Enjoying the BVS soundtrack and a little heat vision to melt the hate away!

I'm just brushing away some cobwebs from my stylus and started sketching again.

Since I have Batman v Superman on the brain, I drew up one of my favorite action scenes from the movie. I have never seen Superman's heat vision depicted in all it's glory like they did in the last act of BVS and it was pretty spectacular!

I've also been listening to a lot of the BVS soundtrack as I drive to work and aside from the main character tracks (Beautiful Lie, Is She With You or This Is My World), there are some that I have really come to appreciate more like the great Do You Bleed? track. And it's quite awesome to listen to it while I drive too! My commute to and from work has gotten much more epic! 

Very rough sketch. I put this on it's own layer, then work on another layer to tighten it up.

Another rough sketch. The right hand didn't exist in the original sketch. But when
I took it to the inking stage, it just looked odd that he was missing one arm in the
drawing. Glad digital is so forgiving. And layers. Layers are great. 

Shrank his head down after the initial inking pass. Aside from the
muddy silhouette of his cape to the background in the top left. I kinda
like the starkness of the Black and White version.

Final colors. I messed around with using more traditional Superman blues with his uniform and
changing the background from blue to yellow to orange, but I liked how intense the heat vision
was in the movie, so a semi-monochromatic look was the way to go.

There's still an incredible amount of hate floating around for this movie. I suppose it might never really go away, just as the hate for Man of Steel still hangs over it's head. But re-watching MOS after BVS, just made MOS that much better and it actually gave it a much more tender, sweeter quality to it too. It's interesting, I've read a couple reviewers (pretty big names too, Kevin Smith and Harry Knowles) do a follow up review when they watched it a second time and they leaned a little more favorable.

Sadly, the hate train has already left the station. Choo choo. And their initial dislike for the movie is already etched in all the internet bile that's been thrown at this movie. So while I appreciate their second review... well... the damage really cannot be undone. Though to his credit, Harry Knowles' second review sounded very honest. I liked that he acknowledged that he carried so much baggage in with him on that first viewing, he really didn't enjoy what the film was and hated it for what it wasn't.

In any case, nothing like a big blast of Supes' heat vision to blast the hate away! Take that haters! 

I loved Batman v Superman... Next up Suicide Squad!

So I've been roaming the internets lately and have been doing my civic duty liking BVS posts or tweets and at some points rebutting some haters on my FB page, chatrooms and newsites. BVS has got the fans divided! It's very much like the Man of Steel reaction, actually. Crazy sidenote, I had to comment on a site to help them clarify some things they misunderstood about BVS... here's the catch: it was on a site that prided itself to be a lover of all things Zack Snyder! How's that for divided!

Anyhow, I loved Batman v Superman. It wasn't what I was expecting, but it surely exceeded what expectations I had of it! I'm eagerly counting the days until the blu-ray comes out!

To be honest, I was quite bummed the rest of the world didn't quite feel as excited about it as I was, but after a few weeks of moping and checking the Box Office performance of BVS (which, I'm glad to say will at the very least break even for WB), I'm back on my feet not caring what other people think! Back to work in combating DC hate with fan art! And what better way to do that than making fan art for the DCEU's next film, Suicide Squad!

The second Suicide Squad trailer just dropped a few days ago and it looks absolutely awesome!

Quick sketch on the first layer. I knock down the transparency on this layer
and keep it loose. It's quite a horrible drawing, but I just push foreward.

Inking phase next. The speedline background is on a separate layer as well
as my shadow pass on her face and hands. Usually if I'm a little apprehensive
about something I work on a different layer so that mentally, I'm not stressing
out about running out of undos! It's quite freeing for myself and
I just keep drawing more and worrying less.

Coloring phase. This was a little trickier than my usual drawings.
Usually I have a color scheme in mind already when I start coloring, but I
really had to find it while doing it on this one. I wussed out on the face shadows
and actually made it a color instead of keeping it that stark black from the inks.
I did more colored line effect this time around so the stark blacks on her
face weren't quite working. I added one of my favorite lines from the
trailer to finish off the drawing. The Ballroom Blitz!

So there you have it. I've noticed a lot of some artists I follow on tumblr or twitter post up a lot of Marvel themed sketches (and they're great!). Rarely do I see some DC love (unless it's Batman). So I'm back to try to tip the scales! DC fan powered sketch! Bring the hate, haters! DC Cinematic Universe is going full-steam ahead!

24 hours from now... I will be watching Batman v Superman!

Twenty Fours hours from now, I get to watch the advanced IMAX 3D screening of Batman v Superman at the metreon! I'm so excited! I got the complimentary ticket because the first teaser trailer got leaked early online. The quality was pretty horrible and the internet hate poured onto the movie. From day one this movie has gotten so much hate it's a little insane. But BvS marketing has been pulling out the stops to make sure this movie at least gets a fair shake...

So then, Zack Snyder and the WB decided to give free advance screening passes to the people that went to the free teaser screening that night as a nice gesture to keep the fans happy. I got some flack from some people I work with about going to watch a teaser trailer on an IMAX screen, but I guess it was all worth it after all, eh? The teaser looked great on the IMAX screen even without the free passes by the way!

Sketch phase - I was going to add a silhouette of Lex at the top, but I couldn't really get it to work.
I've gotten accustomed to just a quick sketch to start with. I do most of the thinking in the digital inking stage.
How to render out Wonder Woman was a mystery to me at this point, but I was kinda crossing my fingers
I'd figure it out later when I get the big two inked up...

Black and White digital inks stage - I just placed the official logo on top to
complete the image. Wonder Woman helps me to be lazy with the two big figures
because I didn't have to draw the rest of them from the waist down!

I kept messing around with the color saturation of the background because I wanted it to have the feel of the palette of the movie, but after way too many hours messing with it, I decided to keep it the same saturation I initially had planned for it. At the end of the day, it's just how I mix colors, and I was more satisfied with the final colors sticking to what I knew...

Final colors - this stage is always a love/hate relationship for me. I can never seem to preserve the stark
contrast of the black and whites when I 'translate' it into color. Usually I find a palette that I can live with
and move on. Otherwise, I end up messing with the Hue/Saturation sliders until the cows come home!

I think I like my initial drawing for BVS more because it was in such an odd  size and the color application was simpler. And I think I was actually able to 'translate' the stark contrast of the black and white images for that one better. For this one though, I think it's dimensions make it easier to see it on a computer monitor and are set up more in a traditional movie poster design.

Anyway, as I type this up, I'm listening to the excellent Batman v Superman soundtrack that got officially released on youTube. My hype levels are astronomical!  I'll be jut a few hours away from witnessing the greatest gladiator match the world has ever known! Batman v Superman is going to be awesome! Signing off for now and I hope I can sleep tonight!

My Comic: Issue 3 Page 6 Final Colors

I've found as I'm coloring in these pages that I've been slowly adding a lot of detail to my drawings with each successive issue. Some of it, I feel is a necessity and it's not necessarily a bad thing... but it sure takes me a lot more time to color these panels!

There's still a few fixes that need to be done, from editing down some
of the dialogue, the lettering bubbles and the font sizes. But for the most part
this page is as good as done!

That's another page (almost) in the can! 18 more pages to go! 

My Comic: Issue 3 Pages 2 and 3 Final colors

Just a quick post for this super early morning. I need to get to sleep! Finished up the colors for the opening splash page of issue #3 of The Bomb Squad. The "color artist me" is so angry at the "penciler me" for drawing so many stupid trees and buildings on this page...

The first pass of colors was just me blocking in the basic colors. I didn't
have the .PSDs of the previous issue, so I just eyeballed the colors.

A few more tweaks on colors and I started to add shadows.
I matched the colors of the trees to what I had them colored in issue #2,
but I wasn't too sure about it being such a blue hue...

...so I switched it to a yellower-green color to brighten it up a bit.
I colored in the second panel a bit as well as the Megaphone shadows.
Slow and steady!

Final colors! Whew. Added a bluer shadow
for the trees to try to bring it back it it's original hue.

This thing took a looong time for me to do. Longer than what I wanted at least! Considering how fast I can usually color my comic book pages, this took forever. All the detail on this splash page really made it tedious applying the colors. But I like how it's ended up so far... 

That's it for this morning. Time to sleep!

Being a DC fan in the Marvel Age: BvS Fan art!

I've been writing up these blog posts of how tough it is to be a DC fan nowadays, especially with the popularity of Marvel Comics currently. However, I've just recently been able to "get past" that feeling. Mainly because of the great quality and quantity that WB entertainment and DC comics have been providing as of late.

4 times during the week, the wife and I have a jam packed TV schedule populated mostly by DC/Vertigo shows! Gotham, Supergirl, Flash, iZombie, Arrow and Legends of tomorrow are on our TV after we've put the kids to bed.

DC's SuperHero girls and Teen Titans Go are great shows for the kids (with a toy line coming for DC Superhero girls). DC Animated movies are still proving to keep their high bar of quality up, and there's a new Justice League coming on TV soon!

Comics wise, I am enjoying the risks DC is taking with the DCYou (though others aren't) and Movie-wise, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman are in production and of course Batman v Superman's premier is coming really soon! Check out the final trailer for BvS:



Suffice to say, that's a lot of great DC related comic book content to be enjoyed!

So sure, I live in the Marvel age and everybody, in general, hates DC. But I don't really care now! I used to want to justify to everybody just how great DC is, and always felt I had to defend it. Now with all this stuff coming out and being produced, I'm just swept up in so much AWESOME.

Oh, I'll probably still rant about it from time to time, but it's such a great feeling to know that I really do get to experience some quality DC entertainment! As a DC fan, I am absolutely having a great time in my DC oasis and since there's a LOT of it for me to digest, I don't have time to get bogged down in the hate.

There's so much fantastic DC related media out there I don't need to have sour grapes about Marvel anymore!

Anyhow, I decided to join this contest for Batman v Superman fan art. The prize isn't really that great, but I just wanted to participate to be a part of it and support BVS. So I colored up my old black and white pieces:

Colored in manga studio.

Colored in manga studio

It was actually tricky trying to keep my colors simple, so that I didn't take away from the Batman and Superman originals. When I colored in the Superman piece and gave him pinkish flesh tone, it took away from the piece. There were too many colors going and and it was very representational instead of a simpler color scheme.

Anyhow, for the contest, I mashed the two together and made this bookmark looking thing:

Check out the page for my entry here.

The pieces weren't meant to be together like that, but it seems to have worked out. It's kinda growing on me the more I look at it. I'd doubt I'd win anything, but it was fun to create and take part of the buzz and the advertising campaign for the movie.

I think the excitement I have for this movie rivals the excitement I had as a kid for the first Michael Keaton Batman movie back in the 90's! So my hats' off to the marketing people handling BVS!

Anyhow, we may live in the Marvel age right now, but it's okay. The DC fan is definitely well fed and well rewarded in these times as well! So if anything? It's a great time to be a DC fan right now too!
 

My Comic Book: Issue 3 Page 1 Final

...and the first page is colored! I colored  page 4 and 5 of the book already, but having the first page colors finished feels more like a true start to me finally finishing this issue.

Here... we... go!

You can have a gander at the black and white inks here.

I see a lot of artwork from various artists through social media and they're all fantastic stuff. Sometimes so fantastic, I get a little depressed, thinking that I never will get up to snuff. I'm not fast enough, I'm not good enough, I don't know enough, I'l never learn enough... blah blah blah. But not to worry, that usually just lasts for a moment. I've actually learned a long time ago something really important:

I will never be up to snuff.

What I mean about that, is I can never possibly reach whatever lofty idea I have in my head what 'up to snuff" is. In simple terms: I could not possibly be as good as other people because I am NOT other people. I can only be as good as I can be. My growth as an artist can only be taken one footstep at a time.

And the Bomb Squad is my foot forward. Slow, true, but still going forward. Still fighting the neverending battle. That's it for now, God Bless you all and up, up and away!

Supergirl TV show

The new Supergirl TV show has been a lot of fun. Melissa Benoist is the perfect actress for the job and the stories and the effects have been top notch. I'm a fan of all DCTV, and the action in Flash and Arrow (especially season 4's 7th episode "brotherhood") has been top notch, but there's really nothing quite as fun for me to watch as a Kryptonian using their full power set. And Supergirl really delivers! Every episode always has multiple and effects intensive fight sequences.

I'm always amazed at the budget they're throwing at this show, and I'm afraid it won't last long because of the cost. But if anything they've really been cranking it up, and as a Superman/Super-family fan it's just so great for me to see.

False start. I think the Supergirl poster
that was making the rounds on the internet
is the driving inspiration for this first sketch.

Restarted the pose. I usually work one sketch layer on top of the other,

until I feel confident I can move onto digital inking. Most times, I got

back and forth between the "inks" when I'm not confident about something

 or I realize I didn't put enough details in the drawing for me to bring it to a finish.

I couldn't figure out her knee, so I took a photo reference to figure it out.

Finished character art.

Final

It's nice that the DCTV shows run the whole spectrum of being different from each other. Supergirl is seemingly the one that can really cover a broad range of ages. Give it a shot, the first 8 episodes have been great fun. The mid season finale even has a Man of Steel homage in it's fight sequence.

That's it for the night/day. Up, up and away!

Being a DC fan in the Marvel age: a little levity from Zack Snyder

Zack Snyder posted up a couple of awesome BVS and Star Wars mash up videos on his twitter site just recently. I have to say it comes at a good time, since a little humor to cut the negativity from the internet about the recent BVS trailer is welcome.

#anticipation Getting excited for Star Wars @bad_robot pic.twitter.com/Mv6yCdqMi5

— ZackSnyder (@ZackSnyder) December 15, 2015

Stay on Target @bad_robot #anticipation pic.twitter.com/8zxEjoPnHC

— ZackSnyder (@ZackSnyder) December 15, 2015

I've actually been actively looking for other fans' positive reaction videos and website articles on BVS, just to help pump me up a bit and to drown out the haters. Plus, since a lot of the people I know are also in the semi-hater category, it's nice to be able to share the excitement with other fans, even if it's just "virtually".

Anyhow, I drew up the big guy himself, to complete my trinity drawings for BVS.

I didn't really like how his face and the shadows on it were working out, so I just decided to put it mostly in shadow. I liked how the shadow on his face turned out.

Final

And that's it for today. That completes the BVS trinity I set out to do as an outlet for my excitement for the second trailer. Instead of going on forums and trying to get sucked up into an endless flame war with haters, I'm trying to approach it as a positive fan instead. Share the BVS love!

Being a DC fan in the Marvel Age: Not liking the "fan's" BVS (fixed) trailer

Guh.

I'm kinda tired of 'fans' fixing things. Man of Steel got it's colors 'fixed' by some guys on the internet a few months back (I won't even mention their name or link you to it... that's how much I disagree with them). And now there's a 'fixed' version making the rounds about the Batman v Superman trailer. I disagree with that too.

I liked Jesse Eisenberg's Luthor and also seeing Doomsday. To get rid of those two, diminishes a few things that trailer did. We got to see a good amount of screen time with the main characters of the movie. I was really impressed that I got to see Luthor, Kent and Wayne interact with each other and I got a grasp of who they were. I got to see the acting chops of everybody and I really liked it.

The Star Wars and Civil War trailers (granted it's just the first trailer for Civil War) don't really have any of this. That's fine. But I felt BVS gave me much more acting than those two did, and I'm really thankful for it. So no, I don't agree with cutting out Eisenberg's scene or even displacing it from the main chunk it was from in the original. By displacing that clip of Luthor with Clark and Bruce, it disjoints the flow of that scene as well as limiting my appreciation of it.

The Doomsday reveal was AWESOME. And a Jaw dropper. And I still remember how absolutely hyped I felt seeing it. Cut that out and the trailer would be not as amazing of an experience. The fixed version just made him a roar at the end without any visuals. I think as a viewer I would be confused seeing this (without hindsight) and think... "Why and Batman and Superman fighting a dinosaur!" Oh, I can image the amount of hate and ridicule people would give it already! Clips of Jurassic World and Chris Pratt edited into it by 'fans', or Godzilla stomping through the scene.

So no, I don't agree with that part of the 'fixed' version either. The Wonder Woman reveal scene got cut as well. What happened with the fixed version is that it just made Wonder Woman not much of a presence in the trailer. She was treated like an afterthought. That was possibly my favorite scene in the entire trailer and to chop that into a little clip of her (that looked like an image of her we've seen previously), makes that clip... almost pointless and not as awesome of a treatment of Wonder Woman's first appearance to the public. That was a statement, really that the original cut made loud and clear; to all the haters that were unsure of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman: have no fear, she's awesome.

Nope, I don't agree at all with any of the 'fixed' changes at all. The fixed changes wouldn't have amped people up for this movie like the real one did. In fact, nobody would really be talking about it. Which, is not what a trailer should do.

When I say 'fans', I mean people that hate on the trailers but qualify themselves as still wanting to see it, as if they're doing it a favor. "I don't want to seem like a stuck up, judgemental hater, so I'm going to pretend I'm still going to watch it even though I've torn this movie to shreds before I've seen it."

With the amount of hate tossed around by those same 'fans', why bother watching it? If you hate it so much, no one's forcing you to watch it. In fact, don't watch it, don't try to backpedal. Just support what you like and love, and don't waste your time with stuff you hate.

The 'fixed' trailer is not exciting at all. Good job making it boring, 'fixed'-trailer-people.

Okay, enough ranting. Time to show my support!

Really rough sketch, no real need for details.
No need for composition too at the beginning.
I'd just deal with that later on.

I just went straight to inks with manga studio. The brush
type name eludes me, but it's one of my favorites in manga
studio. It's just the stock brush, but it has this rough quality about
it that frees me from being so precious about ever line I draw.

So there's my next shot fired at the Batman v Superman haters. Batman will make you bleed. You will!

Being a DC fan in the Marvel Age: Batman v Superman trailer #2

Seems like this topic is fast becoming a  re-occuring topic on this blog. The topic for today is the recent Batman v Superman trailer #2 and despite it hitting all the marks and absolutely rocking it (my opinion of course), there is still a lot of hate to be dished out by a lot of people.

Quite a few stem from the fact that they think the trailer has already shown too much and spoiled the movie. Others hate Jesse Eisenberg as Luthor (too much like the Joker is one comment, which really makes no sense to me). And others complain there's too many characters and it's not solely a Batman v Superman movie.

I disagree with all of these of course. After all, how can I know the whole movie has been spoiled if I haven't seen the whole thing yet? Was it spoiled because I now know that Batman and Superman were going to work with Wonder Woman at the end? Who didn't think that was going to happen in this movie though? Was it spoiled that Doomsday was a villain manipulated by Lex? Maybe? But we don't know how that fight will pan out still, just as we knew Zod was the bad guy, but we didn't know how that initial Man of Steel fight would pan out right?

Eisenberg looks like he's playing the annoying smart rich guy, and sure he makes some quick quips, but he's no Joker by any stretch. And I do have a feeling that's just how he's playing it to fool the heroes. That picture of him bald released a while ago seems to scream the true evil nature of his portrayal. I personally like this different take on Luthor on screen. As great of a Gene Hackman impression Kevin Spacey did in Superman Returns, and Clancy Brown's awesome business man Lex in the animated series, I want something new.

And for others who solely want a Batman v Superman movie... it's not. The title says all right there "Dawn of Justice". This movie is the set-up for the Justice League. I've had someone say that to reduce this movie to something as 'brainless' as a good guys vs bad guys movie like the avengers 2 makes it bad. That argument really doesn't hold any water either. I mean, it's a super hero movie! OF COURSE it's good guys vs. bad guys!

Anyhow, I personally enjoyed this trailer. There were some incredibly spot-on scenes with Cavil and Affleck in their secret identities meeting for the first time.The quick snippets of all the fight scenes looked fantastic, from the Batman v Superman brawl to the desert sequence with what could be para-demons. Doomsday made me giddy and of course the whole scene with Wonder Woman's reveal had my jaw drop even further.

My gut instinct is to fire back at the haters with the same bile and anger that they spew. To trash the stuff that they think is good (and oh, it is  SO easy to do it), and just absolutely decimate them with a rant (like this one).

But that gets us nowhere.

Instead, I fired back... with fan-art! With me celebrating the trailer and the stuff I loved, and liking and sharing as many posts and tweets about it that I could find! I would direct compliments to the director and actors and the companies at the good job they did, and instead be supportive of them.

Sketch Phase. I still like her eye shape better
in the original sketch. I didn't spend too much time
on the details...

I added some speed lines to fill up the empty areas
by her head, and they're cool, but it just wasn't the
feeling I was going for with the drawing.

Final

And that's my first shot fired at the Batman v Superman haters! And I'm sure there'll be more. Warner Brothers is really going out of their way to make this movie absolutely awesome and epic. They are climbing an uphill battle, because by default, everybody hates DC. I live in a world where people are more hyped to watch Ant-Man and Black Panther than to see Batman fight Superman!  It's a good time for comics to be sure, and there's a lot of positivity towards the genre... as long as you're not DC Comics that is.

Birthday card for my wife

I put my comic book work on hold for a little bit and worked on a birthday card for my wife. I didn't quite have an idea what it would be about, but it would still be in the same 'universe' that my wedding proposal for her is in.

My wife and I would have quick conversations about how our life has changed so much since we've had children. We'd see old photos of ourselves and reminisce about the days that it was just her and I and how 'mobile' we were. We would think about all the places we went to and the places we'd like to be.

Don't get us wrong though, we love our kids, but it seems like that was a different lifetime ago, and the people in the photos seem so different from who we are now. So that's where the brain storm started for the birthday card.

My sketches worked backwards. I knew what message I wanted to say
at the end, so I started off with 'designs' for the interior image first.

Boiling down my idea along with basic poses for the characters on the card.

I'm paying homage to that classic "Spider-Man, No more" issue
for the card's front. But eventually I thought a horizontal, hotdog-style
opening card would make the card more special than a regular one.

With around a week to go before the big day, I didn't bother tightening up the sketches, or even the layouts, and just went straight to digital inks. All my character design work was already done, so I felt confident I could just bust this one out.

It started out that I was going to draw the background of the 'cover' just like
Amazing Spider-Man #50. But because of time as well as aesthetics, it seemed
really appropriate to leave the background blank. It would be a good contrast to
the super colorful interior (once I was done with it).

I drew the images incorrectly at first. It was on an 8.5 x 11 canvas, but
I didn't take into account that it should've been half that height,
since I was folding the paper in half. Nothing scaling and a little
digital re-positioning couldn't handle though! 

Coloring pass wasn't too tough. I used to use Photoshop to handle the coloring, but since my older version of Photoshop works 'alright' on my Surface 3, I just kept coloring in Manga Studio. It wasn't too bad actually.

Final colors, and a slightly altered layout from the Black and Whites.

I think I over did the stars, but it's kind of a nice contrast to the
starkness of the cover. Kinda like a punch in the face after opening
the birthday card... maybe not the best analogy...

So there we go. Hopefully, it feels like a celebration of the new things that we have now (and who we've become), and less of the "I miss the "good" ol' days"... That's it for my art shenanigans for November! Time to go back to blocking in some colors for my comic!

My Comic Book: Issue 3 - Lettering

No Inktober drawings from me this year. As much as I really enjoyed letting my DC comic fan out last year with those ink drawings, I opted out of it this year. Instead, I finished up the lettering pass of the third issue of my comic book!

It's always nice to see my page with lettering.
It's good to see if the page is working, like I intended
it to, once the balloons are placed.

This was the first time I used Manga Studio to handle the lettering (along with Blambot's fonts), and it was definitely a good change from how I used to do it on Photoshop. Arranging balloon placement was a breeze and I made some custom balloons as well to make my life easier. I used to have to custom make my balloons in Photoshop for every page, and they were rasterized layers not vector... so I couldn't readily futz around with placement and size without having to scrap the entire balloon every time.

Seeing how pages work next to each other is do-able in the computer,
but there's nothing like testing the 'page-flip' on physical pages.

Once the lettering is in, I print out the pages and place them into one of those plastic folders with the clear sleeve pages in them. This way I can visualize the placement of my pages sequentially in a physical format. I usually find myself constantly flipping through the mock-up. This is sort of my editing phase. I'll read the physical copy multiple times. I 'll find typos, or phrases I keep repeating in the dialogue, spelling mistakes or inconsistencies in page flow.

I don't think my brain actually slips into this mode until after I see all the pages together like this, and I've found it's a very important and encouraging step for me. Anyway, next up: colors!

The red capes are coming!

The latest Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer is out and it looks fantastic! I was already a giant fan of Man Of Steel and the first teaser trailer for this, so I was extra blown away when they released this online in HD! Wonder Woman looks awesome, Desert nomad Batman looks great, Mind controlled (???) Superman is scary and I really liked Ma Kent's lines to Superman at the farm.

I initially drew this sketch for the teaser, but I kinda got swamped with real life! I rrally like Jesse Eisenberg's delivery of this line in the teaser, so I'm glad we get to see the scene when he does say it in the trailer.

First pass: I liked the face and pose, but I didn't like
the clean lines. I wanted to get a little messier.

I liked the black and white version of this, but I thought
a little color would enhance it a bit better.

Simple colors added in. I added in the text in there
courtesy of Blambot's fonts.

That's it for tonigĥt! And remember, "The red capes are coming!"

The Suicide Squad (some of them at least)

   I'm really looking forward to Batman v Superman. But I was pleasantly surprised that the next movie in the DC universe was going to be the Suicide Squad! After the excellent Batman: Assault on Arkham (which barely has any Batman, but a lot of the Suicide Squad), I'm quite excited to see these guys on the big screen.

SKETCH PHASE

   Drew up something really quickly, I wasn't really focused on getting Deadshot's costume details, or even Killer Croc's design specific... I was just going for something that was fun to draw. I have another sketch of Croc I forgot to scan, but I started getting into drawing the details of his scales. So much so, that I had to stop myself so I could save that 'energy' for the final drawing instead. I usually lose a lot of wind when I redraw the same thing over and over again.

DIGITAL INKS

   I barely do tight digital 'pencils', like I said, I'm very lazy when it comes to re-drawing or tracing over something. Doing that has been good and bad at the same time. Sometimes I get lucky and going straight to 'inks' gets me something passable. Most times, especially on my comic book, it can lead to some issues with composition and storytelling. But if it's a pin-upy, fan arty thing? It's not a problem!

COLORS

   Deadshot and Croc's inks look good enough to me, but they seemed to like in two different universes of finish. One guy is rendered with a stipple kind of finish and the other guy with a looser 'brush'. What can usually save me has been the coloring stage.So I add some flat colors into it, and because I'm a sucker for complimentary colors, I'm using a red and green scheme. The two areas of red I have I split up with Croc's green, and the bursts of yellow from Deadshot. I really cannot get away from the pink-ish red I always use. I still haven't gotten sick of it, though I'm sure it must annoy somebody...

SHADOWS/HIGHLIGHTS

   The last pass I do is to add shadows. But in the case of this, I ended up adding a lot of highlights back in instead. I initially started coloring with Photoshop. I'd use the lasso tool and draw out crisp shapes and filled them in. As I got to coloring more however, I found my usual way of coloring wasn't really a fit with what I inked. So I went back to Manga Studio and started coloring the highlights and shadows in with a brush and left it more messy.

   That's it for today! Bring on the Suicide Squad David Ayer!