Yearly Archives: 2003

3D, Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Films2Comics: YODA – Dagoba Knights

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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.


Artwork, Coloring, Digital Concept Gallery, Inking

Superman – Last Son of Krypton Colored

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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.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Comic Concept: Mcteddy, Adventures in IRC World

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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.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Joe Fixit – Grey Hulk

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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.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Smallville Promotional Concept

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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.

Artwork, Coloring, Digital Concept Gallery

Captain America & Patch: Red Skull Dairies

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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.

Artwork, Coloring, Digital Concept Gallery

Nostalgia Is An Incredible Thing

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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.

3D, Artwork, Coloring, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

From the Desk of… Benjamin J Grimm

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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.

Artwork, Coloring, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

National Register: Bigfoot says…

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..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.. 🙂

Artwork, Coloring, Digital Concept Gallery

Shadowcat’s Pryde

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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.


Artwork, Coloring, Digital Concept Gallery, Inking

Ultimate Spiderman Coloured

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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.

Artwork, Coloring, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

1st Pic Redo: Invisible Woman

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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.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Falcon

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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.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Concept: Human Torch

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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.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Ultimate Hulk Vs Captain America

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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.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Angel – Back in the High Life Again

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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.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Angel Introspective – Warren Worthington III

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Time for a quick manip. Here is model Marcus Schenkenberg as Warren Worthington III (while still in his post Apocalypse blue phase – but with regrown natural wings). It was created from two pics of Marcus, a small grainy one i found of him sitting in a very orange room with wings.. and a second larger black and white image. Enlarging the winged image, I cut out the wings and put them on a layer behind the black n white pic. Much smudging and cursing later and i got it looking reasonable. I smudged the black n white pic and colorized the skin and jewellry. The hair was done on a seperate layer and turned out not bad although it is still a bit smudgy at the ends. The pic at the background is Stirling Castle. The logo font is Federation.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Challenge: General Zod

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JuvenileMike issued a challenge to do General Zod way back in November 2002 on C2F Here is my interpretation of Zod from the latest Superman run. I took some liberties, but i think they work.

The base model for this was body builder Chris Cormier. I started this months ago and have dipped in and out on a fairly frequent basis. The helmet was proving to be a complete and utter bastard, but i had a bit of inspiration when i found a nice clean pic of the Predator Mask, which i messed about with until it had a pleasing feel. The tubes were created by combining various sections of different industrial cable tubing bit. Added shading and shadows by hand. I particularly like how the eyes turned out.

The cloak started out as a piece of velvety fabric which i duplicated a few times and smudged together, adding hi and lo lights. The chainmail is an overlay layer containing the whole body with texture added and distorted to match muscles etc. The tunic is the body promoted to a layer of its own and smudged and softened. shadows were added to lift it away from the body where needed. The superman cloak was done using the vector tool and painted manually in various shades. Overall there are well over 100 layers in this piece.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

HULK – The Movie Adaptation

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Just a cover concept for the adaptation of the HULK movie into a graphic novel. I think it kinda has an Alex Ross feel to it.

This is the latest in my series of manips based on busts.. although the base pic for this wasnt a bust as such.. but a cookie jar!!!. I found the base pic while browsing through a comic memorabilia store online, and it immediately caught my attention because of the quality of the sculpting. The first thing i had to do was remove the line where the lid (head and shoulders) and the body met using the smudge tool. I continued to smudge over the pic to get a more painted look. The bottom of the jar was smudged out to give the impression of paint thinning at the edges. Next I duplicated the layer, applied a gaussian blur of about 4, applied my own combination of brush stroke filters, and set the layer mode to lighten, this gave the picture a pleasing glow.

The Hulk logo was added and givem the same treatment. The ‘cloud’ box around Hulk is just that. It was a bluish picture of clouds at night, which again was given the paint treatment. This was placed on a new layer over Hulk, with the mode set to exclusion, which gives the greeny faded look. The area directly over the hulk was cut away and the edges softened to accentuate the glow. Finally grabbed the marvel logo from their site. I think it turned out pretty nice, so i hope the rest of you like it too.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Redo > CoConcepts: Judgement’s Day

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Okay, my first attempt at WWG’s Judgement character needed a little more work so I adjusted the lighting to give it a more eerie moonlit feel. This unfortunately meant some of the other detail was lost, specifically the belt buckle. I compensated for this by adding some green highlighting to make it stand out a bit more. I also made the eyes glow a bit more. I hadnt saved a version without the overdone paint effect so i couldnt do anything about that.

Artwork, Digital Concept Gallery, Photomanipulation

Phoenix

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Just some random model off the net as X-men mainstay Jean Grey.. AKA Phoenix. To get a glossy effect on the costume, each part was cut out using the lasso tool, promoted to a new layer, the built in PSP chrome filter was then applied and the whole thing softened using a gaussian blur. I then colourized each layer and set them to multiply the over the original skin color. The phoenix logos were added, with the smaller one being rotated and skewed using the freeform deform tool. The sash is made of some gauzy material coloured gold and here serves an additional purpose of sparing her blushes due to the tightness of the uniform;) (And Yes her neck was that long!)