Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: Captain America

Jack Kirby's design for Captain America's costume has always been one of my quiet favorites in comics. That it was conceived so much in an ultra-patriotic era of jingoism yet has remained consistently popular and rarely been deviated from speaks to the strength of just how cool it looks. Who else but Kirby could make a guy wearing an American flag a pop icon outside the United States?

I did kinda a quickie sketch on this one, basically just taking a Gabrielle Dell'Otto Secret War cover and stripping down all the tricky details that make him a professional artist and me a guy drawing in my sketchbook...

I'm pleased with my effort, but I think a lot of that owes not only to aping Dell'Otto, but, again, the inherent quality of that Kirby design; it's just tought to screw up.

I will say this sketch showed me that Captain America just doesn't work as well for me in black and white or grey tones. I can do without the chain mail or glint off the cowl, but there's something about the balance of the red, white and blue that really does make it pop.

Earth's Mightiest Sketch Blog: The Wasp

Well this could have gone a lot worse.

Seriously, in all humility, I'm quite pleased with my first lady Avengers sketch of The Wasp.

Since I've always had trouble drawing women (I'm sure that speaks to some sort of issues, but I'll save myself some cash on counseling and just keep sketching), so I used this reference piece by an uncredited artist (Banks? As in Darryl?). However, I ended up doing a lot of "leg work" myself, including switching over to the character's original costume since I find it her most distinctive and because, hey, it's a Jack Kirby design.

So yeah, not too shabby. We'll see if I can hold it up as we continue.

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!