The Batman I grew up with...

I love Batman. He's been my favorite superhero since I was a kid. There have been alot of versions since I was 10 years old, picking up Detective Comics from the spinner rack at the local 7-Eleven, then riding home to emerse myself in the stories and artwork. But the version that continues to stick with me the most is the one from my childhood days...The Norm Breyfogle Batman; THAT is MY Batman. Bar none.

Seems to me, the stories focused on Batman being a hero...a SUPER-hero. Fighting the bad guys, saving the innocent, and using his brain to track down clues and work out mysteries. Superheroes back then were somewhat magical.

They were a pinnacle that we couldn't achieve. They were always up on that pedistal, always to be looked up to. It was the fantasy, that thing to aspire to but never reach.

I miss those superheroes.

Today, we get EMO, dark and moody. And just as broken as the rest of us. We get reality, in a sense, as no one can be so flawless. It seems some people like that; and in all honesty, I get enjoyment from these new stories, too. They are entertaining. I just miss that fantasy, that escapism, that came as a 10 year old reading a comic. And I'm a little sad that my son won't get to experience that as well.

So here's my tribute to that great era of comics, and a hope that someday we can return to it.

Cheers
Patrick

Raiden

I haven't played Metal Gear in 8 or so years. When I was searching for a cool character to draw I found Raiden.

TMNT Make up post

Here is my 80's black and white explosion make up submission. I wasn't around for enough of the 80's to have any real knowledge about the black and white explosion, but I do love the Ninja Turtles.

Cyborg Ninja

This is why I love Timberline. I probably would have never drawn this character, in fact I don't really know who this character is or much about Metal Gear in the first place. I did a wiki search and saw the words "Cyborg Ninja" and before I saw what he looked like I decided that was going to be the one.

I remember when the one for Playstation came out and the countless hours I spent watching my friends command a character to crawl on his stomach across the floor thinking, "this can't possibly be fun" lol. There was a part where he snuck around under a cardboard box like some Looney Toon episode. He is in the stronghold of some elite covert killing operation and nobody notices the shuffling box? Anywho, Cyborg Ninja!

Metal Gear

Well I guess it will be just me and Patrick holding it down this week. Guess I picked a dud of a topic…fuck it! I dig it so I did two pieces! lol

My first is from Metal Gear Solid with Snake and the Metal Gear REX. I picked that game up in college and it rocked my world! Been a big fan since then.

The second work is of Raiden from Metal Gear Solid 4. I didn't mind him in Metal Gear Solid 2, but everybody seemed to hate him and then they bring him back all badass in the 4th game. So I get to play as crappy Raiden and not super awesome cyber ninja Raiden? WTF?

~Don Austin

Get off my lawn...

...or I'll sneak up behind you and stab you in the neck.

Here's some old Solid Snake; I always thought the cinematics for Guns of the Patriots were pretty amazing. The only Metal Gear game I actually liked playing, however, was the first one for the NES. That was awesome...but this sneaking up on dudes, stealth type game? Yawn. Not my bag.

Maybe I'll color gramps up later.

Cheers
Patrick

Captain Crunch vs The Sogmaster

...I loves me some Peanut Butter Crunch.

//Tony the Tiger - Final with Process

Final Pencils

Final Inks

Colors

This is the first of what I hope to be a full on project that will eventually culminate into an arcade game.  

Pencils were taken into Photoshop, converted to cyan for inking.  I printed off that cyan copy, inked it, and then re-scanned the piece.  Once scanned, I clean up any stray pencil lines and brought it into Illustrator and further cleaned up using the Live Trace feature.  I did this to give a better, more organic feel to the inks as my inking tends to lose some of the organic-ness of the pencil drawing.  Then it was brought back into Photoshop for a traditional coloring.  While the subject matter usually has a cel-shaded coloring applied to it, I chose to go with a more "traditional" coloring style as it is the desired look for the overall project.

Any critiques are greatly encouraged!

Quisp

I had to bring us some quazy energy from Quisp!

Trix the Rabbit

For my submission I chose Trix the Rabbit. 

I originally did a cartoony sketch. I didn't think this was enough "me." I did the darker watercolor after that.

The Captain

Cereal characters! I really liked this topic. Wish I would have had more time to play around with this one...

This weeks pick. Metal Gear!

I still owe you guys a cereal icon! lol 

Anyhow I want to draw something from Metal Gear so that's this weeks topic. Anything from the Metal Gear series. 

~Don Austin

A Tasty Pair

I kind of got a little carried away this week. As soon as Brett sent me the topic I knew it had to be Frankenberry which I am sure wasn't much of a surprise. While I was drawing him though I got a hankering to take a stab at Boo Berry. These also begged to be in color. Bold bright colors just like they use on the boxes to lure children into their cereal crunchy goodness and scream at mom in the store until she buys some for them. The funny thing is I don't really like cereal except for Fruity Pebbles. I know.

"Frankenberry"

White Prismacolor pencil on 8"x10" black Canson Mi-Teintes board by Robert Elrod.



Here it is with a little digital color.



I took inspiration from classic photos of Boris Karloff as The Monster to create this portrait of "Frankenberry". Hope you find as much enjoyment in it as I did in drawing it.

All the best!
Robert

"Undead" commissioned sketch at SDCC

I had started another piece for this theme but ended up not yet finishing it. I was at San Diego Comic Con. So sue me. I did manage to do this commissioned sketch while in San Diego, however, so I'm posting it here for your amusement. It's inspired by a make up design from AMC's The Walking Dead television show. Hope you enjoy it!



"Undead" ... ink and ink wash by Robert Elrod.

The Undead

Afternoon fellas,I've always enjoyed drawing zombies. They're good warm up because you can practically take them anywhere you want to and just let your pencil fly. I had no notions of being able to out zombie you bastards. Rob, Kevin and Jim...the undead is as natural to you guys as your damn signatures. But I had fun playing in your graveyard anyway.

I've really been inspired by some of the great zombie makeup being done these days. Specifically the stuff for the walking dead. Some on here (Kevin) will think this should have been a portrait of Robert Kirkman. I don't know who that is because I don't read "comics" So I did a portrait of an undead Frank Darabont instead. He directs movies, so he's deservedly "famous"Hope you all know my shit talking about comics is all in good fun. I'm just trying to get as much of it in as I can before I'm forced to eat my words. Great submissions as always, see you all next week...

Vampire Hunter D

I think I was 13 years old when I first saw the Vampire Hunter D anime. Actually I think my mom bought it for me for my birthday. I had never herd of it and she just got it for me because she knew I was into anime. I remember having  thought it might be a bust before I started the VHS tape but after watching the movie it ended up being one of my all time favorites! I guess I’m a sucker for halfies ;) I think this classifies as undead, as he is a half vampire and the son of Dracula (sorry if I spoiled it for you but you had like 20 something years to see the movie).Either way that’s my entry for this weeks pick, so bring on more undead hordes XD

~Don

Zombies? Easy Like Sunday Morning...

It occurred to me, that as much as I love zombies, I had never done an Outdoorsman vs. Zombies drawing of any kind. So here it is. Hope you enjoy it...color to come soon, but I wanted to get this up on the blog.

Cheers
Patrick

PS...for those that don't know, I do a webcomic (soon to be digital download comic) called The Outdoorsman over at www.odmcomic.com. Feel free to check it out.

And sorry for the plug. :)

Zombies

This was a fun topic for me. I did this from my hotel room in San Diego.



Here's a decent scan of Rob's piece. That hotel lighting really adds a lot of additional atmosphere.

The Viking Dead

I have been wanting to do a short digital comic with undead vikings for a while now so this weeks topic gave me a good reason to try and sketch some out. Now to make that comic...

The Surfin' Dead!

EDIT: Added more detail and an ink layer.

Took my inspiration from the Cramps song.

check, check, is this thing on?

I think i did this right ? So what is it this week ? undead? so are were just gonna take a seat and let ELROD smash this topic out of the park?
AM

Suspense!

Made it with a few minutes to spare!

When the shooting wraps, the cutting begins!

Here's my entry for this week's theme, Suspense! For me, I think of one thing when I hear the word suspense...Hitchcock. The Master. My piece imagines a world where the director can't help but get in on the action after the cameras have stopped rolling. I think I will probably paint this one up when I get to a lull in my schedule. But for now, here's the drawing.

Timberline Make up:

Good morning folks!Sorry for my absence over the past couple weeks. I did, in fact, create some Alien artwork and some independent comic artwork over the last couple weeks...but posting that stuff takes time ;-)Anyway, I wanted to jump back into the blog, but thought it would be appropriate to share the stuff I had done.

I wanted to do an Alien themed pinup based on WWII bomber nose art. It kind of veered off course though and became its own thing.With the Dave Stevens piece I just wanted to pay homage to one of my heroes. I don't think it fits the criteria of the black and white explosion that happened in the 80's. But those of you who know how much I know about comics know that I couldn't possibly know what the hell that was all about :-) Frankly, you all should be impressed that I knew The Rocketeer was a comic before it was a movie!I know I also missed the Poke Mon week...I had these two roommates in college that were so into Anime that it was practically a lifestyle for them. Basically from then I was very aware of the dangers of Anime and have made a choice to live my life without it :-)Great entries everyone! I wont keep you all in "suspense" much longer.

"The Wages of Sin"

"The Wages of Sin" Ink & Watercolor

I've listened to a broadcast of the "Suspense" show called "Lights Out: Knock at the Door." It's a pretty cool tale of a woman that kills her mother in-law. The ghost of the dead woman appears at night knocking at the basement door. In the end the woman contemplates suicide while sitting on a ladder with a noose around her neck. The ghost of the mother in-law pushes the ladder down, killing the woman.

Thanks for letting me be a part of this blog.

http://www.escape-suspense.com/ghost_stories/

"MeadowVale 1212"

"MeadowVale 1212" ... colored pencil on 8"x10" black Canson Mi-Teintes board by Robert Elrod.

When I read Luke's mention of the old radio show "Suspense" being 'radio's outstanding theater of thrills' I had to check it out. My piece is inspired by one of the broadcasts from the show. The episode was called "The Dead Sleep Lightly" and aired March 30, 1943. No, I wasn't around for it but found a great website that lists all of the episodes with links to recordings of the show. If you're interested in checking out the show, here's a link to this specific episode: http://www.escape-suspense.com/2009/09/suspense-the-dead-sleep-lightly.html.

Make Up: Cthulhuchu

It was killing me that I missed a week! I thought Cthulhuchu sounded hilarious then Robert told me that it was already in existance (I should have known better) but that wasn't going to stop me! This is the first drawing I have done on my iPad. I like drawing on it but it is going to take some more experimenting with. Anywho, not for the contest but a late entry for the Pokemon topic.

Suspense!

So, my first "real" digital painting.  Pencil and Photoshop, painted on my cheap Bamboo® tablet.  I started to get a feel for the process toward the end, sort of.   This probably could have taken a third of the time I took to complete it, if I had known what I was doing.

Parker

Suspense was a tricky topic for me. The first thing that came to mind was Hitchcock but I didn't want to go with my first inclination. The other thing that came to mind was film noir or just the "noir" genre. I have really been enjoying Darwyn Cook's take on the Parker novels and love the flat blue colors he has thrown into the noir mix and this topic seemed like a good excuse to finally try my hand at that.

Noir has been a genre I am interested in and one day I might just have to do a story with it.

80s B&W Explosion: BACCHUS (aka Deadface)

My rendition of Eddie Campbell's Bacchus - one of my all-time favorites. Tried to channel my inner-Eddie here (which wasn't that much of a stretch - I love getting all scribbly with my pens).

The Tentacled Brains of Space Station 613

"That IS a moon! AND a space station!"

When the theme of 80's black & white comics explosion was brought up I knew immediately that I wanted to do a piece of art paying tribute to Mike Baron & Steve Rude's "Nexus". For me, Nexus was the coolest indie comic at the time. I still love it!

I didn't expect to get quite as a tied up in the piece as I did. Hopefully you can see that I spent a little time on it and had a great time doing it.

This piece was done with ink, ink wash and liquid watercolor on 11"x17" Strathmore 500 bristol (part of their "sequential" series of papers). This was my first time using that particular paper and I have to say I really like it. There was just enough tooth to get the dry brushing effects that I like and not so much that I couldn't lay down a smooth line too. Hope you enjoy the piece!

Go read some old Nexus comics!
Robert

Grendel

I was waffling between Grendel and Tank Girl (and Cerebus which I am surprised hasn't popped up yet lol) son when Mr. Austin dropped his Tank Girl on us my choice was clear.

I have to admit I am more of a casual observer of the Grendel series. I love Matt Wagner's work but funny enough I have never read Grendel. The closest I came was the Grendel: War Child series from Dark Horse when I was a kid but it had a mature warning on it so my parents wouldn't let me buy it.

I am familiar with the story, the lineage of the different hunters (this one being Grendel Rose/Hunter Rose) so maybe one day I will actually read it but for now I have always wanted to draw him and this topic seemed a perfect fit.