Sunday, January 25, 2009

New Stuff: commissions



So there i was, sitting at a table at another convention in another hotel in Jersey- hoping someone might drop by for an autograph-a sketch-or even directions to the bathroom (don't ask how many times that has happened-lol) when a large, jolly fella named Glenn Tippett comes by to chat.

Well after a bit he asks if I'd be interested in doing a promo piece for one of his company's comics-it would be of a lovely Asian heroine and a evil dragon (see said heroine above).

After we worked out the particulars, he introduced me to the lovely young actress who would become the model for the character: Candace Kita...







...yeah-yeah-i know-the artist's life is a rough one...ahem...so i was to take their character and basically make her look more like Candace-then she could appear at cons, signing posters of the art in conjunction with the comic book.


So, here are the basic steps (minus a bunch of scribbles i tend to do.)





Originally she was to be the evil character with a dragon in BG-as my 1st sketches show-but that changed and she then became the heroine:




Getting the "attitude"-the "acting"- and composition comes first and then the details...



after lots of pencilling i made a thin inkline version for adding the wash and blacks to...



I kept the dragon in the background solely in wash -no blacks-to separate him better from her in the foreground-she's got to stand out from the piece due to the amount of detail-so after i added the blacks and grey tones i put a thin white line around her-an aura of sorts which brings her figure towards the viewer-a very basic 3D illusion if it works well.



and there we go- another one bites the dust...that's all...Vokes...;o)

7 comments:

David A. Zuzelo said...

Awesome...now when is your martial arts epic coming our way??

Miklós Felvidéki said...

Awesome indeed

Brian said...

Great likeness of the actress and that was a nice touch with the Dragon's tongue.

Unknown said...

to help you out with your work, you may send the girls models to me and I'll work out the particulars with them so you don't have to.. ok ?

Neil D Vokes said...

That's very generous of you,my friend- however-in this case-i was only allowed to meet the young lady at the con-i had to do the drawings from photos alone-no live models for this old married guy-lol

Anonymous said...

The illustration turned out great Neil.

Ron Zoso

Billy George said...

Love your work. Its a constant inspiration!