ARMAGEDDON part 4

Easiest to hardest, huh?

1. Hiro Nakamura: definitely the easiest for me. I honestly don't think I've drawn a Hiro sketch that I haven't been happy with. I reckon my worst hero sketch is as good as my best of anyone else.

2. Any fictional character: As long as I know the costume I really enjoy In drawing any fictional character that comes up. I love drawing HEROES stuff, but this fictional characters are such a breath of fresh air for me. They're just so easy. Just in case it's someone I might not know, reference or a back up plan is handy.

3. Claire: I'm only just starting to get a handle on her through sheer numbers. I guess you throw enough crap at the wall some of it has to stick!

4. Surprisingly, I was quite happy with my Niki sketches, not because they particularly look like Aly Larter, because they just again captured something that was quintessentially Niki.

5. Peter: again through sheer weight of numbers. I been studying his face a fair bit while watching season one again. I'm hoping there will be more accuracy in the sketches next time.

These sketches marked the end of my first round. I believe I took a 20 minute lunch break after these. Not a bad innings, from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m.

THOR: Drawing the God of Thunder was an absolute blast, another mean old character. I don't think anyone has ever asked me to draw him before. I'd love to take another crack at him.







GENE SIMMONS: this was funny. So this gentleman asked me to draw Gene Simmons. But I had no idea what his make-up like. Again something you've seen hundreds of times but never really taken in. So he tells me he has a reference as a tattoo. Unfortunately, the tattoo is on his upper back! In the middle of the convention this guy takes off his top so I could study Gene Simmons' make up. It was pretty funny. Passerby's got an eyeful of something they didn't quite expect to see.




V: this is my old friend, Pete Marshall, who got me into the Boondocks Saints -one of my favourite movies. I have no idea my queue was so long, and I ow you an apology. During the week Pete told me he would like a sketch of Veronica Mars. During an unusual break I decided to actually whip up a quick picture for him. That's it up the top.

Having waited so long (2.5 hours!), they asked if they could also have a sketch. Of course I obliged. His girlfriend (and please forgive me, I can't remember your name), asked for V. What excellent taste! I really couldn't remember the nose, but anyway, here's my take on the iconic character.

PORTRAIT: This gentleman wanted himself as Peter Petrelli. I drew the likeness and then said to him that he would make a much better Superman. He chuckled and showed me his jacket. , signed by Bruce Timm no less! Superman lives!




PORTRAIT: this entire family waited a very long time. This little guy was really patient. He asked for a portrait of himself. I really enjoyed drawing this portrait. He's got one of those cool, unique looks that's really distinctive.









CLAIRE: Again, playing with that same pose but this time toying with the lighting a little bit.









PORTRAIT: I think this is that young guys mum. The problem was, she kept moving her head. Finally, she settled in an up tilted position, but I was trying to draw her square on. When she eventually moved her head down, she ended up looking wildly different to what I had drawn for. Unfortunately I had spent so long drawing I couldn't erase what I'd done. I think she was less than impressed. My apologies.





PORTRAIT: This is not just a portrait of the family, it is a portrait of patience. They asked me to do a quick sketch of a photo of their daughter. My only problem with drawing photos is they just end up as a drawing of a photo. When someone is standing right in front of me, I get to put my spin on them. It's more fun than being the human photocopier.


PORTRAIT: This couple was so nice and patient. Given that they had waited the longest I tried to spend a little bit more time on their sketches. I really enjoyed the portrait of her. She had very easy and open features to draw. Getting to know people, while I draw them helps. And these two were very cool.








HIRO: And a Hiro to finish up the set. I really like this one as it has a lot of character. I think Hiro is doing his little time stopping concentration thing.




Anyway about now, I ran off for my 20 minute lunch. My lips were dry and cracked from lack of water, and I realised I was kind of seeing stars. And there was a huge yawning maw were my stomach should be.

I refuelled and then got straight back into it. You can already see people in this photo waiting for me to get back!

ARMAGEDDON part 3

This was a fun selection of sketches. It's this sort of variety that really lightens me up as an artist. Especially on a day when I had a queue as long as I did, it's really challenging to keep your energy levels up. Getting different things to draw really wakes me up and excites me. But the best thing to keep my energy levels up is to chat to everyone who comes by.

I must say I really enjoyed drawing captain America and whilst the Marvel project Civil War had some faults, one of the things that did really well was catapult Captain America and Ironman back into the centre of the Marvel universe. Then with Cap's subsequent death, it really reinvigorated my interest in the character. So it's great to draw something that I've been reading.



A very glum looking Hiro Nakamura. I think I was really happy with the basic structure of this image, which is why I didn't put much tone on it. I love my little cartoony Hiros.










I'm pretty sure this gentleman just asked me to draw whatever I wanted to draw. Again Superman. A lot of people ask me who my favourite character to draw is. I always reply, "Superman". The reason why is because he has such a wide variety of emotions that you can capture. Batman is always angry. Wolverline is always angry. But Superman could be angry, compassionate, smiling, happy, sad or noble. All of these are facets to the character. You can draw each one of them while still being true to the character. You don't ever draw a happy Batman... Unless you're Brian Bolland.



Sylar. I did a lot of promoting for the SARMY site, telling people that I'm designing some clothing for them. On the backs of most of the Sylar sketches. I put the SARMY name so people can Google it and find it themselves. speaking of which I better get onto those designs.





Behind me, I had the covers of the Innocents that I did. I still contended they are some of my best work. This gentleman obviously thought so too, and asked for a sketch of Grace. It was fun to go back and sketch her, I hadn't sketched her since San Diego the year before.





And then come the portraits. I should mention (again) I won't be doing any portraits at the Comics R Us signings. While they turned out generally very, very well they take twice as long as a normal picture and to be honest. It's just not fair to the people waiting in line behind. But Padme here was extremely helpful. I noticed that I was running out of paper. So while I sketched her friend (in the green) I sent her with some money to find a some backing boards for me to draw on. unfortunately, the Queen came up empty handed. I was running out of paper and starting to panic.


I'm not sure what Queen Amadala's friend was dressed as, but I remember her being really cheerful happy and bouncy. She was mortified that someone from school might see a dressed up like this. I was trying to tell her to embrace her inner geek and get over what people think. She looked great, she was having fun, she shouldn't need to answer to anybody.





Remember, I spoke about how much I liked that Clare template? Well here it is again. It was quick, it was easy and I was really happy with the result.










Given that I was fairly confident with my Hiro's I started to play with this pose. Normally I was only doing head and shoulders, but I was getting so quick drawing him I thought I could include the sword too. Again, I think it turned out really well.







And finally another Emo Peter to finish off this set. Again, I'm playing with the same pose because I'm still trying different lighting. They were okay sketches, but I thought I still hadn't quite grasped the true "Peterness" of them.

ARMAGEDDON part 2

Part two!

Now, if these are a bit out of focus, we can blame me. Lyn came in Sunday to save my butt.

Some of the coolest thing I got to sign were two katana. They both asked me to draw the Godsend (HEROES) symbol on them. That was damn cool. Who gets to sign a sword?! I warned them not to go stopping and starting time indiscriminantly as I have deadlines to finish.

There's a real learning curve that goes along with these sketches. I mean, first up, I don't really use pen and paper for my normal drawing. So, that was a matter of getting used to that. Then there was the matter of figuring out each character's likeness or my take on each of their likenesses. When working on the Heroes Web comics I try and make accuracy a real priority. When I'm churning out hundreds of sketches I'm trying to capture something about each of the characters.

Repeated poses aren't really a sign of laziness so much as me trying to figure out what I missed with the last sketch that I can capture with the next one. They may superficially look the same to you, but to me they are very very different

Next up was an Emo Peter. I only draw Emo Peter. I haven't really had a chance to study his second season hair cut. Besides, I like this one so much. I really like his curled up little lip. I think it's why he got the role as Stallone's son in Rocky.






Now, you can barely make this out, but I'm so happy with this Gambit. It's really cool. No idea why I didn't tone it with my grey Copic marker. But I like it a lot!









Another Super Saiyan Goku. I used some reference for the last one, so I decided to see if I could draw it without reference. Bingo. I like this one a lot.










Here's Sebastian's flaming Claire. Claire is of the toughest for me to draw. Next post I will include my list of what I find easiest to hardest. Claire is one of the toughest actually.











Another Peter, this time playing with lighting a little bit more, not perfect, but another step in the right direction. I'm still happy with it though.










Hiro Nakamura is definitely the easiest for me to draw. They're not photo accurate, but I have definitely captured something about the character that I really enjoy.








A Claire for this cute little kid. For some reason I remember her name is Rachel. As you can see went on a totally different direction to this Claire. It looked great until I started putting the grey tone on.








I'm still playing with Peters here and I think this one is a little bit better.















Now this Claire is a little bit blurry, but became the first really good Claire that I had drawn. Something about the pose won me over. It took a little bit longer, but I think the result was worth it.










And a Sylar for this young lady. This Sylar became the template for my later Sylars as I was so happy with the way it turned out.






The Saturday rundown:

PORTRAIT: 14
HIRO: 12
PETER: 9
SYLAR: 9
CLAIRE: 6
SUPERMAN: 3
SUPER SAIYAN GOKU: 2
CAPTAIN AMERICA: 2
BATMAN: 2
KISS: 2
WOLVERINE: 1
KILLEROO: 1
GAMBIT: 1
FISHER: 1
GRACE: 1
THOR: 1
NIKI: 1
V: 1
NIGHTCRAWLER: 1
WONDER WOMAN: 1
WITCHBLADE: 1
ANGEL: 1
JOKER: 1
ANDO: 1

ARMAGEDDON part 1

I have just had the biggest convention of my life. First up, I really want to thank Bill, the organiser of Armageddon, and Carissa, the guest wrangler.

When I heard of Armageddon, I sent Bill an e-mail asking if I could be involved. I showed him what I'd done, and he invited me along. On their web page I was placed on the Australian guests page and I was really excited about it.
(Here's me signing my first ever comic - Anthology. Photo by Scott Pollard)

Another huge thanks to Bill for sitting me right next to the special international comic book guests. I was really honoured. The guests on my left included:

Amanda Conner – Artist on Terra, Green Arrow wedding, The Pro, JSA Classified.
Jimmy Palmiotti – writer on Countdown, Painkiller Jane and inker extraordinaire.
Gail Simone – Writer on Wonder Woman, Deadpool, Birds of Prey.
Nicola Scott – Fellow uber-Aussie artist on Birds of Prey

To my right was Jason Rand writer of Image's Small Gods and Hellios. To his right was Doug Hollgate, artist extraordinaire. Another thanks to Jason Rand (Carissa's fiance) for his patience, support and cheerfulness over the course of the weekend.

As you can see, I was in some pretty esteemed company. I put up my HEROES artwork and a big sign that said, "Jason Badower HEROES artist: Free sketches" expecting the turnout that I did in San Diego. To be honest, I actually expected to listen to crickets while watching tumbleweeds roll by. I thought I would be flagging down friends to stand there and make me look busy.

I didn't really expect anything. In fact, I had no idea what to expect. For the Aussie fans I wanted to do something pretty special. So I compiled all my HEROES artwork as well as some other stuff into a 12 page 200gsm (card) sketchbook. The guys at Eplot printed up this beautiful booklet at the last minute. I decided to only get 50 printed. They weren't cheap and I didn't want to be sitting on a hundred booklets. What was I going to do with them? Put them under short table legs? Hold open doorways?

Above is the cover. It was twice as impressive in real life thanks to the beautiful printing. As I didn't own any of the printing rights to the artwork I sold it for $10 barely getting my money back.


No one expected, what came next.


My queue on Saturday was two and a half hours long. I was taking about six minutes per sketch. I started out on an A4 sketchbook with full inks. Eventually, I ran out of sketchbooks. I borrowed one of Nicola's and I finished that. I then bought an A5 sketchbook off a kind fan and almost finished that. I ended up totalling 76 sketches for Saturday. That's more than I did over the entire 4 days of signing at San Diego Comic Con!

Here's where I have to thank Carissa. Her job is to look after the guests. Especially the special international guests, including those four heroes of mine I listed above. At one stage, Carissa tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the huge line in front of me that was blocking traffic and asked, " When the hell did this happen? I am supposed to be looking after those guys!"

I just shrugged and said, "I have no idea, but it's awesome isn't it?"

She shook her head and made up a sign saying, "End of Line - come back at 2:30pm" which is when she decided I needed to have lunch. I think she needed a break as much as I did. I'd been there sketching solid since 9am. I took lunch at 2:10pm and was back at it at 2:30pm and finished at 6pm.

It was an incredible experience.

To those who missed out on sketchbooks, I will be printing more up for the Comics R Us signing on:

Friday the 9th November 12-2pm city (call 03 9663 8666)

Saturday the 10th November 12-2pm Chapel st (call 03 9510 1584)

Obviously, I will also be doing sketches on both those days. Matt, the owner of Comics R Us said that if there's a good turn out, he's happy to have me well after 2pm. So turn up, grab the new HEROES graphic novel and get it signed. It's filled with stories that are written by the show's writers and part of the continuity of the show. I drew about a quarter of them.

The first sketches had the widest variety for me. Most of my sketches were of HEROES characters, punctuated by some fun comic book stuff and portaits.

This Hiro is for Lynn (forgive me if I spelt your name wrong). Her partner, an old friend of mine, Chris and her saved my bacon on Sunday as I forgot my camera! They lept into the fray with their cameras and helped me out.

Next up was Killeroo. What a wonderful surprise to go back and draw this character! Now, I'm trying to remember, but this guy might have actually requested Superman rather than getting it pressed upon him by me. This kid asked me to draw whatever I wanted, so I asked him to guess. I had drawn about 3 lines (eyes and mouth) when he said, "Batman!". Damn little psychic! Another Hiro for this little dude. A similar shot to Lynn's as I really liked it. A Batman for this gentleman (new angle!). A very grumpy Captain America (he doesn't like being dead) a Super-Saiyan Goku (he brought his own reference - but I grew up on Dragonball). And then a mean ol' Sylar.

BLACKOUT page 8

Page 8. The home of the Easter egg.

I was really proud of coming up with this Easter egg. It was so tough for me to come up with anything as I've mentioned in the interview. If I had a magazine on a table advertising the Corinthian casino or Nathan Petrelli's status in Congress I could have been very, very wrong and would really popped the bubble. In retrospect my homage to Tim's Sales classic Sylar hunting Clare, painting is probably my favourite Easter Egg and after the baby Nathan playing with the aeroplane and Angel. Meanwhile, I heard that Tim Sale was doing a homage to Nosferatu) was a huge kick for me.

Again, just to clear things up the Primatech paper salesman is just that: a generic Primatech salesman. He is not anyone that I know of. I just invented his look for the story. I did steal the logo from the official site, though.

I had fun on the crazy blood splatter on panel three. I'm also really proud of that little blur effect on the salesman's right hand. It's very cinematic to me. Finally, I really like my likeness of Mohinder on panel five. I think it's a good piece of performance.

News: I've got some stuff in the works. As soon as it all comes to light, I will let you know. And believe me, I will be very happy if it does.