WOLVERINE

As some of you who wandered by my Facebook would know, I got a new HEROES job and that basically accounts for all of last week. Trials, tribulations and stories will be posted when it goes live. Until then, it's all very hush hush. I am very proud of it, though.

Ok, onto Wolverine. I did this piece WAY back in Melbourne. I think it was the first piece I drew on my new laptop. I just found it when going through all my archives of artwork. I can't believe I forgot about it! Huge shout out to Andrew and his brother Ashley (did I get that right, guys?) who commissioned me for this.


SKETCHES


I believe Ashley had the vision, but it was Andrew who put together one of the best, most detailed briefs to work from. When it came to doing the sketches, the picture Andrew had painted in my mind was so vivid. I remember doing an alternative just in case, but they went with the first version - purely inspired by their brief. A chance to draw a berserker Wolverine was really exciting!

LINE ART

The trick to the actual picture was to arrange all the elements in the picture into the most dynamic action-packed way possible. Those claws, man... those claws. They are a NIGHTMARE! Trying to fit all six claws into the picture without breaking Wolverine's Adamantium arms in the process was tough. They then had to look sharp and dangerous! I had great fun playing with the berserker expression. I only noticed well after I'd finished the piece, that the element that had made Wolverine & Havok so painful had been omitted! By subconscious choice or simple forgetfulness, Wolverine had broken out the waxing strips.


GREY TONES

I think this is actually my favourite stage. He just looks totally bad ass here! I think the shadows really help the perspective and the dynamism. I also really like the fill light behind him and to our right.












BACKGROUND

I found this nice moon background and it seemed to add a real sense of dynamism and enhanced the forced perspective of the picture. It also created a really nice mood and perhaps subconsciously evokes ideas of the werewolf killing at the rise of the full moon.







BASE COLOURS

I just simply laid down Wolverine's basic skin tones and the yellow and blue spandex. I don't mind the blue and yellow, but I grew up with the brown and well... browner. Logan just never struck me as the blue and yellow type, you know. And at that moment in the first X-men film, I laughed until I was escorted out of the cinema.





FILL LIGHT

What really brings the drama to the piece is this fun red light from his left. I have no idea what it is though, but it looks good! It evokes blood rages and the intensity of his fury. But really, it could just be the brake lights going on Kitty Pryde's car as she's driven into his bike. This picture is Wolverine's reaction to his prize hawg being totalled.






AIRBRUSH MAGIC

I blew out the moon and added some shine on his claws and metal shoulder plates. I love playing with lighting!












FINAL TOUCHES

It's very rare that I go back to a piece. I recently bumped into an old buddy of mine in London, Xander Black. Xander is not only an incredible painter, designer and one of the best creative directors in London, but he knows a couple of cool Photoshop tricks. He taught me one about colour balancing the image. This involves shifting the palette of colours all in one direction to create a uniform piece. I tried it on Wolvy and it looked spectacular! I emailed this new version over to Andrew and Ashley.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I love the pose. The guys put so much thought into it. But I'm pretty sure I haven't seen the pose before, and I know why. Those damn claws! The perspective on them is a nightmare. It practically gave me a headache! I'm not a big fan of the yellow spandex, but I think the colour scheme I've chosen would make even Hugh Jackman think twice.

Oh, the guys emailed their Badowerian Gallery of sketches:

I gotta tell you, it's a huge buzz seeing my work up on people's walls like this.

LONDON:

Boy have I been busy. Last week it was just me in front of a computer. But I have been out and about a little bit...

Cloverfield: This has got to be one of the most magnificent dedications to a storytelling concept I've seen in ages. Because of this it has its weaknesses and strengths. But the whole idea made me more excited than a bodybuilder with free steroids.

Kula Shaker: I thought this incredible indian-inspired indie guitar group had broken up, but JAn informed me that not only had they got back together, done a new album (Strangefolk), but they were playing live here in London! We were so excited, as we'd both got into this band when King Mob from the Invisibles mentioned them. So it's a ROCK CONCERT, right? But the English just sit there with their legs crossed and their hands folded on their knees. JAn and I are up in our seats jumping around like drunken Aussie idiots while screaming, "It's a rock concert! Get the hell up!"

London Zoo: I kinda like zoos. I hear a lot of people say that they're cruel but I don't think they consider the fact that zoos are not only keeping animals alive, but also have breeding programs to help repopulate certain species. Every time I walk through one, I wonder if I'm going to be recounting this day to my future fictional grandkids of ancient creatures that they've never seen like komodo dragons, pandas and gorillas.

CUTE BABY MONKEY! As a comic fan, I've been trained by DC Comics to love monkeys.


A REAL DAMN LION. I kept waiting for it to roar and the movie to start.

MONKEYS! C'mon, that's cute, right?CAMEL! You think you've seen camels, and then they wheel out this prehistoric monstrosity. I can't tell you how big this thing was. I actually think it was about 7' tall at the start of the hump and about 8' tall at the top. My sister and I were stunned!
KOMODO DRAGON: This was one of the highlight for me. A big frakkin Lizard! He was a bit over 2 meters long. I just wish he'd do something, though. Burn a village. Eat a virgin. Wipe a raid. Anything, you know?

TINY CUTE TURTLE! Just watching this guy walk with his bleary blinking eyes was the cutest thing I'd ever seen.
SPIDER MONKEY! No really, that's what they're called. One guess why.
TAMARIN: Man, I'd love one of these as a pet! But thus ends the monkey-fest. I got shots of the gorillas, but it was mainly all ass-shots and you really don't need to see gorilla butt.

ARTY SEA SNAIL SHOT: Except for the reflection of my camera, I love this shot.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS AROUND LONDON:

THE LOCAL GAMBLING PLACE: They're playing it pretty straight what's going to happen to you with the name, huh? No false advertising here.
SHERLOCK HOLMES MUSEUM: A "museum" created for a fictional character! This is indeed 221B Baker St, where he actually "lived". I didn't get a chance to go in. Next time!

FACEBOOK: "Friend" me if you'd like. Just lemme know you found me through the blog. Then you can get a little story about how we met. =)

COMMISSIONS: Yeah... um. Yeah. Pretty busy, but if you're interested it can't hurt to ask.

SKETCH BOOKS: Still hocking the last few.

UPCOMING: My HEROES story should be uploaded this week or next...

HAVOK & WOLVERINE

Sorry I've missed a couple days. I normally try and blog at least three times a week. But I've been really under the gun as far as deadlines go.

I'm officially a fulltime comic book artist! I've left my personal training business, Body United and embarked on the world of sequential illustration. I couldn't be more excited. It's taking some getting used to. My goal is for five pages per week. Throw in the commissions and that makes Jason a very busy boy. I will talk more about the nature of the job sometime. I had an interesting conversation with the boys at Alternate Worlds about it. I think I let them in on some stuff they previously hadn't considered. But I will go into that more some other time.

This is a commission for a very good friend of mine, Brett. Near the start of this blog I did a party invite for Brett's 30th featuring him standing atop a pile of superhero bodies. Brett had long been musing about getting me to do this piece. He had long loved the camaraderie between these two characters and wanted a piece to capture the love he has for this era of the X-men. It was my pleasure to draw this. I'd been chomping at the bit to draw Wolverine and I love Havok's design - yes, even that goofy tripod head piece.

We started out with a bunch of sketches. I did ten sketches. For some reason I find single characters very easy, but two or more figures start to get very complicated. Brett and I both agreed on a direction and finally honed it towards this piece. I was adamant at this stage, that while Hugh Jackman did a great job in the movies, comic Logan should be 5'2, incredibly muscled, hairy and ugly. Brett agreed.

My favourite part of this stage was Wolverine's claws. I just loved how they turned out. They looked so sharp and deadly. In fact, I moved him to the left to show off the points of them. As I draw I begin to create a story in my head. Departing from the original sketch, I moved to a lower angle with Logan and Havok looking upwards. I visualised a huge robotic Sentinel towering above them, its search lights illuminating the two mutants. When I submitted this version of the linework to Brett he had created his own story in his head of the two facing off against multiple opponents who surround them. Wolverine taking on the front runners while Havok picked off the leader and those trying to flank them. I had to realign their heads and bodies to cater for this.

We went back and forwards and eventually worked towards this design. Mentally, I was thrown. So clear was my vision that it was a little difficult changing it to accommodate Brett''s direction. But as I began to create the tonal layer I found myself exploring the light. This is hands down the most satisfying part of the drawing process. It's when the characters become real to. It's funny, I used to do the most elaborate line work and rendering, and now I do it all at this stage. I even do it for my sequential comic work. This is now my signature style. (tm) =)

I was really excited about having Logan illuminated by Havok's energy blast. I found that exploring that was the most enjoyable stage for me. I love lighting. I tend to zone out when listening to people as I'm studying the lighting on their face, trying to memorise it for a future picture. I get some unusual looks, but no restraining orders yet. This is what the tonal layer looks like under the linework. It's almost a painting unto itself. But there's something old skool comic book about me, and I just can't seem to give up my linework.

Now in the past I'd let my backgrounds dictate my colour palette for my foreground. Not so in this case. I knew exactly what sort of colour palette I wanted. Havok fires blasts of super heated plasma that are normally indicated as white hot. I though that what better colour communicates heat than red. I know, I know. I'm a genius. Get that Nobel Prize ready, I've almost figured out world peace.

So I just slapped down basic colours. Havok's costume is mainly black, so that was easy, but Wolverine's skin is a little more complicated. The background is a couple of photos sneakily slapped together. Brett didn't request a background so I just wanted some sort of ruined industrial texture.


To keep with my solid comics background, I used basic "Jack Kirby" power dots to get started. For those of you who don't know them, comic book legend, Jack Kirby would communicated powerful energy with these crazy circles everywhere. Trust me, he doesn't just make it work, he kicks it out of the suburb. So before I went crazy with the glows and the airbrushing, this is my little homage to him.

So here is Havok with all his special effects circles. It's one of the coolest designs for a power. These huge crazy concentric circles. I hadn't seen anyone play with the light off them or a crazy glow before, so I felt like I was dethroning that artistic virgin. Settle down, let me have my moment. This is the most action I get!

Ok, so now it's a matter of integrating the two figures into the background. Their palettes are so strong that they're basically just popping off the image. First up, I figured that the white light from Havok's blast would illuminate them in a clear and untinted fashion. So, that meant that every spot that wasn't illuminated by the blast could be painted with a red fill light reflecting off the background. I had fun finding the right colour and saturation that brought the exact level of depth without making them look like they're in a 80s video clip.

Here's that red fill light. It integrates them nicely into the painting. My final red overlay is very subtle this time as I want to let the white hot light pop the most. Some more air brushing over the top to make the light from the plasma burst seem insanely bright.

Overall this piece, (like many of my pieces) is an exploration of stylised, impossible lighting. It's like taking a photo of a lightning strike. These blasts would probably last a second, and in that exact moment the camera goes off. It's an impossible picture that I try to make as realistic as possible. My favourite kind.

As an aside, I'm totally over drawing all of Wolverine's body hair. When I do my Wolverine story, in the first scene Wolverine's going to be walking out of a waxing parlour.


COMMISSIONS: Booked pretty solid, but I could still get one or two in before New Year. Email me at grael23@yahoo.com for more details.

SKETCHBOOKS: Still hocking these babies: $10 + $2 postage in Australia or +$5 anywhere else.