Ben 10: Alien Force

I recently took part in Battle-Artist Season 2, Battle 03. The subject matter was Ben 10. Never seen the show, so I did a bit of poking around on wikipedia and watched a few clips on youtube for reference. After narrowing down the characters I wanted to focus on, I started out sketching in photoshop.

Once I was happy enough with the rough sketch, I began inking on a new layer while adding extra details where needed on my sketch layer.

The spacey background was achieved by using the airbrush set on dissolve, then adding dots for the brighter stars.

After that was the most boring part of the whole ordeal - laying down flats. But nice, crisp flats equal a quicker, and more fun process while rendering the rest out.

Battle-Artist is a pretty dope idea. If you want to get into some friendly competition, and challenge your skills, it's a fun exercise.
If I could, I'd be in it every week...but for now I'll just try whenever I can.

DC Sketch Cards For Sale!

Putting up some of my DC Sketch Cards on ebay tonight and throughout the week. . .catch them before there gone forever!

Shockingly fun Batman fan film. . .with nipples!

Now I know the cheesy, nipple ridden Schumacher Bat-flicks almost destroyed the franchise (Thank God for Nolan). But this 12-minute fan film called Death Wish - which uses those nipped out costumes, is much closer in tone to the comics then those awful movies. Really. You should check it out. It's dark with some mild humor here and there, and gives the impression of a larger "Bat-family" like the comics. I for one wouldn't mind seeing a Batman tv series in this vain. With a bigger production value and a better sounding batman of course. Also - somebody please sand those damn nipples off the suites! It's distracting!

Harley Quinn

Harl in her Arkham City digs. This will probably be updated with a color version whenever I get around to it. . .

UPDATE: Here are the colors - with and without bubble gum!

Bleez

My attempt on the hottest Red Lantern to spit some rage, Bleez. Here's a quick breakdown from start to finnish.

You've probably noticed that I managed to forget her ring all the way to the coloring stage. Quick mask tool to the rescue! Very handy when patching up line work this far into it.

A couple of hours and passes with the brush and lasso tool later - presto!

Submerging

Another collaboration with Brett Strong. Brett did the pencils and colors. I handled the inks.
See more of Brett's work on deviant art

Death

Batman

Wonder Woman

Another practice piece with the wacom as requested on my Facebook page. WW in here new DCnu gear.

RED HULK

So I finally downloaded the latest driver, so I can get the pressure sensitivity back on my wacom tablet. I've got to say, I have been missing out. So to warm up I started sketching out Red Hulkie here on a new document @ 100dpi. High-res enough to get some details in, low res enough to work quickly.

Then I bumped up the resolution and started inking on a separate layer. I fixed some of the line art, mostly his eyes (one was higher then the other, oops). I usually end up fixing the line art to a degree when it gets to the coloring stage.
Even just laying down the base color helps me understand what will/won't work, and highlights any mistakes I may have overlooked.

It's going to take a little more practice to get my digital inks to match my traditional ones, but I love the idea of wasting less paper and time. I can cut the middle man out and eliminate the need to scan work in. With my drawing time dissipating more and more each week, I gotta work smarter not harder!