PREVIEW- Conan: Road of Kings #2

 you may have already known about Dark Horse Comics' awesome new 12 issue series Conan: Road of Kings by Roy Thomas and Mike Hawthorne, but you probably DIDN'T know that the inker on the series (the lovely and talented John Lucas) lives right here in the DFW area! Anyways, peep the 6 page preview (with colors by the mighty Dave Stewart, and cover by Doug Wheatley) below, courtesy of the fine folks at Newsarama...

Mad Max

One image has always stood out apart from all the Mad max movies and the myriad of pretenders.  That of a man...handcuffed to a bomb...with a hacksaw...and the words "Bone cuts faster than metal."  I see this as the pivotal moment in the movie when we are set down face to face with just how brutal the world has become.
It still gives me shivers to this day.

In Stores Now- Morning Glories #5

We're all proud as can be of our Metrosketchual brethren Joe Eisma's art on the red-hot Image book Morning Glories, so I'm happy to post this 14-page preview, repatriated from the fine folks at CBR...

Power Man and Iron Fist

I actually loved the Iron Fist series that Matt Fraction wrote, so I actually drew this ahead of time. Of course, I'm lazy enough to actually put off uploading it until now.

Heroes for Hire

The first comics I ever read featured Power Man and Iron Fist! So seeing that this was the theme for Metrosketchual was a real treat!

Heroes For Hire

Ah, the classic comic book bromance: Blue Beetle and Booster Gold, Wonder Man and Beast, Superman and Batman... and one of my all time favorites, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. These guys couldn't be more different but they always have each others back and they always kick ass. I would love to see them back together in an ongoing title again!

Immortal...

For my theme for Metrosketchual I submitted Heroes for Hire (yes, I grew up a total Marvel D-list zombie), so I drew the Immortal Iron Fist... in addition to being a leaner, meaner Chuck Norris, good ole Danny Rand was imbued with the power to focus his chi into his fist making it "like a thing of Iron"... which means you can get a sound thrashing no matter who you are, money! I first came into contact with Danny as the not-Luke Cage half of Power Man and Iron Fist back in my childhood. It was one of the gajillion books drawn by John Byrne back in the day when he was my first favorite artist...
anyways, that's enough of my rambling for now...
holla!
-samax

I'm Just Here For The Gasoline

"The warrior Max. In the roar of an engine, he lost everything. And became a shell of a man, a burnt out, desolate man, a man haunted by the demons of his past, a man who wandered out into the wasteland. And it was here, in this blighted place, that he learned to live again... "

Man, I love the Mad Max movies so much. Road Warrior especially, which is what I based Max's look on. And the V8 Interceptor is possibly the coolest movie car of all time. Every once in a while I hear talk of a fourth Max movie, Thunder Road. I would so love to see that movie get made though it would probably be without Mel Gibson at this point. But hey, if they can make a Tron 2 maybe the Road Warrior will ride the white line nightmare once again.

I know I'm Late :(

Savage... by Samax Amen

Mad Max-Evan

I did mine today, saw that Jose rocked things on time and got his piece up today! I made the background texture using shaving cream and food coloring! I love the post-apocalyptic nature of Mad Max because it inspired Fist of the North Star!

Mad Max

What can be more awesome way to begin summer than with a Mad Max sketch. I remember watching this movie long ago and it had badass written all over it. Too bad the actor went crazy in a few years and started in a movie about a guy working possibly in the worst advertisement agency ever.

Savage Dragon

I feel bad for slacking here on this blog. Just been swamped getting the first issue of my new series done. I couldn't pass up the chance to draw the great Savage Dragon, though!

I couldn't tell you why he's leaping out of an explosion--it just seems like it would be a typical occurrence to him. He always personified the larger than life/sky's the limit aspect of comic books to me, so it was fun to take a break from pages to do this!

Savage Dragon

It's my turn to pick the subject matter, and after missing out on the Umbrella Academy theme thanks to massive deadlines at work it was nice to just sit down and do some sketching.

Savage Dragon is one of my all-time favorite comics. It was awesome in the mid 90's when it launched and it's turned into it's own unique little joy ride ever since.

Erik Larsen channels the ghost of Jack Kirby while keeping up a (semi) monthly schedule on what is to date a 160 issue run. It's great fun, and as it happens in real time (one month in real-time is one month in the book), it's always evolving, changing, and going down new paths. Plus there's death, sex, gratuitous violence and splash pages galore.

I highly recommend it.

Savage Dragon

Man, that fin is hard to get right.

Savage Dragon

The last time I drew the dragon was a a few years back at the request of Matthew Warlick for his theme sketchbook. I wrote "You just crossed Mall Security" as line on the sketch because I always wanted to see him as a Mall cop instead of a Chicago PD officer. I Though it would've been funny.

Savage Dragon (and others)

Doing sketchcards this morning to warm up. So we have Savage Dragon (our theme), Mark Grayson (aka Invincible) and Dr. Impossible.

Savage Dragon

This week was EXTREMELY busy, but how could I pass up doing a Savage Dragon piece. I was able to sneak this in, thinking that I'd be late with it, but I guess I was wrong! ;)

Release The Kraken!

Nice pick, Mr. Eisma! I've been meaning to draw The Kraken for ages. He reminds me of Wolverine back when Wolverine was cool. The 80's Wolverine who gutted people for looking at him funny and had absolutely no past whatsoever and thought an eye-patch was a good disguise.

The Séance.

The Séance. Didn't have much time for this one. The original is about 3 inches high.

Umbrella Academy-Spaceboy

I'll be honest as well, I haven't read Umbrella Academy yet. I love Gabriel Ba's work, I just haven't had a chance to read it. This is the most hectic part of the year for teaching (standardized tests), but I still managed to keep on schedule for the blog!!!

Umbrella Academy - The Kraken and The White Violin

I'm not too familiar with The Umbrella Academy, so after some research I find these two as the coolest looking. Hopefully this entry keeps up to speed with the blog's schedule cause I was way behind when I submitted my last one.

Umbrella Academy: Spaceboy & The Rumor

This week's theme is my choice: The Umbrella Academy. It's a series from Dark Horse, by My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way and Casanova artist Gabriel Ba. I'd always heard good things, but only recently checked out the series for myself. I tore through both volumes--and they're some of my favorite comics in recent memory.

Anyway, I chose to draw two members of the Academy--the Rumor & Spaceboy. I love Spaceboy's look--a guy transplanted into the body of a gorilla--how could that not be cool? And since I'd already drawn the White Violin once before, I wanted to try a rendition of the Rumor.

I highly recommend this series--I can't wait to read more Umbrella Academy comics!

Cronenberg Films - The Fly

Yeah, the Fly is the only movie I know.

Something Went Wrong

Whoops, later than usual! Yeah, yeah, The Fly is the obvious choice right? I was originally going to do Carl Fogarty from History of Violence, even sketched out some ideas but I wasn't digging any of them. Finally just decided that the Brundlefly would be incredibly fun to draw and guess what?

Cronenberg: Videodrome

Hello all, Jake Ekiss here. I'm a bit late to this party (thank you deadlines) but I knew I had to get in for this theme. I'm a storyteller, comic book creator and illustrator here in Dallas Texas. As for this week's theme I decided to take on Videodrome, one of the slightly more obscure (and stupefyingly weird) Cronenberg works. Hope you dig!

Cronenberg Films -The Dead Zone

I'm not a huge Cronenberg fan, but I do love me some Walken!

I almost went with BrundleFly but that seemed too easy.

Cronenberg Week-Dead Ringers

It was funny to see this as the week's prompt. My brother and I LOVE David Cronenberg. We celebrate his library on a regular basis. So seeing that someone else thought that this would be a good idea before I did makes me so happy.

I knew that most people would want to go with the obvious Naked Lunch, History of Violence, The Fly, or Scanners. But I didn't want to go so obscure as Shivers. So I went with a family fun-fest ala Dead Ringers. For obvious reasons I went a little more subtle with the subtext in this one. This one gave me nightmares after seeing it!

(Un)Dead Presidents

UPDATED - Yeah, I put the name Franklin D. Roosevelt there before. No idea why I did that, I know the freakin' difference between Teddy Roosevelt and Franklin Roosevelt. Thank you Craig for calling me on it.

Originally someone suggested I do Jefferson Davis for this theme which was a unique idea but I wasn't totally convinced. Of course, once the idea of UNdead presidents popped into my head... well that was that. The zombified bunch includes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and good old Grover Cleveland. And of course there's tough-talking, zombie-smashing Theodore Roosevelt (not Franklin Roosevelt, the WWII president as I had erroneously put before. Gah, whatta maroon) down there in the corner 'cause really, if there was going to be a zombie hunting president it probably woulda been him right? Bully!

Honest Abe

I wrote a story once where Abraham Lincoln has to meet with the King of Atlantis. The Atlanteans give Lincoln 5 years to end slavery or they will invade and wipe out the Union and give North America back to the red man.
Anyways, I really wanted to draw a different President for Metrosketchual, but I couldn't get that story out of my mind, so here's an apprehensive Abe caught between the Confederate army and the Atlantean legions... what's a President to do?
hope you like it!
-samax

Ridin' dirty

When i first read that this was suppose to be Dead Presidents... I was thinking of the 90's movie lol. Here is my version of Teddy Roosevelt... he is one of my fav presidents. He is quite a character! Rough Riders reprazent!

Nixon

Richard Nixon. I was actually pondering today about which president should I draw and what way. Me and a person I know pretty much end up with Nixon as a Klingon, but it turned out more of a Nixon with a Klingon weapon.

The Great Eviscerator!

Presented without comment.

The Van Buren Boys

I decided to go a little tongue-in-cheek for this week's theme of 'Dead Presidents.'

This inspiration behind this was the Seinfeld episode, 'The Van Buren Boys' (hence the title). I always laugh at the concept of a street gang that models themselves after President Martin Van Buren. In the episode they are, as Kramer put it, 'every bit as mean as he was.' So I just had the idea to have Van Buren looking sinister, backed up by a couple of homeboys decked out like the man himself.

I am late, I know. But hey, I didn't get time to last weeks! I wanted to channel my inner David Mack. I am always blown away watching him sketch. So quick with the brush pen. So I gave it a try.

The Crow

I hate drawing long hair so I was kind of worried about how this would turn out. Then I decided to use a brush pen for the hair and decided to make it look like feathers. Added the feather texture in Photoshop to complete the effect. Always wanted to do a nice looking Crow piece and I'm really digging the way this turned out.

Dead Presidents-Jackson

I know, I know, WEIRD transition from Crow to Dead Presidents...but hey, it's all good...right?

Anyway, I love drawing Presidents...I'm not a history buff...AT ALL, but in my opinion, presidents are the new pirate, or ninja. They're fun to put in outlandish situations. So I sat down this morning looking at my sheet of all the Presidents, and I thought, who has the rocking-est hair? My choice was Andrew Jackson, the man had an amazing quaff of hair in that bouffant hairstyle. I wanted him to have that Bond/man of action air to him!

So this morning I did this so that I could start things off with a bang!

The Crow

Hey there, My name is Terry Parr and this is my first post to this group.... I have been active in the Comic/convention scene for a long while now. I am currently trying to reboot my comic idea and I am also still looking for my "break" in comics. ummm.... I gotta say that I am really flattered to be invited to this group, there are a lot of artists here that i know and really do admire!

So here is my version of the Crow... sitting and being moody.

Happy Easter! Plus, Crow!

here's my crow submission.  i tried adding some color to this very black and white character without taking away from his dark gloomy-ness.  and happy easter, too.

The Crow

Here's my contribution. Nothing much to say about this one, but I had the urge of a black and white piece, and what perfect choice of a subject than the Crow himself.

That's SO (D)raven!

Feeling Much Better Now... by Samax Amen
Since I've still never read the comic, my piece is based on the movie version.
The Crow is still my favorite comics-to-movie adaptation, since The Matrix and Unbreakable technically don't count. anyways, this is 2 hours of my life in Photoshop, so I hope you like it!
-samax
(r.i.p. Brandon Lee)

The Crow

So this week was my chance to pick the theme. I have always liked the character of The Crow, and I thought it would be a good chance to try an emotionally complex character.

Anywho, this is another test with my quils and ink. I like how this one turned out more than last weeks street fighter.

The Crow

I remember growing up in Indiana, and going to my brother's friend Tim Roger's house, his brother Roy was the biggest Bruce Lee fan. He was a huge fan of Brandon Lee as well, and introduced me to the Crow comics. Then, when I was in high school I picked up the Alex Maleev drawn Crow comics. I always loved how expressive it was. So when I finally got to meet James O'Barr it was a treat, and every time since, he is extremely nice!

With this, I wanted to go with a different approach, I did the drawing about 2 1/2 inches tall, and got a really expressive and better composed design than if I tried to pencil it at full size. Then I scanned the sketch and blew it up on an 11X14 inch sheet and went to town with inks. I wanted to retain the expressive nature of the lines, so I went with a simple textured color approach on the figure and a gradient for the background. In all, tons of fun to work on!

The Crow

Here's my sketch! I grew up on Marvel & DC, so I missed the Crow in his heyday. But, I was a fan of the original film with the late Brandon Lee, and I always dug the general dark style of the character. I wanted to go a lot looser with this drawing than I normally do (been reading a lot of comics by Sean Gordon Murphy & John Buscema), so this was a fun one to do!

The Crow

More experimenting, this time with shapes and inking techniques. The rough pencils were very boxy and I intentionally left the shapes loose so I could have some freedom in the inks.

Also played around with some custom brushes and paper textures to add the grainy effect in the coloring stage. Total time spent on this; about 3 hours.

Street Fighter: Cammy

Never been much of a gamer. I can't even remember the last time I played a game of Street Fighter. But I know a little bit about a little bit. I've always been a huge fan of the Street Fighter character designs and this version of Cammy is one of my favorites. Sorry for the lateness!

On the Scene!

This is Ibuki from Street Fighter III/IV. I tend to main her every now and then. Glad that she made it in Super Street Fighter IV.

And in THIS Corna...

The Mighty Balrog by Samax Amen

Dudley

Dudley, from Street Fighter 3, soon to be added to the ranks of SF 4.  One of my favorite characters.

Chun Li

Here ya go Ladies and Gents. here is this weeks sketch from yours truly. I chose Chun Li, simply for the fact that I have always liked her design. This week is a tad different though. Instead of using my typical inks for this, I tried out some nibs and quils that I purchased just today. This was my first shot at using quils to ink with, and for the most part, I am pretty pleased at this being my first run.

Hope you like.

Street Fighter: Dhalsim VS. Blanka

More experimenting, specifically with cell shading and color holds/line effects.

I’ve only played Street Fighter I (I know, I know) and these were my two favorite characters. I was big into games in my teens, but have little time for it now. Honestly, I was more of a Mortal Kombat kinda’ kid.

Speaking of, I think I have my next theme.