Strange Tales #8 cover art

From 1987:

Batgirl pin-up

Batman family pencil drawing: 2001

One more portfolio sketch from the '80's

Outsiders Annual: Cover art

This sketch was very rough.  Nowadays I wouldn't attempt a painting without a tighter prelim.  I'm also posting a copy of the sketch with my scribbled notes.  The "send copies of Dals..." notation refers to the production people who were in charge of coloring assignments in 1986 and really didn't want to give the job to me, since I was a rookie. They wanted to see some samples of my coloring work before they'd give me the green light. The obvious question at the time was, "Who's better qualified to do the color guides, someone on staff who's never seen this story before or the guy who painstakingly pencilled and inked every knuckle, noodle and nostril on this 44-page comic?" 

Archie's Pals 'n' Gals #16 cover art

No, this isn't my auction, but you all know how much I love the work of Samm Schwartz. His daughter is selling one of his covers, a beautiful, twice-up gem from 1961.  Stop by and put in a bid!

DC head shots from 1981

More amateur stuff from the dusty old notebooks:

Outsiders Annual: Page 19

Once again, the scan of the original art is from the kind and generous Mr. Simon Miller. The horizon and reflection seem to disappear in the second scan and reappear in the third but like many of the effects in this story, they were inked on an overlay.

Two portfolio sketches from the '80's

Back around 1986 or '87 I was asked to put together a group of illustrations for an art portfolio. I did several pencil prelims but I thought most of them fell short of the quality and imagination that would justify the "fine art" treatment. Soon, I got busy with other work and not long after that, the portfolio market tanked. The drawings went into a three-ring binder and were, for the most part -- forgotten about -- until I came across them recently. Here are two of the sketches:

A few more Batman cartoon character designs

A few Batman cartoon character designs

Some incidental characters:

Sinestro: Ivan Ries pencils

Chris Caira commissioned Ivan to draw this piece, then asked me to ink a blueline version.  From 2008.

Batman gargoyle drawing #3

I'm calling this one #3, just to keep things organized here, but it was drawn before 1 and 2, in 2008.

Ripclaw cover inks over Jordan Raskin

I really enjoyed inking Jordan's lush rendering on this piece and I'm not just saying that because he's been reading this blog lately. This was drawn in 1993 but it wasn't published until 1995.

New Mutants #51 page 21

Rough layouts, pencils and a scan of the original art, courtesy Mr. Simon Miller:

Gorilla, You're a Desperado

Here's something a little different: a marker sketch from around 1986...

Outsiders Annual: Page 33

One thing I liked about drawing this book was the larger DC art paper that was being used for the offset "Baxter" comics at the time.  I had an extra inch or two which really helped with the fussy inking style I was using.  Most of the fine lines held up much better than they would have on a newsprint, letterpress book.

New Mutants #51 character sketches

I don't always do this before I start drawing a story but it seemed like a good idea on this project since I wasn't familiar with all of these characters and was trying out a pared down, less rendered approach.  From 1987.

Punisher #6, page seven

I hope the statute of limitations has passed because inking with so little regard for the penciller's hard work should be a crime.  Don't ask me what I was thinking because I don't know.