I have a lot going on this week and the Norse-themed art I am working on is not yet 100%. But I will share a little sneak peek of what you can expect next Thursday.
Category: Artwork
Happy Halloween
Just a little something to go with today’s spooky mood. This goblin-ish character is part creepy and part cute, although I recognize part of the creepiness is do to my lame sculpting skills. 😎 But we never improve at anything unless we try and try again so I still break out the clay every now and then.
My ideas of the holiday are inextricably tied up with my Dad since October 31 is also his birthday. He passed away many years ago and I prefer to think of him on the anniversary of his birth rather than the anniversary of his death. He is still greatly missed and I will be thinking of him even more than usual today and sharing some stories with my own son about the grandfather he never got the chance to meet. One of the things I love about stories, and, by extension, writing, is that ability to introduce you to people you never could have met otherwise. Stories can connect us to these people so that they live and breathe in our minds and our hearts. Creating stories like that is not a bad way at all to spend one’s time.
Have a happy and safe Halloween everyone!
The Man Called Nova
Alright this week we have another space-faring comic character – Marvel Comics’ Nova! Whenever I do one of these pictures I always cruise the web to see what kind of reference material I can find. It is a lot easier than digging through the hundreds of comics I own to find a particular issue. During that research I invariably end up spending way too much time reading web page accounts of the character. I know this character but I pretty much know the 1970s version of the character – that makes for a few decades of backstory to catch up on. I’m not just doing the old-school costume to be a hipster. I’m doing the costume that looks right to me because that’s the one I remember.
I’m not sure about his lower body in this pic. I’m still experimenting with the style for drawing these, trying to find my own balance of classic kawaii proportions. See you next time!
Huginn and Muninn
In Norse mythology one of Odin’s many names is raven-god. He owes that to these two guys, Huginn and Muninn. Their names mean Thought and Memory and every day they fly around the world seeing what they can see before returning to bring their news to Odin at the end of the day. Ravens are popular in Norse art. You can find a number of images that show the ravens perched on the back or arms of Odin’s throne.
A passage from Grimnismal in the Poetic Edda has Odin stating:
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I fear for Hugin, that he come not back,
yet more anxious am I for Munin.
That passage got me to wondering what would happen if Munin/Memory did not come back? What would happen if someone stole our memory? I ran with that idea a bit in my first book.
This week’s artwork was inspired by a gorgeous raven brooch that can be found on this page. I riffed a little on the design, adding some more knotwork.
That’s it for now. More superhero kawaii goodness coming up this Saturday.
A Cold-Blooded Man
I am a bat-fan. I’ve been one since I was a kid, following his adventures in the comics and watching reruns of the 60s TV show. But I think some of the best stories and visuals came out of Batman: The Animated Series. From the opening of the show and it’s objectivist art influences to the half-noir/half-deco city to the amazing, yet elegant, character redesigns, this show hit so many homeruns.
One of my favorite redesigns is the one Mike Mignola did for Mr. Freeze. I have to admit I thought Bruce Timm did the design until I was doing research for this post. In retrospect it makes so much sense because I love this version of Freeze and I love Mignola’s work. (In a weird ,moment of synchronicity I had been toying with doing a kawaii Hellboy this week or possibly a character from Disney’s Atlantis – both of which have designs by Mignola.)
The classic B:TAS episode for Mr. Freeze is Heart of Ice. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini took a long-time villain and gave him a brand-new back story that was filled with gut-wrenching drama. The episode won an Emmy and all kinds of acclaim from fans and critics alike. It deserves every bit of it.
My version of Mr. Freeze is based on Mignola’s design with one small change. As much as I loved this work, I just never liked the purple gloves and boots. I suspect the color choice might have something to do with it being an animated character. Perhaps the color was needed to help the hands and feet read better visually. Whatever the reason that is the only small, small quibble I ever had with this great design.
Steamish Gnome
This is an older picture I had hanging out on my computer. I was working on something brand new for today, but time just got away from me and I didn’t want to leave you all empty-handed. About two years ago I was playing around with the idea of writing an updated version of the Brothers Grimm story about the shoe peddler and the gnomes. While my mind was tossing around story ideas I also started doing some rough doodles of what I thought the creatures might look like. This picture is the result of those doodles. He has a bit of a steampunk flavor to him, I think.
Saturday I’ll be posting another character from the world of comics. Which one? I have no idea. That’s part of the fun for me.
Lucky 13
Another little deviation from our regular programming, but I wanted to post something for my wife since today is our 13th anniversary. We were both big fans of the Rome mini-series on HBO and I couldn’t resist a little echo of the scene from the arena where Pullo was shouting 13. Yes, I know the picture is not of a bloody gladiator. I probably could kawaii up a gladiator but I prefer to celebrate my anniversaries in a less violent way. So just a little salute to the Cleopatra to my Marc Anthony – my wife Theresa.
Super Kawaii
I enjoyed doing something a little different last Saturday, so here we go again. A lot of times the ideas that really grab hold of me are the incongruous ones that shouldn’t really work. That’s a big part of why I wrote a book about a dwarf girl who was turned into a Valkyrie. I know Dwarves were not mentioned serving as Valkyries in the sagas, but the contrasting mental imagery of a 15 year old Dwarven girl having to deal with all of these stauesque, Nordic women was too hard to resist.
Which brings us to this week’s picture: Galactus, Devourer of Worlds! What do you do with one of the most powerful entities in the Marvel Universe, a giant alien who eats worlds – make him all cutesy! I love Jack Kirby‘s design work, his aliens, especially, have a sense of grandeur about them. So it was a lot of fun to pull off this week’s interpretation of one of his classic designs.
The All-Father Gets His Cute On
This week’s kawaii art offering features Odin himself. I cheated a bit on this picture. Odin loved to disguise himself and wander the countryside to see what he could discover. One element that all of his disguises shared was they all only had one eye. Odin famously traded his eye away to Mimir so that he could take a drink from the Well of Knowledge. So while I have the clothes resembling one of his disguises I couldn’t resist adding Gungnir into the mix. I don’t think it would be much of a disguise if you’re also carrying around a magical spear that never misses its target. Oh well..
Super Kawaii
Here is a little bonus artwork for the week. I’ve been sticking with the Norse-themed stuff for the most part but this doodle really wanted to be made. From past experience I know that you just have to roll with the muse sometimes and get these things out of your head and out onto paper if you want to get anything else done. So here she is – Supergirl.
I have had a longtime love of comic books from back in the days when my mom would walk me down to the corner store so I could buy a comic with my allowance. I don’t read as much mainstream stuff these days, preferring different indies for the most part. But not too long ago I bought my son a copy of Art Baltazar’s Tiny Titans and loved it. I’ve also been enjoying the Super Best Friends Forever animated shorts done by Lauren Faust for Cartoon Network. If you would like to see more comic character artwork let me know.
Mark Neumayer 