Running late...

...as usual, but my way of saying "oops" is to do a little extra.
Since I started doing this Fan Request Friday on Twitter and FB these two (actually three) characters have been suggested every week, so it felt like it was time to finally do them. Once again, I was very unfamiliar with any of these characters though I had at least heard of Cowboy BeBop (My son used to watch it all the time if I recall right), but I hadn't a clue about Ch'p from Green Lantern.
I hope they succeed despite my lack of experience with them.

Now have a good Memorial Day and remember it's not just about BBQ and a day at the beach

Worth a try...

....though I'm not sure it works. Here is my take on the much requested (for Fan Request Friday) Asterix and Obelix. If you're not familiar with them here is a link that will give you some idea and reason to possibly agree with my original assessment. Next week I'll try to go more traditional...

Fan request booster

These two guys have been requested consistently more than anyone (aside from X-M:E Rogue that is) so I thought it was about time I gave them a shot. I'm not real familiar with Booster Gold at all, though I do recall a Blue Beetle from way back when I was still buying comics for 12 cents - though he didn't quite look like this as I recall.
I was sorely tempted to do a Frazetta tribute piece (it was suggested), but since I still plan on writing up my Fire & Ice remembrances I figure I'll include one at that time. Hopefully I'll be able to do all that by about mid-week.

Fan Rquest Friday again...

Last week there were a lot of great requests and ideas (I wish I had time to do more of them, but  there wasn't much response from my blog followers, but I thought I'd try it again.

Send in your ideas and suggestions and I'll pick one to do over the weekend to post on Twitter (which would cover Facebook) and here as well.

I'm also planning on writing something up about my time on Fire & Ice working with Frank Frazetta in tribute to his recent passing away...maybe even a new drawing or two if I have the time.
In the meanwhile here's a drawing I did of Darkwolf a few years ago that is in my first sketchbook---

A little Modesty...

This week, in honor of Peter O'Donnell's death I decided to choose Modesty Blaise as the subject 0f Friday's fan request. To be honest I hadn't heard of his death and even on the web-sites I visit there was no mentiuon of it so I thought I would do my part to give him his just due with my little picture. By the way, if you're unfamiliar with Modesty and her creator, I linked to sites that could help explain them better than I ever could.

That time again...

...for Fan Request Friday. Last week's sketch of Deja Thoris got a lot of great reactions - thanks everyone. Not sure what I did different than usual (except draw a beautiful mostly naked woman - oh, never mind), but I'm glad everyone seemed to appreciate my effort.
Send in your suggestions for a character and I'll pick one to draw up over the weekend. I might even post a non Fan Request Friday post...pretty exciting, eh?

A little Deja vu...

When I was much younger (back in the days of the dinosaurs, as my kids will tell you) one of my favorite authors was Edgar Rice Burroughs and my favorite story of his was the Princess of Mars. I used to draw John Carter and his Princess Deja Thoris even before I could draw something that resembled a woman. So when for three weeks running someone put in a request for Deja Thoris I mulled it over for awhile and desided to give her another shot. Usually I've drawn her in more or less an action pose (or ready to take action, at the very least) so I thought I'd try something a little different and try a pin-up pose. Not sure I quite suceeded, but it was worth a try.

Fan Request Friday Request...

I was out of town for a few days (Vegas, baby!) to celebrate my second son's 26th birthday (we had a great time despite my habving to work while in the hotel room - they had wi-fi and a scanner/printer so it was easy) and now I'm back.
I didn't want to leave all of you non-Twitter and non-FaceBook followers out this week. So go ahead and send in your suggestions for a character and I'll choose from them, draw it up and post it here (as well as Twitter) over the weekend.
Cheers!

Better late...

...and this one was pretty late. In fact, I realized too late that I never posted the Friday Fan Request here - sorry. I'll try and do it next Friday.
This actually wasn't the request I was going to start then I realized that I've done nothing but ladies every week - so I decided to do something with at least one male in it. Oddly enough I've never drawn Capt Marvel (or any of the Marvel Family) and even odder than that, this was the last Capt Marvel I came to know as a child. Since I'm not as old as some of you might think, I actually was familiar with the Capt Marvel from Marvel Comics first and before that the android Capt Marvel created by the same guy that created the original Human Torch (also an android) - ya' know, the one that would yell "Split" and his various body parts would fly apart as he fought crime until he yelled "Xam" to call them back. But I digress...

Here's the most recent Friday Fan Request: The Marvel Family!

roughing Sailor Moon

And because someone asked (and you know who you are) I thought I would post the rough for the Sailor Moon piece so you can see some of my process. With this piece there wasn't a lot of process - just a quick rough and then the final drawing.

Sailor Moon...

There were lots of interesting requests this week and I wish I time to do more. Maybe I'll pick one of them next week if they make it onto the list.

I chose this request because it was outside of my wheelhouse as they say but to be honest I know nothing whatsoever about Sailor Moon and I thought it was the stretch. I'm not sure I was completely successful, but it was worth a shot.

Fan Request Friday...

That's right, it's Fan Request Friday again (pretty catchy sounding, eh?). That's when I ask for anyone following me on Twitter to send in a character suggestion and then I choose one to do over the weekend. But since my Tweets are also connected to Face Book (and I get suggestions from them as well) I figured I should also open it up to all of you really loyal fans that follow this blog.
So feel free to join in and maybe I'll choose your suggestion.

Frack it...

There were a lot of good suggestions for this week's Friday request, but I chose Starbuck and Boomer (from Battlestar Galactica) . I usually don't do that type of thing - a drawing based on characters from a TV show), butI figured I might as well try expanding my horizons a little, eh?
I think it came out decently -  though I wish I'd gotten a better likeness on Starbuck, but I think Boomer came out okay though. What's funny is I struggled longer on Boomer and it wasn't until I was almost done that I realized Starbuck was only meh. Unfortunately I had too much else to do to keep messing with it, but maybe sometime in the future I will revisit it.

Next week I'll also try and remember to post here as well for suggestions so all of you who don't tweet or use FB can join in.

Anyway, I started a new gig last Monday. I'm directing again at FilmRoman (it's now called now Starz/ FilmRoman, I think, or maybe it's FilmRoman/Starz) on a Marvel project - The Avengers. I haven't worked in-house for almost 2 years so it's taking a little adjusting and I'm also working for the first time on a Cintiq. I've worked on a Wacom pad for years and have actually gotten to the point where I can draw directly on it (to some dgree), but this is the first time I've actually used a Cintiq. It took me about half a day to get used to it and now I can honestly say I've grown to love it and I'm looking forward to the day when I can save a little extra scratch so I can get one for home.

Something daring...

As promised Friday I took requests for a character to do over the weekend and out of the many requests I chose Daredevil - the man without fear.
Never had reason to draw him before so it seemed worth a shot. I also thought I'd venture a little bit outside of my comfort zone and try a little less of an animation version...not sure I quite succeeded, but I'm going to keep trying. There were quite a few good suggestions and I'll possibly take some of them up next week when the time comes.


In the meanwhile, tomorrow I start a new dayjob directing on a new series (sort of) and will actually be working out of the house for the first time in over a year - maybe closer to two years.

Something new...

Earlier today I mentioned on Twitter that it's been awhile since I blogged and I was going to set it on my calendar to post something today. Someone tweeted back that I should post a pic of either Colossus or Storm with a mohawk. And since I've posted quite a few Colossuses lately I thought I'd try a Storm with a mohawk - never had a reason to do one before. Not sure why Storm had a mohawk, but here it is...

This got me thinking that maybe once a week I would take requests, via Twitter, to create a new drawing based on someone's suggestion. I hink I will twwet Friday that I'm taking the requests and then when I see one that intrigues me I'll post it over the weekend here on this blog. So, if you want to get in on requesting something you'll need to follow me on Twitter - and you can do that by clicking the button over on the right of the blog>>>

Commission time...

...well, sort of. This has been on the list for awhile (to the point that I forgot about it until she reminded me) so I finally got around to creating a rough. She wanted me to draw her with her favorite blue elf - evolution style. I'll post the clean-up as soon as that is finished.

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.

Some more fan art...

...sort of.
I just read the TPB/Graphic novel (can never get those straight) of Battle Hymn by B. Clay Moore and Jeremy Haun. I couldn't recommend it more. It deals with a period I like quite a bit  - the Golden Age of Super Heroes. It' s kind of like the part in Watchmen where they deal with their past. Really great stuff! If you're interested and want to buy it just click on the link over there <<<< and, in case I never mentiuoned this before, anytime you click on anything on my web-site that takes you to Amazon I get a little kickback - so feel free to click away.

So here is another peice of Fan Art of one of the characters. The Artificial Man.

Fanart...

Yep. Fanart. I consider almost everything I draw - unless I created it or designed it - to be some type of fanart. But this is fanart in the truest sense of the word. My good friend and colleague, Francesco Francavilla, has worked on some great comics and continues to inspire me (and he is also responsible for the design of my web-site and sketchbooks - he's quite multifaceted) has created a comic that you can follow on his Pulp Sunday blog called Kara Bocek (I've linked to the first page for you). It features a character called the Black Beetle. Several artists have already contributed fanart and I thought I would give it a go as well. This was fun and good practice - especially since I am working up the nerve to start doing some more in the way of comics.

I purposely left it without color because I know that Francesco enjoys coloring and he's a lot better at it then I am.
So head on over to his blog and enjoy yourselves. And don't foget to follow me on Twitter (if you're into that sort of thing) at s_e_gordon

Faster than a speeding bullet...

Since they're now up for sale on Amazon I thought it was safe to post a couple of images from two of the books I did for HarperCollins. They feature DC's Fab 3, but not necessarily in every book. In the book, Meet the Superheroes, you get all three and in The Incredible Shrinking Superhero Superman is featured with Wonder Woman and in the third book Feline Felonies features Batman and Wonder Woman - which I can't show you any images from since they haven't realeased it yet, but is still available for pre-order.
These are very classic takes on the heroes since this is intended for a very young audience. They were definitely a lot of fun and I look forward to doing more of these in the future.
If you're interested in any of these then click on the links above...or you can go to the bottom of this blog and click on the link to my Amazon store (yeah, I know it doesn't quite fit, but I'll mess around with it a little later and see if I can fix that). You can not only find these books there but also all the other books I've done as well as most of the movies and stuff I've worked on over the years.

Also, I've now joined the Twitter revolution (though I'm not sure why) and if you're interested you can view my infrequent tweets at s_e_gordon

Someone wanted to talk to me...

Due to the previous post I attracted the attention of a nice Marvel web-site called Marvel Animation Age over on the Toonzone web-site. If you're not aware of the site you should be - it's always full of interesting news, tidbits and duiscussion and I 'm not saying that because they've occasionally interviewed me either - though it helps.
Anyway, they asked me some other questions about the DTV of the Ultimate X-Men vs. the Ultimate Avengers so if you're interested mozy on over there by clicking on the link

And since I mentioned it in the interview I thought I'd show a couple of samples from the Thor DTV that never went too far (with me at least).

These were obviuosly heavily influenced by Jack Kirby, John Buscema and Walt Simonson.

More Ultimate blasting...

As promised, here are some more of my never used roughs for the Ultimate X-Men Vs the Ultimate Avengers....

A Past Blast...

Several years ago (beginng of 2007) I was hired by Marvel/Lionsgate to be the  character designer for their new direct-to-video adaptation of the Ultimate X-Men Vs. The Ultimate Avengers (or something like that).  This was after my stint designing the first and second Ultimate Avengers DTVs and after I didn't make the grade on designing  for Young Avengers or New Avengers or whatever they were called. I spent quite a few weeks  (paid weeks) doing quite a bit of work on these designs. They were HEAVILY influenced by the comics - I guess they still weren't interested in my own style - and so if you recognize some of the faces, costumes and even some of the poses there's a good reason for that. The UXM Vs the UA was supposed to be only half of the DTV and the other half was going to be a Thor adaptation.

The project was scrapped and replaced with the the Hulk Vs DTVs. We thought they might eventually re-greenlight it, but that obviously never happened. I don't know if it had anything to do with the more mature angle that was intended (as evidenced by the Pietro and Wanda realtionship) or if they didn't think there was a big enough audience for this project or maybe there was another reason altogether...

I recently found them on an old hard drive and thought they held up pretty decently. I started posting some of them at drawingboard.org and thought I should post them here as well...consider it a Holiday treat.

I'll try and post more images soon and I might even post some of the Thor images that were intended for the second half of the project as well....

Things are a-brewin'...

It's been awhile and I should've gotten back to everyone and reported what a smashing success the CTN Expo was - or it seemed to me. It had all the trappings and feel of a long established and supported Comic-Con (though not the size). Lots of old faces and many new ones as well. Plenty of demos and panels and recruiters like Blue Sky, Cartoon Network and Sony. If you are at all interested in animation either as a fan or someone in the industry, or wanting to get into the industry, then you should make plans to come next year. I can't recommend it enough.

Anyway, now for an update...I am finishing my third HarperCollins children's book featuring DC characters Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman - two of the books are printed and I assume will be available at Amazon and your local bookstore soon. I'll post a link for them as soon as I see them listed on Amazon. I've also just finished a book for GrosettDunlap based on the DreamWorks film Shrek Goes Forth which I assume will be released around the time of the film next year.

I'm also working on several projects that I hope will soon see the light of day - including the secret one I've alluded to in the past (though, at this point, they're all secret until they are ready to be announced).

I'm also working on a lot of commissions that I had been putting off for sometime. I'll try to post them as I can.

This one was based on an old EC comic cover with the twist that the commissioner wanted to have an 'erotic' element added - in this case a naked girl replacing the original guy.