Having been out of Drexel for almost a month now, I’ve found myself not stopping in my creative pursuits as I continue my job search.
While in school this passed year I didn’t draw too much. My creative expression was geared more towards 3D asset creation. When I returned home I had some time to be without distraction, and I started reading some comics I’ve had for a while that I never got to finish reading.
After reading those comics I really got inspired to resurrect my own drawing skills and emulate a few styles I really enjoyed. Mark Bagley’s work on Venom: Lethal Protector, and Spider-Man were a huge inspiration for me. The Generation 2 Transformers 12-issue run was also a huge inspiration for me also
Really, there is just something about the early 90s comic book styles I love. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Perhaps it is because it was just before the digital age of comic books, but the traditional mediums were very advanced? Sort of related to how early 90s practical effects look amazing before CGI took hold.
I just enjoy the colors, the line work, and the style of these early 90s artists. The G2 Transformers series is especially over the top 90s grit.
Above is my 2nd attempt at a digital drawing this year. My first was absolutely terrible because I didn’t bother to warm up. With me, I always need to do some warmup sketches to get my sea legs again, but this time I jumped the gun a little. You can check my Instagram for that dumpster fire.
I wasn’t discouraged though. I knew I had it in me, and so I did another piece, that you see above. I never draw women. For some reason, whether it be embarrassment or lack of skill, I never tried to draw women too often. It was always actiony over the top monsters or manly men.
This time around I went out of my comfort zone. I wanted to not draw some overly sexualized woman I always see in comics. Why the hell do they always have giant tits? Like seriously, I think I’ve met a handful of girls with the busts these artists always slap on women.
So with this drawing I decided to cut out the body all together, and go for a portrait. I’m comfortable with drawing a female form, but I wanted to practice the head and neck features specifically. I gathered a load of reference images from online, and had my two computers set up (I don’t have a monitor or desk in my room at home). I got a mixture of comic book drawings, as well as real world drawings to take inspiration from. With that, I was super happy with my results. For not doing any serious drawings in a year, I was so proud of myself. I never am about anything.
The piece is still an embodiment of me, and that excessive 90s style. A tattooed badass chick driving a 77 Pontiac Can Am with a pack of smokes and an Automag 3 on the dashboard speeding through the ever passing city lights. Yeah, the line work is sloppy due to a my own untrained hand, and my cheap Wacom tablet. I could have done more hard shading too, but dammit, I’m still happy how it turned out. It’s proof that I still had the skill in me somewhere. It just needed some warming up and patience.
This 3rd piece was of Transformers Raiden in an over the top G2 style. In all honesty, I think I could have went a little more dynamic with the pose. I think I was a little to afraid to go all in with the hard shading too. I think my linework got better due to changing up my techniques, and I think the colors were even closer to the G2 comic. I sourced the background colors straight from the pages, as well as a noise overlay to give it that scanned comic book paper feel. For a character that never made it into the comics, let alone G2, I’m happy with it, but I definitely liked my first G2 attempt better. 
This was my first G2 attempt. This is a rendition of G1 Battletrap, who never made an appearance in the G2 12 issue series. I used some panels from the G1 comic as color references, and a bunch of media appearances of Battletrap to make my own version. I also sourced those outlandish colors for the background and smoke directly from a G2 panel with Optimus Prime.
I honestly think this rendition was better than my second G2 attempt. Yes the line-work isn’t as straight as Raiden, but the composition is more dynamic, and the colors just work perfectly. It was also a hit on the few social media places I posted it on.
Overall what did I learn? I learned I still had some traditional artistic talent in me. It didn’t disappear. It also doesn’t even matter what mediums you have to express yourself. I had a 5 year old Wacom tablet that was the lowest possible tier you could choose. I managed to use it for all of these pieces here that I posted, and I’m still working on more.
For now I’m moving on back to game development. Criminal Mischief is slowly making progress while I also dive into a mobile boat racing title. I decided to do a boat racer for several reasons. One, is that there aren’t any good ones. Two, I wanted to practice mobile platform development, and three, I wanted to reuse some code that I had to scrap for Criminal Mischief. Basically my old vehicle controller did not match the needs I was going for.
So more on this boat racer coming soon.
