Back to Base X

I want to share another City of Heroes story: One of my most cherished memories of CoH was working with my (small but tight-knit) super group to create a (small but functional) super group base that we could all be proud of, and enjoy hanging out in. As a lapsed player stuck at free status for these final months, I've been incredibly disappointed that I would never be able to see the base again... my friends are long gone from the game, and I had no way to pay the rent.

I should have known better, though! Tonight I logged in and asked in Help Chat if anyone could help, and I was almost immediately flooded with replies from friendly VIPs. I had access to my base again in minutes, with a new friend running over from across the city to join my Super Group and pay the rent for me. It might have seemed like a small thing to that person, or to any of the MANY other people who quickly offered to help, but it means so much to me. THIS is what I will miss most about CoH, this community of fun-loving, helpful, heroic people. Sure, it was a small thing, but it was indicative of the experience I've only been able to find in the City of Heroes.

Byron Occulto

Little is known of the man called Byron Occulto; most scholars agree, however, that "Byron Occulto" is most likely NOT his real name. The "Bumpkin of the Bizarre" was first seen wandering the back-roads of the rural American south in the mid-1950's. When that-which-could-not-be-explained appeared, Byron would stroll from the shadows with a few words of down-home wisdom and the proper ancient incantations to send it back to whatever dark dimensional rupture it first crawled out of.

Byron disappeared for many years; most folks assumed his work to have been finished. It is only recently that he has resurfaced to bring together some of Earth's greatest heroes to battle some unknown coming evil. His comrades include The Stinging Spade, Mr. Quickster (formerly of The Professionals), The Azure Fletcher, Golden Bowman, and more. For now Occulto remains content to keep himself in the shadows; but soon the evil they face may draw him out to display his awesome mystic powers...

The Meta-Human Millionaire

I'm a bit tardy this week, so I'm skippin' directly to the fully-colored image. I'll still post at least two more pencil sketches, but I've been working on this one for a bit anyway and I'm excited to post it.

Ever since I finished my Wozar "action" shot, I've been planning to give the other heroes from The Professionals that sort of special-effects treatment. Naturally, the first one I considered was Fab CEO. This is NOT that image (I'm still working on it mentally), but I did a quick sketch of him last week at work to get back into the groove of the character (and he's certainly groovy, I hope you'll agree). That sketch (on a 3x5 note card) turned into an inked-and-colored study in FABULOUSNESS which I now present to you. My friend Jim always knew how to create fun characters and this one is still my favorite. Enjoy this "classic clipping" from an old issue of The Professionals, and watch for a high-powered image of the Meta-Human Millionaire coming soon.

Special Effects

Well, it took me over two months from initial sketch to finished product (much longer than it should have)... but I'll blame the holidays or work or not working or whatever. Either way, I think it's finally done: The image of Wozar, battle-ravaged and weary, looking to the skies.

I added shadows, which I always do. I then added hilights, which I almost NEVER do... but I'm going to START doing. I love how it came out. The final image with the star field and the eerie lighting actually washes some of it out, but I think it still looks fairly awesome.

Enough jaw-bonin'. Click the thumbnail for a larger view.



EDIT: I took down the crazy slideshow; it was barely visible and the silly thing sucked up bandwidth like there's no tomorrow. Instead, I'm posting this sweet desktop I made myself that, after my staring at it for two days, I'm now convinced is better than the original. Decide for yourselves... IF YOU DARE.

Color Me (Almost) Finished

Stage Four: Flat Colors! Again I break the coloring portion of the project up, laying down the simple flat colors first (with some gradient exceptions) before moving onto the shading and other lighting effects. I'm going to be experimenting with hi-lites this time, too, something I don't often attempt. So that should be interesting.

Not sure how much time this will take me, or how much time I'll have this weekend to take care of it, but I'm going to start it at least. Next week I'll be on break, so there probably won't be much to see here on the Brand X Blog. Thanks for checking back, though!
Click the thumbnail for a larger view.

It's like Night & Day...! *cough*

Alright, so here's the version with finished inks. To ME this stage adds quite a bit to the image and really makes it pop; hopefully you'll notice it too:

I've only got the coloring to do now, which will either be the quickest or the longest part of this project, I can't tell yet. It always amazes me how I absolutely cannot EVER estimate that beforehand. Some images color very quickly, while others require crazy effects and take me forever. I'll keep you posted on my progress there.

Also, in case the differences really don't seem significant to you, I'll post this side-by-side in an effort to justify my taking an additional day (or two) to finish this:

Back in (Partial) Black

From time to time somebody will ask me how I go through the process of actually FINISHING a pencil sketch with inks and colors, so I thought I'd post an image of each stage of that process. There are plenty of different ways to do this, but this is how I learned and what I continue to do.

This is Stage Two: Partial Inks. I've taken the pencil sketch and inked in the major outlines and details. I've still got some more inking to do, but this is the first pass I normally make. Most cartoonists determine their light source and make thicker lines opposite that source as they go to indicate shadows. I do the same thing, but I usually do it after this initial inking stage. It's more time-consuming, but it's easier for me to keep it all straight. I've tried doing it as I go before and it just results in me swapping pens every three seconds and making a muddy mess at the end.

After the thicker shadow lines I'll add some more texture and detail (but not too much, since I plan to color it after). A plain black & white image would have more texturing done to indicate the different colors; I won't need to do that here.

Click the thumbnail below to cut the art lesson and see a larger view.

Look to the Skies...

Again another week passes with no post from me; I'm horrible, I know it. I just wasn't sure if it would be in good taste to post with things so crazy after the escape of Sikstus Seethar. I think I'm ready now, we haven't heard anything since the initial break-out.

Today I've posted an initial sketch I want to do of Wozar. I've been reading my insane super hero comics lately, where people get smacked about and worlds collide and universes die and the variant covers are usually ugly. I was wondering how my super-characters would handle it, so I set pencil to paper. I plan to finish this (inks and colors), so stay tuned for that. For now, click the thumbnail to see what I've got so far.