is a commission I'm working on of the XME bad girls. This is the first rough drawing for it and the tight rough that I transferred to an 11x17 board. I'll also post the next steps as I finish them.

I posted this on Facebook the other day and it received a lot of attention and a few curious people asking who they were. I'm sure everyone coming to this blog recognizes them so that's not an issue. I'm also sure many of you have heard me discuss the fact that many of the XME characters were based on actual people - celebrities to one degree or another. I then asked if anyone could guess what celebrities these were based on ...and I was surprised no one really tried to guess. So I even offered up a clue: One's from an old Sci-Fi show (I think BBC), one was an actress in 2 iconic movies and the other was based on a popular singer.
Of course, you need to keep in mind when XME was on TV, but at least one of the celebrities is still somewhat in the public eye.
Anyone willing to venture a guess?

Just to sweeten the pot I'll do a sketch for the winner of any XME character they choose and post it on this Blog. 


And just for fun here's another commission I'm working on as well of Rogue and Gambit.

Lon time no see...

I actually have a few minutes (something that doesn't seem to happen too often these days) so I thought I'd toss down a post and give everyone an update.
This last weekend I went to the Long Beach Comic-Con and had a great time (Saturday was much nicer then Sunday, but that's not too unusual from what I hear) and I did several sketches and sold some books - and best of all I was able to see some old friends as well as meet some new ones.

These are the sketches I did at LBCC.

  

This month I'll be at CTNX, The Creative Talent Network Exposition, doing more of the same I hope. So if you'd like to come to this one-of-a-kind Animation Con Nov 18-20 you can still use my discount code GORANIX11 to purchase tickets. If you're into animation and the people that make it then this is the Con for you.

 

Also, in case you haven't already seen it on FB of the FOCer's Blog, I thought I'd share with you my latest drawing for the FOCer's Blog. The theme was Universal Monsters and I chose the first Universal Monster: Lon Chaney as the Phantom of the Opera

 
 

Questions from XME fans

Recently I was asked by a very nice young lady (a young lady who sometimes dresses as XME Jean Grey) if I wouldn't mind answering some questions from members of a group that she belongs to - an X-Men: Evolution group, of course. I told her I'd do my best and from the looks at some of the questions these fans seem to know a lot more about the show then I do.

WHY did the show have to end?

That's an answer that I can only answer in vague terms since I don't want to offend any future employers. I can tell you another season had been originally part of the original contract and plan, but for several reasons KidsWB and Marvel decided not to go through with the next season and just wrap it all up at the end of season 4. Needless to say we were disappointed.

 
Do you ever read any of the fanfics or look at fanart created by the fans for the show?

I've never read any of the FanFic (though I understand some of it can get quite "interesting"), but every now and then I stumble across some of the FanArt (some of that can get quite "interesting" as well). I do get sent some photos of some of the Cosplays though every now and then. Feel free to send me any of the FanFic or FanArt. I'm always curious....I think.

Why did they create the acolytes with good-guy characters?

I wasn't part of that decision so I can't tell you the exact reasons since it wasn't one of the discussions I was involved in. In fact, I knew nothing in regards to the Acolytes prior to this show - as I've said in other interviews, I hadn't read or collected comics in a lot of years prior to getting the job on XME so I wasn't even aware of who Wolverine was. 
I regards to the Acolytes, I suspect the reason we used these specific characters is that they wanted to bring them onto the show and this seemed like a good way to bring them in as opposed to bringing in some bad guys never to be used again. Especially since (or so I've heard) that there was some history of these characters being bad guys at one time or another.

Why wasn't Dazler/Marrow/the White Queen/Polaris ever included?

I can only address two of these since I don't recall any discussion in regards to Polaris or Emma (though I'm not sure why - especially since Emma she seems to be a fan favorite and a favorite of Craig Kyle who was the Marvel guy starting in season 3). I know that Marrow wasn't used because we accidentally created a new character (Spyke) that had the same basic powers as Marrow. Believe it or not, we truly had never heard of Marrow until after we had already went forward with the Spyke intro episode. Kind of surprises me , in retrospect, that Marvel never said anything. The other character that you mention that I remember some discussion of is Dazzler and, if I recall right, it was determined she was too dated.

What are the main character's ages?
We never determined specific ages other than the obvious ones. Kitty was young enough to just be learning to drive in season 2 (if I'm remembering right) and Scott and Jean were seniors. Most of the characters were discussed in more general terms. Like so-and-so was in their 30's or so-and-so is younger than Kurt, etc.
Sounds like you have it right to me and I don't think I can add anything more to it. I don't think we thought of them in any more specific terms than these.

Are there ANY plans to continue the series someday? Maybe in comic form?
Anything is possible...but I seriously do not believe there is any chance of the show coming back after being cancelled so long ago at this point. Unless DVD sales are huge (like Family Guy) I wouldn't hold my breath.
All I can say is anything IS possible, BUT I really can't imagine it happening. Marvel never really accepted the show (even though many of the ideas we came up with they adapted and claimed as their own) so I can't imagine now that Marvel is in charge of their own animation that anything more will ever happen with the XME universe.

If the series hadn't ended, what storyline would they have tackled next?
To my knowledge the next season's shows had never been seriously discussed (this usually only happened after the next season was green lighted) and these visions were created as just a way to wrap up the series for the fans - and ourselves.

Where was Gambit's flirtatious side in Evo?
I wasn't involved in story discussions for season 3 and 4 (I was only freelancing the character designs and the occasional storyboard - my day job was at DreamWorks) so I don't know what their thinking was in regards to Gambit. I thought they tried to use it a little bit, but it didn't become quite as big a deal as it did in the comics. Keep in mind we liked (and I think the fans did too) that Rogue had sort of a thing for Scott and too much Gambit/Rogue flirtation would've interfered with that.

Why wasn't Gambit at the final battle with Apocalypse?
I have no idea...sorry. Too many Mint Juleps...?

Why wasn't Rogue and Gambit's relationship explore further?
I think I answered this in the earlier question as best as I could. When I was involved in story discussions I know we didn't feel it was necessary to replicate all relationships and personalities from the comics.  We sure went quite different with many of them like Rogue (no longer the big haired Southern Belle but now Goth Trailer Trash).

If the show had continued, would Gambit have joined the X-men, and if so, how?
It wouldn't have surprised me, but if anything was specifically planned I couldn't say for sure. My best guess would be that he would've only been an occasional guest star on the show and used for specific episodes.

Does Rahne shed?
Constantly. That's why they didn't let her on any of the good furniture.

Why did Rahne get taken out from the show?
After season 2, I think it was determined that we had too many characters to adequately service and give quality time to so they used the outing of Mutants in season 3 to move some of the characters off screen. 

What is the correct way to pronounce "Rahne"? In the show, both "Rain" and "Rawnee" are used.
When we checked with Marvel they said it was pronounced "Rain", but I had a friend that was actually from Ireland and even though she'd never heard of that name before she assumed it would be pronounced "Rawnee" and couldn't imagine it ever being pronounced "Rain". Why was it pronounced both ways on the show...? I can only assumed someone made a mistake and it wasn't caught.

Was Moira MacTaggert Rahne's foster mother in Evo verse?
I don't think we ever went that far in our thinking. If someone had come up with a good storyline that involved that connection we might have used it.

Would you say Magneto is a: Misunderstood old guy in a helmet or Crazy old guy  bent on worldwide domination?
Even though it wasn't real apparent in season 1, I think our goal was to try and show that he was someone that had been wounded by the Human race and felt he needed to do what he could to save Mutant-kind. I think this actually worked much better in Wolverine and the X-Men then in XME.  I also think he suffered from being forced into the position of being the Big Bad in XME and this caused any subtleties to be smoothed over quite a bit.

Where did Pietro disappear to for the end of "Shaddowdance"? (He's seen arriving with his four dates, but after arriving all five are never seen again).
Though I haven't read any of them, I suspect that FanFic has probably addressed that better than I could.

Would Wanda have ever gotten her memories back?
I'd be willing to bet that would have come up in a future episode. We were very proud of that whole "Wanda was institutionalized by her father and was damaged goods" storyline we created, so I imagine it would've come up again.

Who is older, Pietro or Wanda? How old were they when Wanda was institutionalized?
Pietro was probably 8 and Wanda was probably 6. But I could be wrong...
I always assumed they were fraternal twins - isn't that what they were in the comics (not that mattered in the XME universe)? But I'm not sure we ever discussed it. If pressed I would assume Pietro was slightly older

What exactly happened to Kurt in those experiments?
We never really discussed it (that I recall) and we purposely left it vague so the audience could come to their own conclusion. BUT I always assumed that Magneto had done something to force his mutation to occur sooner then it would have naturally (we were working on the hypothesis that mutations didn't usually manifest until the character in question reached adolescence). Whether that caused his mutation to be different  than what it would have been if left to evolve on its own is anyone's guess.

What does the "E" stand for in Kurt E. Wagner? (from "Bada Bing Bada-Boom" where Tabby has doodled what fans speculate to be her initials (T.S.) and Kurt's initials (K.E.W.) in a heart http://www.xmenetv.com/images/caps/02/02_03_56.jpg http://www.xmenetv.com/images/caps/02/02_03_57.jpg )
I have absolutely no idea...sorry. My guess is it was something the writer came up with.

How much can Kurt eat in one sitting?
I don't know...as much as a normal teenager - In other words, a lot!

What's X-23's real name?
I'm pretty sure there was never one created. I think the idea was, since she was  a clone and had no real parents, that she was just given an identification number and X-23 was the 23rd attempt at the cloning process.

Why were two entire episodes devoted to X-23?
There might be a couple of reasons for that. The first is that it was a way to make a couple of episodes specifically involving Wolverine without them being directly about him and the other reason is that the Marvel guy in charge of the show starting in Season 3 was Craig Kyle and he created the character X-23. X-23 was based on the niece (I think she was the niece) of Craig's fiance. She was used as the original model for X-23 and Craig's fiance was used as the model for Dr Risman.

Paul: Where did he come from, and why wasn't there MORE of him?
I assume the writer's came up with the character so Scott could have a non-Mutant friend and eventually they found fewer reasons and less of a need to include him. I did try to insert him into crowd-shots whenever possible, but that was pretty limited

Did Paul ever realize that his milk was overflowing? (While he's watching the X-men on TV in "Day  of Reckoning: Part Two")
If he never figured out Scott was a Mutant then I suspect he never realized his milk was overflowing and probably is still overflowing to this day

What colour are Scott's Eyes? (In the show, in various flashbacks, and single-frame freezes, his eyes are shown as being Green, Blue, and Black (or possibly a very dark brown).)

Hmmm...I'm not sure. I know we did come up with a color model, but I couldn't tell you which color was the official one...sorry

What ethnicity is Avalanche?
American Trailer Trash. Pretty sure we never worried about his heritage beyond that.

Why was Spyke blond?
We were just trying to come up with a unique look for him and it helped tie him in a little with his Aunt Ororo. Originally he was designed with Corn-rows, but the people in charge thought it looked too "gangsta" and might scare the children (?)

Blob vs Juggernaut. Who'd win?!
Juggernaut

Since Forge appears underage, does he have a hard time buying beer or getting into clubs and stuff?
Forge doesn't party - he's a geek. At the end of MiddleVerse originally Forge was going to give Kurt the Star Trek "live long and prosper" sign and Kurt would try and return it unsuccessfully (he was NC at this point), but the KidsWB didn't want us to reference Star Trek.

Was Piotr an artist, like in the comics?
I'm not sure and I doubt we would have gone there, but anything is possible.

Was there a back story or origin story for Ray Crisp? Why was he at the institute? How did he know about the Morlocks?
I'm not sure his backstory was ever really worked out (same for many of the new recruits), but we did know he had a relationship at one point with the Morlocks.


I'm afraid I wasn't nearly as authoritative as some of the XME fans would've liked, but I did my best and I'm always willing to answer more questions (assuming I know the answers) In the future.

RIP Boyd Kirkland

Instead of posting my drawing choices today for Fan Request Friday, I thought I needed to devote a little space and time to the passing of a great producer, director, writer, storyboard artist, collaborator and friend, Boyd Kirkland.
If you haven't already heard Boyd passed away several days ago after a long battle with pulmonary disease. He was too young to go and he still had plenty more to offer. Even though it wasn't completely unexpected all that knew him and worked with him will feel the loss. I also suspect that all his fans will miss him as well.

Boyd and I worked together often over the years. Sometimes he would hire me to work for him and sometimes we would work side-by-side. On every project I always admired his dedication, his creativity, his sense of art direction and his willingness to let others do what they do best. It was always a pleasure to work with him.
When he hired me to work on X-Men:Evolution everyone was initially worried that this would turn into something akin to an "X-Men Babies" type of show. Thankfully that wasn't the case and he tirelessly worked at  keeping the integrity of our re-imagined X world viable and solid. During XME Boyd, and all the directors  would spend almost every lunchtime discussing story ideas and ways to improve the show. Many of what I consider to be the best ideas for the series came about this way including the Logan and Capt America WWII teamup and the re-imagining of Wanda, the Scarlet Witch.
It wasn't until a few years ago that he realized just how many fans XME really had. A couple of years ago at SDCC when we were sitting in the audience for a panel for Wolverine and the X-Men (the new show we were currently involved with) a couple of fans recognized us and came up to sing XME's praises. He seemed stunned that we'd been recognized and he hadn't realized the impact that the show still had on fans. One of the most beloved XME episodes was all due to Boyd. On Angel's Wings was not only produced by Boyd, but it was also written by him.

Shows that he produced always had a lot of heart and character in them and I was always proud to be involved with them. This last year he was still busy directing on the second season of The Avengers - Earth's Mightiest Heroes and I was glad I could work alongside him one more time.

Most important of all, Boyd was one of the good guys and a good friend. I'll miss him

Because you asked for it...

I know...how unusual 2 posts in one day (it's unusual for me to post twice in one month sometimes).

Anyway, someone, in one of the other posts, asked if I'd upload some Toad/Todd from  XME to my web-site and since that's more complicated I thought I'd post  a few images here.