The BLOG Exclusives

OK-we're going to be dropping these blog "exclusives" here, to keep this thing interesting and fresh! This first one below was meant to be a painted companion piece to the BOMB#2 cover with Sea-Goin' Lil on it. I did this one on an old vellum. The sheet was pretty yellow, I like working on old paper like that sometimes. It popped out of the piles around here right around the time I was prepping a new SKETCHBOOK which Bob Shaw proposed we do for NYCC . It's coming along nicely might I add.
After some toning and cleanup I said"Golly!"...this piece is kinda nice. So truthfully it's not completely exclusive to the blog, it will be in the 2009 NYC MANNION SKETCHBOOK. But this is certainly the first public unveiling of the piece! So without further adieu, here she is, "The Fearless One"... (next up...a Daily!!!)
-s

Fearless EXCLUSIVE! #1...

Pencils Below

Yep. Those are some of the layout pencils for a Heavy Metal story pitch that I had planned on getting back to someday. It's all layed out,really tight thumbnail style. Hopefully I can get to it real soon, I'm trying to prioritize(sp?) issue 2 of FD and the NYCC prep. New York! New York! Can't wait...
-steve

PENCIL PAGES

These are some pencilled pages Steve did for an upcoming short story of Fearless Dawn

Roughs

OK. Here's how I'll approach a lot of my assignments when I'm not joyously blasting away in my sketchbook. Very tight thumbnails.
Theses are actual size. It's a great way to knock out a lot of problems quickly and I often blow them up and ink 'em on a lightbox licketty-split. A lot of my "Tales from the Crypt" covers are done this way. If I stay focused and keep at it, I generally can move a full-color cover outta here overnight. I mean...err...That's a lie! This stuff takes me a real long time!...er...Damn you blog!!!! Seriously, being at it for 40 years I guess you do develop a bit of speed when needed. Too bad I can't keep up a level of production like this for a long time. I feel like I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown after a while. Drawing, drawing, Drawing...Phooey! Man I wanna walk around in the woods everyonce in a while. See a dinky bird or something.

Cover Quandry...

Ok... That there cover below was a bit of a dog, but I did like how it came together. Frank gave me the go-ahead to start the series and I struggled with an image for quite a bit. Finally, I did decide and ink the thing up, using a lot of open areas which I figured I would render out with color. This isn't how I usually go but I was so impressed with some of the things that I had seen around (mainly in Adam Hughes' work!) that I figured I'd give this a shot.
There's a big sloppy layer from another painting that I shot and dropped in, semi-translucent. Just shapes and bumps, etc. I began erasing highlights once the main color was done and was digging the organic effect that we were getting with it. Sometimes my computer colors seem to me to be kinda dead you know. This was a nice remedy...

FEARLESS DAWN #1 cover