Tag Archives: X Men

Target: Scott Summers

Just a quickie really. After i submitted the Beast pic, I figured I could do the same to classic Cyclops. Again it was a bust on a rock, found a matching background (The eagle eyed among you may recognise it from an early hulk manip i did). A bit of cutting n blending and a few filters and i had a painty pic. i added the heads up display as though a Sentinel was targeting him – hence the title.

Blast from the Past: We all stand together!

Another of my older manips that i didn’t submit at the time. This is just a collection of busts plonked together in a ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’ kind of pose. At the time i wasn’t confident enough to try and give the colossus bust arms, so the placing of the other characters is more or less to hide the fact he’s (h)armless…

Sidekicks2: RazorWing

LINK ESTABLISHED….. BEGINNING DOWNLOAD….. SECURITY FILE CLASSIFICATION XE168….. SUBJECT CODENAME: RAZORWING SUBJECT NAME: CONNOR, JASMINE DATE OF BIRTH: UNKNOWN (EST. AGE 23) MUTANT ABILITIES: SUBJECT EXHIBITS ABILITY TO GENERATE AND CONTROL AIRFLOWS ALLOWING SUBJECT TO ATTAIN POWERED FLIGHT. MAX RECORDED SPEED 300MPH. SUBJECT HAS ALSO EXHIBITED AN ACCELERATED HEALING FACTOR* ALLOWING HER TO REPAIR DAMAGE CAUSED BY IN-FLIGHT COLLISIONS. PHYSICALLY THE SUBJECT APPEARS TO BE A NORMAL FIT YOUNG WOMAN, THE ONLY EXTERNAL INDICATION OF MUTATION BEING VESTIGIAL BONES PROTRUDING FROM FOREARMS. THESE HAVE THE APPEARANCE OF WINGS. X ENHANCEMENTS: DUE TO THE ENHANCED HEALING FACTOR* AND EXTRAORDINARY BONE STRUCTURE, THE SUBJECT WAS CONSIDERED VIABLE FOR THE SKELETAL BONDING PROCEDURE PIONEERED DURING THE WEAPON X PROJECT. ADVANCES IN THE TECHNOLOGY IN THE INTERVENING YEARS MEANT IT WAS POSSIBLE TO LACE THE SUBJECTS SKELETON WITH VIBRANIUM PRODUCING AN INDESTRUCTIBLE FRAME. THE VESTIGIAL WINGS WERE EXPANDED INTO BLADES TO HELP DIRECT THE SUBJECT DURING FLIGHT AND FOR USE AS WEAPONS. HISTORY: THE SUBJECT WAS FOUND BY ALPHA RECOVERY TEAM IN….. DOWNLOAD ABORTED BY REMOTE HOST….. LINK LOST…..

Well, thats my story and i’m sticking to it.;) Here we see the lovely Jessica Alba playing Jasmine ‘Jaz’ Connor AKA RazorWing, another survivor of the Weapon X program forced to undergo the same procedure as Wolverine. She was liberated from Weapon X by the X-Men, and has undergone a period of deprogramming by Charles Xavier. She still finds interacting with other students at Xavier’s school difficult. Wolverine, although a loner himself, feels an affinity to Jazz and takes her under his wing, as they both find they share a common goal – finding out about themselves and tracking down the individuals responsible for mutant experimentation.

Notes: For a theme day. The large base pic i found of Jessica was a great starting point, and the quality was so good i didn’t want to mess about too much. The ‘wings’ created from scratch, i tried to get a bone/metal effect that i liked. Added the gold piping to her jacket using a blurred multiply layer. It’s hard to tell from this pic, but i also added ribbing and the logo to her tshirt. Eye color adjusted to make them more vivid. Added the blood drip to the wing tip. Next thing was pulling it all together. The pic in the upper corner is another publicity shot of Jessica to which i manually added her pre-operation bone wings. This was run through an interference filter to give the impression of a video screen, part of the ‘computer download’ above is shown on this screen. The pic below that is a rendering of the female p4 skeleton which has had the wing blades added and also run through the interference filter. The addition of the wolverine pic in the background was a last minute choice, but I think it fits the whole picture quite well. It is from the Wolverine/Punisher comic. The final addition was the logo. This is made up of three layers – a black/white gradient, a white/crimson gradient and a chrome layer on top. The font is Skeksis.

XMas: Gift for Trygonez – Captain Britain

Since one of Trygonez asks was for a male character from the X-Men camp, I thought I would look for one that hasn’t been done a million times. I know technically Cap here isn’t a mutant, but as one of the mainstays of eXcalibur, i guessed he would qualify.

This was actually a lot of fun to do, even if it does have a lot of fiddly layers. The body started of as Antonio Sabata Jr in shorts. This provided the base for the shading, lighting. everything else you see is artificially created, with the exception of our very own Trygonez’s face which i had a heck of a job colouring from the blueish tinged original. If you check out behind the flag.. you may see something in the cloudy sky… Merry Christmas Trygonez, I hope you enjoy your present.

Transgender: Rogue & Gambit – Savage Love

Here are my versions of Rogue and Gambit for the Transgender theme day. Rogue is Marcus Schenkenberg, I don’t know who the female in the pic is, but when i saw them together, i thought of Rogue & Gambit.

The original picture was black and white. I smoothed out the skin, smudging out nipples and blemishes. then i sketched out the basic costumes and colours. As i usually do, the costumes are built up in layers. if you look closely at the exposed areas of uniform you will see a woven texture to them. this is also me starting to do wrinkles and seams. the glasses were done from scratch. the white hair was drawn in three shades using the pen. Gambits coat is frankensteined from a raincoat advert. the dinosaur picture in the background i found on the web somewhere. i thought it gave a ‘savage land’ feel, hence the title. i then finalised the shadows and added the x-logos. i think it turned out quite nice.

Dazzler – Blinded by the Light

What if… Dazzler did actually release a single? This was just a bit of fun, messing about with metals and layers. The base pic of britney was from an advert for rollerboots. As a concept, rather than face paint, i tried to give her a 3dish mask(s), added the glitter ball & chain to all 5 britneys 🙂 the logo is made up of several layers – the bottom layer is a motion blurred britney, over that is a lightshow (coutesy of Ulead Particle plugin), the next layer up contains multiple pics of britney in various poses and colours. a rectangle was added over these with the dazzler cut out. applied an eyecandy chrome effect. hand coloured the highlights around the cutout on the chrome. LH


Blink Classic

My stab at a Classic(ish) Blink.Here she is relaxing during a quiet spell in exile. Skin coloured, dress coloured and highlighted. dress altered to show more leg. collar added and shaded. dart added and shaded and lighted. eyes added and shaded and rotated to exagerate the elfin look. Leg Band added, shaded and shadowed. Logos added. The model is Auriele Claudel The background is the roof of Kuala Lumpur Main Railway station;) LH

In the Blink of an Eye…

Just a concept i had for Blink;) The model is Diane Heidkruger. The base pic she was wearing black top and pants.

Skin coloured classic lilac, lips saturation on lips increased. highlighting added to black to give leather/pvc look. Added Circle and X to chest, with a black white gradient over to give shading. added pant detail and waist highlights, and shadow from hand on pants. added arm bands (in AOA Blink Colours) and shadows on upper arms. used a burn layer with the vector drawing tool to do those distinctive facial marks. Added flat colour eyes and shading layer.

Created a dart with a metallic gradient fill, which was duplicated and rotated a few times. this was moved to apper in the pocket i created on the pant leg to hold them. the pocket and darts were then shaded/highlighted. and a pink tint added to the top of the darts to show skin reflection.

Her hair was manipulated from another photo and shaded to match lighting. the pony tail i created myself using three shades of red/orange. this layer was then duplicated twice. once to adjust luminosity. and another as a dodge layer. the end of the ponytail was shadowed. created a multiple point star which was skewed and rotated to the right angle. two colours of corona added, white outside, purple inside. the whole thing then softened to complete the portal. the backdrop is from webshots, coloured blue to match mood of pic. finally logos added. hope you like.

J-Lo as Storm

It is my first attempt at this sort of thing that but I wanted to give it a go. It was done in Fireworks and PSP(First time using it!!). Background was created in Fireworks. Base image copied and greyscaled to create the hair, then the rest of the picture was removed to reveal the colour image below. The hair was then smudged to give it a better look. Belt buckle added in fireworks and resized and adjusted to match body angle. Eyes added and illuminated in PSP.

Local Hero Comment: I may have some competition here…

DCG REDO: X-Verse: Nightcrawler (inspired by Darth_zaiyen)

For this ReDo, I decided on Darth’s female Nightcrawler concept with Gisele Bundchen.

First job was getting rid off the original clothes from the base picture. this was done by adding new layers with the stomach and bosom from a couple of other gisele pics. these were smudged and blended together and everything converted to black and white. next step was masking of the model from the background and colouring her blue. the new costume was added in stages using the vector drawing tool. the main black of the uniform was drawn on. then highlights and low lights added at the edges. then the major highlights were added over the uniform to give a leather look. a lot of blending, softening and smudging later, it was time to add the large red ‘X’ over the front of the uniform.

i then went back to the base layer and smudged the hands to create two fingers on each. the ear and eyebrows were also altered to a more elfish look. the eyes on the base pic are closed, so a little yellow was added to give the impression of slitted eyes. next the tail and shadow were added using the vector drawing tool again, in various colours blended together. an x-logo button of my own design was added to the front of the costume and some shadows cast on the body by clothes added. the tail was too light, so i darkened it by 25%. All done in PSP7. It took a few hours to find the source pics and decided on how i would do this, the actually manipping took about 6 hours in total. im very very happy with this manip 🙂

Looking back I need to add more definition to the pants, more and darker shadows would do it. Might have to redo this redo 😉 Also this was before I discovered Exiles but i think it could pass for Nocturne, the parallel universe daughter of Nightcrawler and Scarlet Witch.

DCG REDO: Angelina/Domino

For this theme day I decided to have a go at redoing the image previously submitted by Sticks over at C2F. I already had this base pic on my hard disk, So i thought I might as well have a go at redoing this Domino. I coloured the clothes and wristband purple. next i added longer hair manually. Added the x-logo (my own design) on her top. Finally i added a copy of the original manip for comparison. Not sure if its an improvement. Ah well better luck next time.

 

On the Wings of Revenge

Angela Braddock Worthington, only daughter to Betsy Braddock (Psylocke) and Warren Worthington III (ArchAngel). Born in an alternate reality where the Sentinel have hunted mutants almost to extinction, Angela has been on the run with her parents since the day she was born. Her parents have been killed. Angela is all alone. She has had enough. Using her fathers old costume, she fashions a new identity for herself and takes the battle to the Sentinel. She becomes Angel.

Powers: Angie is a mutant who can fly by means of natural wings, which span 10 feet from tip to tip, augmented by telekensis (both powers inherited from her parents. Her anatomy is adapted for flight: her bones are partially hollow like a bird’s, her body is almost devoid of fat, she possesses greater proportionate muscle strength than a normal human. Angie also has the ability to manifest a molecule thick energy field, endowing blade like objects with the capability of slicing through virtually any substance. Her telekenesis means she has the ability to levitate herself and up to 500 Pounds.

Well thats the story…. here are the facts… Base Model: UK Actress Anna Friel How it was done: duplicated original picture and greyscaled it as a new layer. erased and smudged out the face and hair. removed some blemishes from the body, then added the classic blue costume. eyes coloured blue. mask and lipstick added. wings added and shaded/coloured by suit reflection. three bladed claw with hand grip added, shadows and reflections worked in. added glow effect to the blades and added corresponding highlights to the hand and grip. finally added part of the halo to the chest, and the text. Hope you like it. LH;)

C N F : The Usual SuspeX

Well here is my little contribution to the ComicsNFilm Day. Here we have Wolvie, Cyclops, Gambit, Nightcrawler and Morph. I’m not sure which one is Kaiser Soza. wolvies claws, cycs mask & gambits card added from scratch. all colouring done by hand. it may not be pretty.. but i find it amusing;) LH;)

The Tempest: Storm Rising

My latest piece was a request from my parnet. I removed the jewellery from the base picture. Added the uniform. the hair is a negative of halle’s own hair messed about and smudged to give it a better feel. added the piping on the uniform. the eyes were done in a couple of stages, first drawn and shaded by hand over the original eyes, then the glow was added using PSP starburst function(thanks Sue for pointing that out). the lightning added and softened in the back. finally the title was added. regards LH;)


Rogue Relaxing

This work was inspired by both the X-Men film costumes and Alex Ross’ designs. The model is Ali Landry. My first attempt at Rogue’s distinctive hair, i think it works.. but could probably be better. The trousers have been adjusted to raise the waistband and ad the logo and piping. additional highlighting added. the bustier has been highlighted with piping design. The yellow gloves done from scratch with black piping and logo added. Additional highlighting and lowlighting added to the gloves and piping on the costume. Although i havent drawn it, in with this costume concept would be a long-sleeved hooded frockcoat with an X in matching yellow piping across the chest. Hope you like this one. LH;)

Mystique – Bend Me, Shape Me, Any Way You Want Me

I thought i would try something a little different with this manipulation. A magazine info page similar to what you get in FHM, Esquire etc. The base model is Estella Warren. I first used the lasso tool to cut out all the exposed flesh onto a new layer, which i then altered the skin colour to blue. I did the same process with the hair, making it red. These two layers were then merged and the edges softened and smudged to provide the basis for coloring the original pic. This was done by changing the layer’s blend mode property to Color. I wasnt happy with the tone so i duplicated the color layer and altered the blend mode to Multiply. This gave me some much richer tones. I altered the base picture to remove ornamentation/fastenings on the dress, and added her forehead skull and blended and shaded it to match. All these layeres were then merged and the resulting picture was run through an edge preserving smooth filter to give it a more painted/inked feel. Finally ripped som bio details from the marvel site and added some logos etc. Let me know what you think. All done using PSP7 in about 2 hours.