UncommonX: WWG’s Judgement

Ok, I think i’m getting an obsession for this character as I try to do it justice. Thanks to WonderWomanGoddess for letting me take a few more liberties with her baby for the purposes of a theme day. I didnt want to change the existing back story too much, but i thought she might fit into a Exiles storyline quite well.

 

WWG’s Original Concept: “She’s called Judgment. A near death experience gave her the power to see into a persons soul, to see their most extreme sins and virtues. She’s a vigilante, and uses her power to determine if those who cross her path live or die. Visually, she has red hair, pale skin, green eyes. Her eyes have a supernatural green glow. Her standard outfit is a black or dark green tank top, black mini or pants, and old school black cowboy boots. The only distinguishing feature about her outfit really is her belt buckle, which is a metal pentagram with a green eye in the center of it.”

My X-Men Concept: “Born in Texas just after the first Sentinel attacks, she’s called Judgement. Barely surviving a subsequent attack in which her parents were killed, the near death experience kicked her mutant power into gear. Her ability is to see into a persons soul, to see their most extreme sins and virtues. Once she has made eye contact with a person she can mentally cause them to experience any of the pleasure or pain that they have inflicted on another individual. Visually, she has dyed multihued hair, pale skin, green eyes. Her eyes have a supernatural internal green glow.

Her X-Uniform consists of blue bodysuit with black X and green pentagram on her chest and matching cowboy hat. She wears special emerald quartz sunglasses designed by Professor X which enable her to focus her power more easily as well as supplying additional information from a computer built into her suit. The only other distinguishing feature about her outfit really is her belt buckle, which shows metal pentagram with a green snake eye in the center of it.

Judgement has studied various mystical arts and uses the belt as a channel for these powers. Judgement keeps roots, herbs and potions handy in her strap on leg pouch. Grabbed from her own timeline by the Timebroker, Judgement must help the other Exiles put right the fractures in time and someday return home.”

How I got here: The base for this pic was a nude of model Kim Foreman standing in a room wearing a white couwboy hat and a belt. The first thing i did was smooth out the skin, removing any blemishs. Next I removed her nipples(ouch!) and smudged and blended the area between her breasts where her suit would be stretched. I smudged and smoothed the original belt logo and added my own pentagram using softened lines on layers set to overlay or multiply. The eye is an actual snake eye made to look glassy. Green glow added to buckle and hands.

Now it was time to start the suit. I had a couple of attempts before I decided on what you see here. I used the fauxsuede texture (that I used in my Angel – Back in the High Life manip) to fill a new layer. I colorized this layer blue, then cut away the extra to leave only the areas that would be the suit or the hat. With the initial cutting complete, I duplicated this layer twice. the original layer’s mode was set to color. the second layer’s mode was set to burn at 25% opacity. the third layer’s was set to multiply at 75% opacity (obviously i had a bit of experimenting) but these produced the best results.

Next thing was to start drawing the zips, seams patterns on the costume. In order to get some neatness to the whole thing, I first used the vector shapes tool to draw a five pointed star, which i deformed to the look as though it was sitting on the stretched uniform at her chest. I then did a very large X in Arial Black ( @ 244pnt) which i deformed to match the placement of the star. I then used the freehand vector tool to draw the initial lines in white(set to overlay) and black. the black layers were duplicated set to multiply and gaussian blurred at about 3. I think this gave a nice stitched effect.

A similar routine for the wrinkles. The central zip line was done in the same fashion but with an additional blurred black layer to give more depth. In order to get a bit of realism, I added the little horizontal stitching at the bottom of the zip, and the actual zipper at the top was cut from another photo and pasted in. A bit of judicious cutting and coloring and it blended in nicely. Next was the collar and cuffs with the additional stiching in the same fashion as on the chest. It looked a bit bland with just the stitching so i used the lassoo tool to select the large chest X and then used that selection to desaturate the textured multiply layer, giving a two tone uniform. I decided to color the pentagram on the chest too, and I think i managed to achieve a raised plasticy feel to it.

Some small X insignias were added to the collar by the zipper to increase the uniform rather than costume feel. The leg pouch was created from scratch following the same pattern as the rest of the uniform. Drew some lime green semi circles free hand over her irises set to dodge at 50% opacity. This gave some nice green lowing eyes. The green glasses were made from scratch, in a similar way to my earlier Transgender piece, and i think i got the shadow and glass looking a lot nicer this time.

The hair was the models own(blond). Because of the new layers fro the costume I had to add some new strands to make up for the sloppy cutting out i did. This was then given a gradient color. The background is a woodland one I had on my hard disk for ages. I put it on a lyer over the top and then cut out the model shape using the texture layer as a guide. This seemed simpler than cutting away the original background. Well.. i think thats about it.. Once again, thanks to WWG (hope i didn’t stray too far from your concept). Hope you all like it and enjoy the film too.

Films2Comics: YODA – Dagoba Knights

A belated entry to the Films2Comics Theme day. I forgot when this was due and all the pics today reminded me.. must check the Calender thread more often..grrr. I finally finished this one tonight, mostly just laying out and the 3D effect. Yoda started out as a bust complete with white plastic light sabre. First thing i did was cut him out of the background. I added the glow to the plastic light sabre as per the process in the Hints N Tips thread. The background is a section of one I used before in a Transgender submission. Duplicated the Yoda layer, colorized it red. Set this to soft light at about 50% opacity. this gave Yoda a slightly red feeling to match the background. Added the border and text using vectors. I merged then merged all the layers. Created a new empty image and filled a layer with a wood texture. Free-deformed this to create a ‘desktop’ feel. I dragged the Yoda pic onto a new layer in the desk image. I free deformed it till i had a nice perspective. Duplicated this layer to make front and back covers. Then it was a matter of adding the pages using the line tool, and also the shading where the bindings are.. and we have a trade paperback version of Yoda’s adventures on and off of Dagoba with the few remnants of the Jedi Order he managed to save after Darth Vader’s betrayal.


Superman – Last Son of Krypton Colored


This sketch was downloaded from kodiakcomics.com. I wanted to do something a little different in the coloring because of the chest detail. I made a copy of the sketch on a new layer. on a layer over that i applied a blue suede texture on multiply. These two layers were merged to provide the base for coloring the pic. i filled another new layer with the blue suede texture. using the lasso tool, i followed the outline of superman to cut away the excess from both layers. I then used the lasso and colorize tool to recolor each layer for the cape belt etc. The suede layer was set to overlay to enhance the color and texture. I then ‘inked’ over the main borders and edges. Then i created a new dodge layer for use in the highlights. these are softened gradient filled selections. The cape was darkened under neath using a gradient fill on a multiply layer. The background is made up of several more layers – my vector S logo, a black-white gradient, a white-blue gradient, and the ‘circuit’ texture. I deformed the bottom section of the circuit to create the floor for supes to stand on. I added the gradient at the join to give the impression of a curve where floor and wall join. The s-logo has a blurred corona around it on a dodge layer.

Comic Concept: Mcteddy, Adventures in IRC World


This is a concept for a comic/strip I have been thinking about. It is still early days yet and i might not take it anywhere, but i thought i would do a character pic/profile. It turned out kinda like a comic cover i guess. Mcteddy is an IRC bot that due to sitting everyday for years watching the conversations of others around him has gained a self awareness. Taking along his slightly less evolved bot buddy Mctavish he embarks on a series of adventures around IRCNet as he attempts to discover what this life thing is all about The stories would cover his interactions with all those other lovely people anyone who uses IRC regularly know and love.. Skript Kiddies.. L33T5P34k3r5.. etc. I dont know if it would interest anyone, but if i ever get some time to sit down and plan it out properly, i may do it justice someday. For those interested Mcteddy is an actual IRC bot.. and quite a clever one due to the additions its master has made..on IRCNET channel #Scotland where i can often be found. Artwise this started out with a photo of a teddy bear. Using this as a base, i smudged it up to look a bit painty. The scarf was there already, just had to tart it up a bit. Added highlighting to the eyes n nose and added the smile (tried to keep the stiched look). The laptop is made of deformed rounded vector rectangles textured and shaded. The background is made up of numerous layers.. a foggy pic of stirling castle, a saltire, that diagonal circuit board type pattern. The logo font is Bremen. The pattern used in the Mcteddy part is my mum’s clan tartan – Mackay. I wanted to make it look raised, so i applied the glass filter from eyecandy and then softened the edges.

Joe Fixit – Grey Hulk

Well, someone used my old Hulk manip as a basis of a Joe Fixit pic. I thought i could do better so here it is. Starting with the original pic(which combined a Randy Bowen bust with a Jim Sweet statue and Lee Priest’s legs), minus the desert background, I removed the green hulk head. I remembered seeing another randy bowen statue of Fixit, and managed to find a publicity pic of the head and shoulders. I cut n pasted the head and neck onto a new layer over my hulk and began blending it in. I colorized the skin on all the layers with the same blue/grey. once everything was looking ok, i deformed the background hulk so it was a bit shorter and thicker. this would form the basic shape for joe fixit. I found a nice pic of a suit to use as a base, cutting various sections apart and blending them together on a new layer of the hulk pic. I’m not too happy with how the arms turned out, but was the best i could do in the circumstances. The legs of the suit from the original pic didnt cover the whole of hulks legs, so i duplicated and deformed them. I applied a woven blue texture over the whole suit set to overlay. the part over the tie was colourized to make it purple to match the hatband. next i added some highlights and shadows. finally the background and logos were added. the background was a bit bright, so i duplicated the layer, gaussian blurred it at a setting of 3, colorized it blue, then set it to multiply at about 50% opacity. Hope you like.

Smallville Promotional Concept

Just messing about with layers and such. Found this pic of Tom Welling on the smallville website. Recolored the tshirt from red to blue. The logo on the shirt and on the wall behind are from my own vector version. I tried to make the chest logo look like that plastic stuff they put on tshirts that you arent supposed to iron. This layer is on twice. once set to dodge, the other set to color.

The background wall is intended to look like faded paint. the logo layer was blown up and softened, and set to softlight. cut out where tom was standing. to add a bit more to the background, the wall not covered by the logo has a blue gradient fill on a multiply layer. Smallville ‘hoarding’ added as a flat black layer, overlayed with a noise texture. text created from dc comics cover, distressed slightly. added 3d lighting using eyecandy glass filter. drop shadow added. added logos to bottom.

Captain America & Patch: Red Skull Dairies


Another digitally coloured Tom Derenick sketch. I particularly like how this one turned out. Some of it was very fiddly, but using the lasso tool to help me restrict where i was coloring helped. I am actually enjoying this colorist lark.. whether i have found my new calling in life is another matter. The Cap logo is done from scratch, and you may recognise the Wolverine logo from my earlier Hulk Vs Wolvie pics.

Nostalgia Is An Incredible Thing

A closer look at an element from yesterday’s image. Another digitally colored and textured Tom Derenick piece. This began as a page layout for the Avengers Vs Fantastic 4 i think, but I thought it would work well as a standalone snapshot style image. I like the dynamic feel of Tom’s work, and Jarvis rushing the staff out of the room in the background is a great touch. I thought it would be funny if this was Ben sending Bruce a little hint that he was up for a rematch, hence the handwritten message.

From the Desk of… Benjamin J Grimm

Well I guess this could either be the sequel or prequel to my ‘Ben baiting Bruce’ pic. I think it works better as the sequel, given the newspaper article.

The Bugle front page was created from scratch using a black n white sketch of the hulk i downloaded ages ago which had a news photo quality to it. (I have realised this was by Jim Sweet). The banner (no pun intended) line logo was cobbled together from a couple of pics. The article text made up on the spot. The desk also shows a couple of my Derenick/Hulk related pics. The small corner visible on the right is an Alex Ross recreation of the first Fantastic Four cover. An excercise in perspectives, but fun none the less.

National Register: Bigfoot says…

..Bigfoot Smash!

..Leave Bigfoot Alone!
Another quickie i did to pass an hour or so.. This pic started out as a black and white Tom Derenick sketch I found on the web. The pose of the Hulk looked reminded me of that famous Bigfoot picture. Nothing special in the process – some coloring, cut n paste onto a suitable background. logo from Hulk cover pic. Decided to run it thru a TV scanline filter for extra interest. I think Jack McGee would have killed for a picture this good.. 🙂

Shadowcat’s Pryde

Another Tom Derenick sketch quicky coloured and textured by me. the coloring was done via colour and multiply layers. The wall texture is one i had on the PC for a while, skewed to fit the perspective. The ‘window’ is a crome effect using eyecandy again skewed to fit. drew the window frame using vector tool. Turned out pretty sweet for about 45 mins work.


Ultimate Spiderman Coloured

This started out life as a Francis Manapul sketch I downloaded off the net. Digitally colored, although im not sure the highlighting is working. Tried to make it look like the cover of the comic. The logo was originally taken froma jpeg of the comic cover, but only the ultimate part was relatively clean. I used the vector tool to draw a new spider, and added new spider-man text. new drop shadows added. the spider looked a bit flat, so i used the vector to create a selection, which was used in eye candy to create a chromed layer for overlaying. Turned out not too bad for just over an hours work.

1st Pic Redo: Invisible Woman

Well, it’s been about year since I found this site and began enjoying the artwork everyone posts to the DCG. While I know it’s not a year since i started posting art myself, I was at a loose end today so I thought I would have a go at the first pic i submitted.


This time we see Sue Richards and everyones favourite ever-lovin’ blue eyed Thing in a corridor on a Skrull ship. Starting with the same grainy 50s/60s cheescake drawing, first thing I did was smooth out the face, and the edges of her existing underwear. Her eyes were a bit smudge so I made some new ones. The costume was created using a faux-suede texture on various multiply colour and burn layers. The seams added using white lines on an overlay layer and a black line, together with a black line gaussian blurred on a multiply level for depth. The 4 logo was done from scratch using vectors. To create the gloves, collar and belt (or bottom hem.. was never quite sure) I desaturated areas of the texture multiply layer.

The background was found via Google, resized and cut to fit the dimensions i was going for. The Thing was from the gift i did for Squedge (using Squedge’s own Thing sketch). I created a deeper rocky feel by adding additional rocky texture on a multiply layer. The shadow on the floor was created by flipping Thing, selecting the area, filling the shape with a gradient and applying a blur. this layer was set to overlay. I think the combination works with the angle of the background image. Suzies invisibility was done by using a graduated irregular mask to fade out the layer she is on. The font for the logo was downloaded from http://www.ffplaza.com/ check it out if you are at all interested in Fantastic Four.

Falcon

Ok, here is another piece that I have had hanging about in my works in progress folder for what seems like forever – The Falcon

I decided to take another stab at it from scratch. The model is bodybuilder Shawn Ray. First thing i did was cut him out from the background. Duplicating that layer, I used the smudge tool to soften the muscle tone where the uniform would be. I duplicated tis softened layer. I colorized this layer a deep maroon. The other softened layer I adjusted the lighting and saturation until i got a near white. These would form the basis of the uniform by strategic use of the lasso tool to cut away the white.

In order to get the seams I used the vector tool to draw in black initially each seam. this layer was set to overlay. I duplicated this layer and changed the lines to white, offset slightly from the original and set it to softlight. I think this gives a nice feeling for the seams and joins. The darker layer was duplicated and gaussian blurred to give some depth. The wings were taken from an actual falcon. The uniform still looked a bit flat, so i found a nice leather texture which i overlayed ontop of the colored layers. It hasnt survived the reduction to fit the size limit (C2F) that well.

The background was created by using a picture of a falcon in flight to provide a base for outlining with the vector tool. this outline was used to contain two seperate gradient fills, red inside, blue outside. this filled layer was set to multipley over a plugin generated cloud layer. Another cloud layer was put over the top of the whole pic set to soft light. I think all in all it turned out ok.

Concept: Human Torch

This is just an experiment in recreating the latest take on the Human Torch (seen in the upper right background). I thought the Heath Ledger pose conveyed the cocky feel the character has.

The original tshirt logo was removed by cloning and smudging the original green tshirt. This unfortunately meant the texture was lost. I got around this by creating a soft light layer with a blue woven cotton texture on it. This layer was duplicated and set to color. The 4 logo was done using the vector tool on an overlay layer. The flames and skin were done suing various reds and oranges on overlay layers to give a glowing ember feel. I dunno if the fire effects really work, but for a quick concept it conveys the idea.

Ultimate Hulk Vs Captain America

Well.. what we have here is my attempt at recreating part of the Hulk Vs Cap battle from Ultimates #5. At this point they have had a tussle, with Cap coming off the worst at first. He steps back to check on the other team members before plunging back into the fray…

The image is made from a poseable Hulk statue and a Ult Cap America bust (both Bowen i think..). The hulk statue was posed against its box so the first thing i had to do was remove the box by cloning other parts of the grey dappled background. Using the smudge tool i then removed the joint lines on hulks legs arms ankles and neck. The Cap bust was simpler, as it was to be in the foreground, i just removed all trace of the original background.

I found an earthquake damaged street scene on Google and cut it up into chunks for the mid ground between hulk and cap and the background behind them. These parts were all tinged with a blue wash and darkened to keep the tone matching. Fire and glow added to the windows.

I desaturated the Cap layer by about 25% (more on that later). I roughed up Cap a bit by giving him a black eye and bloodying his nose, with a splash of blood onto the star on his chest too. This was done on an overlay layer with muted reds and blues that were then smudged to blend in a bit. Added dirt and dust to cap’s uniform by creating a smoke effect on a ‘color’ layer using Eye candy plugin. This was then coloured blue again to match the street dust. The shield was copied to a new layer and PSP built in chrome filter applied. This layers blend mode was set to multiply at 50% opacity. I then duplicated the main Cap layer and applied some spot lighting using the PSP illumination tool. This layer’s mode was set to soft light at 75% opacity. This brought the saturation levels back almost to where they were, but with a new lighting bias. (see it told you i would get there…)

The sky was from the net, recoloured and flipped. The Apache helicopters were also from Google, deformed to fit the pic. Added lights manually. The search lights were a gradient filled triangle, softened and set on a screen layer. The flames in the building windows were made by using the pen to draw in red, then two oranges, then a yellow, with the same colours used around the window frames. This layer was then duplicated set to screen and gaussian blurred with a radius of about 3 to get the glow. The three tracer bullets were done in a similar fashion, with the path being gradient filled vector lines.

Altogether this pic is made of about 30 layers.

Angel – Back in the High Life Again

This is the follow up to my Angel Introspective manip using model Marcus Schenkenberg as Warren Worthington III (while still in his post Apocalypse blue phase).

Starting with the previous manip (minus the ornaments), the first thing i needed to do was recolour the skin to a more natural tone. After a few failed attempts, i found that by selecting the blue skin area, promoting it to a new layer, making it negative, and setting the blend mode to colour, i got a nice tanned look. I cut away the areas of the new ‘skin’ where i still wanted the tshirt to be blue but i found it was too washed out. so i again selected the blue skin promoted it to a new layer and set the blend mode to multiply to get a richer blue. A similar process was done to create the white central strip.

The halo was done using the vector tool and highlighted and shaded manually. The collar and sleeve edging was also done using the vector tool. wrinkles on the tight tshirt body and sleeves drawn as small Vs, then smudged to give a nice feel. The tshirt still looked a bit flat, so i had a look through some of my textures and found a nice one called fauxsuede that i applied over the top on a soft light layer. The background buildings are simply lots and lots of gradient filled boxes layered on top of each other. The car i used is the Pagani Zonda, again on a soft light layer. Between the wings I added a magazine scan i downloaded from the net of Angel in costume but still with his long blond hair to match my image.