I drew this hammer as a detail for the cover of my next novel Valda Goes Through Hel. The whole artwork is still very much a work in progress but I was happy enough with the way this part turned out that I wanted to share a version of it with you. You can print it out and pass it on to your kids, or go ahead and color in yourself. Enjoy!
Category: Artwork
Doctor Strange
Getting a little Saturday superhero action in here. Today, for the second time, we are featuring a kawaii version of a doctor – Doctor Strange, Master of the Manly Mustache, I mean Master of the Mystic Arts. Seriously, though, the man rocks that facial hair. You can try drawing him without it but he just isn’t the same. My version owes most of its look to the classic Steve Ditko design. Part of my fondness for the character might be due to the fact that I could reasonably pull off a Doctor Strange cosplay (except for the levitation part.) I don’t have a huge number of his comics but I like the ones I do have.
If you want to see the different versions of the costume that he has worn over the years check out this web page.
Robin, The Boy Wonder
My nephew’s birthday is tomorrow. Since the little guy is a huge fan of Robin I wanted to do a piece of fan-art for him this week.
My god there are a lot of Robins these days! I grew up with Dick Grayson/Robin. That was it, kids. You had the live action TV show and the cartoons and the comics but they were all Dick Grayson. Then along came Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne. That’s without even touching on the others such as Carrie Kelly from the Dark Knight. I had to go to the DC wiki just to make sure I had them all straight.
But you know what? I’m fine with all of that. I have no problem with heroes “passing the torch,” with someone new taking on the heroic identity of a familiar character. It is one way to tell new stories without having to change the existing character’s personality in odd ways (I’m looking at you Man of Steel movie.) To be honest, I haven’t read any comics with Stephanie Brown or Damian Wayne in them. Not because I think they’re not the real Robin but because I have drifted away from the mainstream comic world. Life goes on, things change. A new Robin does nothing at all to harm the great memories I have of the one I grew up with. The newer versions are thrilling and entertaining people as well. I see nothing wrong with any of that.
Retro-Style Dwarf Warrior
I got inspired to do a riff on the old UPA/Mary Blair style animation art this week. (If you’re not familiar with this stuff, check it out here.)There is something about that whole “no neck” school of character design that matches up with Dwarves so well.There was no cable TV when I was a little kid yet I still managed to watch and be influenced by a heck of a lot of cartoons. The other unusual thing about this piece for me is that it started on paper. Most of the stuff I do is born right on the computer, usually in a vector-based program, but I broke out the pencil, paper and marker for this one. After that it was scanned and went into Photoshop for texturing and coloring. I hope you like it.
Raven of the Teen Titans
Raven – this week’s kawaii superhero offering comes from the Teen Titans. While I do have some older issues of the comics that feature her, I was never into the character back then. I never really started liking Raven until the Teen Titans cartoon came out. She’s sarcastic, a bit of a recluse, smart, spends a lot of time reading – a girl after my own heart.
Doom!
Hey folks, I’ve talked before about trying to do more illustrations of characters with hair. I have been a lot better about that, but not this week, because this week the doctor is in – Doctor Doom! No visible hair on this guy, that is for sure.
I have a soft spot for Jack Kirby character designs and I have a lot of fond memories of reading Fantastic Four issues that featured the tyrannical ruler of Latveria so it was only natural that I would do a kawaii version of the character at some point. It is more fun for me to do cutesy versions of the evil guys anyway. Remember, it isn’t really a picture of Doctor Doom if he isn’t shaking his fist. Can’t you just imagine him shouting “I shall defeat the accursed Fantastic Four. Doom is supreme!”
My Little Sleipnir
I don’t know what to say about this week’s Norse-inspired mash-up. I’ve talked before about ideas that pop into my head and this was one of them. I just have to work it out in order to go on to something else. I am not saying I didn’t have fun making this little coloring page – it was fun. It just happened to be one of those ideas where even I am wondering “how does he think of these things?” Print it out and give it to the kids, or color it in yourself and have some fun.
Goddesses of the North
Hi folks, I am a little too busy working on my second book to provide you with any of my own Norse-themed art this week. As I have done before, I will provide you with some links to work other artists have done instead. To tell the truth, the stuff I am linking to this week is a few levels above the caliber of my own work so I am happy to share it and give the artist some well-deserved exposure.
Anhsfd on Deviant Art has a series of illustrations of Goddesses of the North that is really worth checking out. There are 7 of them so far and I hope we see more of them in the future. Pay some special attention to the picture of Idunn since today is the first day of Spring and the guardian of the golden apples is also ruler of that season.
Terra
I was sorely tempted to do a couple of different things this week, but I finally settled on Terra from the Teen Titans. I have only seen a couple of the Titans cartoon episodes that featured her but the glimpses they gave into her personality were pretty intriguing. See you next time!
Knotty Issues
I am still in the process of developing my knotwork skills. Mainly I feel that my stuff has been too mechanical up until now and I am trying to bring more of an organic feel to it. This isn’t the easiest thing to do considering that I create the art with a vector drawing program, but I can see some signs of it starting to loosen up finally. I just drew a simple framing device this week. My ultimate goal is to do more figurative stuff like people and dragons but for now I am focusing on building the basic skills.
Mark Neumayer 