Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: Thor

Over a year in the making!

Seriously, the last entry in this sketch blog was December 3, 2008. Yeesh.

I'll admit it: Thor broke me. I did not ever anticipate I would struggle so much with trying to draw this character. The face and hair came easy enough, but the body gave me hell. Something about a character who is supposed to be super-strong but doesn't have a freakish musculature like The Hulk presented a real conundrum to me, and obviously it took quite some time for me to solve it. After a few tries early last year, I just threw in the towel and quit drawing for a bit (I also got sick, got married, etc., so there were other excuses).

A month or so ago I decided to pick up my sketchbook and try again only to experience yet another false start. I wanted to do a real wild pose, with Thor's arms thrust to the sky, lightning jumping out of his hammer and whatnot, but I couldn't nail it. I also generally fall back on doing the head-on view of characters' faces when I draw, so I wanted to challenge myself and tilt his head slightly upward, but that was no-go as well.

Ultimately, I ended up having to rely heavily on Olivier Coipel's cover to Thor: Tales of Asgard #1 as a guide and came out with this finished product:

I'm pleased enough with it (though I really wish I had erased that original pose better) and think some parts look pretty bad ass, but it was really a lot of aping a great Coipel piece and not enough me for my liking. Also, given how long it took to finally nip this in the bud, I'm not sure anything short of something I could hand to Thor editor Alejandro Arbona to use as a cover would have satisfied me.

Anyhow, at the very least I'm off the shelf for now as far as sketching and will attempt to get myself together enough to move forward both here and over at the We Are The LAW blog that TJ set up. Fingers crossed!