Brown and Batson on the case

Last time I mentioned that James Lucas Jones had suggested using Case of the Midnight Visitor for the fourth Encyclopedia Brown "cover". Somewhere in that conversation Paul Tobin jumped in and for reasons I can't quite remember the cover you see here is what came out of it. I was thinking the way I drew Billy Batson last time and the way he came out looking like something out of the Hardy Boys and this seemed like it would be a fun team-up. Plus, Bugs Meany in the Monster Society of Evil sounds like a good fit to me. Originally the title was "Detectives Brown and Batson and the Case of the Monster Society of Evil" but obviously that's about 40 feet too long.

So unless I decide I want to see Encyclopedia team up with Detective Chimp or something, that's it for now. I'm already considering making EB the pick for my week on Comic Twart, so I'll give you guys a breather from him.

The Case of the Midnight Visitor!

Here's another one of the few scans I was able to save. The week the computer busted, I spent most of my time trying to talk to Dell and Adobe, getting nowhere and getting little actual drawing done. It put me in a funk and at the end of the week I was itching to draw something that would get me back on schedule. I hadn't done an Encyclopedia Brown cover in a while because I worry that you guys are getting sick of them, but I really like putting them together.

James Lucas Jones suggested doing one for Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Midnight Visitor and the idea formed right away. While this is the fourth cover I've done, this isn't the fourth book in the series. Not that I've got any more at the moment but I might jump around in the series from now on. I'll admit it's been a long time since I've read the book so I'm probably way off with the visitor in question here. I wasn't happy with the Sally Kimball I drew last time, especially the angle I put her at, so I thought I'd take another try.

Like I said, I'm not going to go overboard with the EB covers here, so this will probably be it for a while.

Crusade of the COMIC TWART

I've mentioned in the last week or so that because of the technical difficulties I haven't been able to participate in the COMIC TWART like I'd like to. Last week was Johnny Recon week and I really didn't want to miss out again. Mitch Gerads let us know a couple days early that he was going to pick he and Scott Dillon's character so I started early on an entirely-digital piece for Johnny Recon. A day past the "deadline" I was finally able to finish it. What you see above is a small clip, but you can find the full piece over at the Twart's blog. There have been some REALLY great pieces by the other guys featuring the character, so as always I encourage you to check them out.

I took some visual cues from the legendary Drew Struzan, especially his great Blade Runner poster. Gerads says that Mitch Breitweiser describes Recon as "Indiana Jones in space", so I figured, why not go with a Blade Runner vibe? Mitch was nice enough to give me a copy of the first issue when we met up in Chicago last fall, and I can't tell you guys enough, it is a really slick package. Most of what's in my poster is what I could gather about the "Recon-verse" from that first issue, the rest I made up. You should also go support Mitch and Scott in their Kickstarter campaign over here.

Mike Hawthorne already announced this week's character for the COMIC TWART, another Bernet mainstay, Clara de Noche. That also happens to be the first lady we've picked as a theme, which means I'm going to have to work harder than ever.

Finally, I'll just drop a quick plug here about the Doc Shop again. A good chunk of pieces were bought up recently, so if you were thinking about picking something up go make sure it's still available. People have been asking when commissions will open up again, and while I can't right now, I'll mention that I do pay attention to the comments on the Shop and sometimes take my daily sketches from there. So it's like some kind of backwards commission almost.

All for now!

Black Adam - Red Lantern

Managed to rescue some scans off of my flash drive from before the laptop died. Here's one I meant to post a while ago, a follow up to Brother Marvel - Blue Lantern, Black Adam as a Red Lantern. I promise this is the last "_____ as a ____ Lantern" I'll do. The tricky part with this one was making him look like more than regular Black Adam without the color. Considering how much I like the Shazam world and all it's characters, this is the first time I've tried drawing Adam. Took way to long to get to him.

I was only able to save 3 or 4 files, and unfortunately, nothing important. This is the only one I'm going to color right now because there's work to be done, but I hope you guys can tolerate a whole lot of fake covers about to come your way.

Return of Fin Fang Foom

The Fin Fang Foom sketch from a couple weeks ago--now in terrifying GIGANTO-COLOR.

Sinestro--Now in Color

The computer is still out, so I dug up a couple of the black and white sketches from the last few weeks with the intention of slapping some color on them. This first one featuring Yellow Lantern Sinestro from villain week was at the top of the list. As soon as I finished the sketch I knew exactly what I'd do with the colors. The strangest part was that coloring planets was the most fun. Go figure.

So until I can get the technical problems worked out I'll be posting more of these. Thanks for hanging in there everybody.

Agent of SHIELD

A week later and my laptop is still busted. I did manage to come across this piece I never posted when I was looking through my files. I did post the original black and white sketch a while ago, but for reasons I can't remember I didn't post the version you see above. I need to get a new layer of "book cover wear and tear" for these and the Encyclopedia Brown covers.

I spent the better part of this last week on the phone and customer support chats with the folks from Dell and Adobe so they could tell me more things that don't make any sense. The disappointing thing is I didn't draw a whole lot last week and I wouldn't have a way to show anybody said drawings anyway. I'm going to keep working on making some progress on both fronts though. Thanks for your patience as always.

Also a huge thanks to Doug Zawiswa, Adam Koford, and Gerry Turnbull for helping me figure out what issue of X-Factor that crop of Beast was from! Turns out it was X-Factor #24, and I was able to find a good copy at the local shop. When I can use the scanner again I'm going to blow up that splash page and cover an entire wall with it.

Hope to have more for you guys soon.