Eight and the War Doctor

As I have stated in the past, I am a big fan of the Eighth Doctor and was tickled pink when he finally returned to the screens this past November in the minisode leading up to the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. Brilliant as always, Paul McGann is every bit "The Doctor" and I, for one, would welcome another return. Now, maybe it's my love of McGann that clouds my judgement, but I am on the fence with the War Doctor as played by John Hurt. I think he did a wonderful job in the role and is always brilliant, but I am not a fan of effectively retro fitting the history of the show and setting of countless debates about the proper numbering of the Doctors. When I think back, I think it would have been even a bigger shock at the end of "The Name of the Doctor" episode, after Clara has entered the Doctor's time stream to have Paul McGann be the one to turn around at the end for the cliffhanger! I think that McGann should have been the "War Doctor". For years fans have assumed that he was the one who fought the war anyway and the fans all thought that he should have had another go at the character on screen as well and this would have filled both bits. Plus the fact that he is also a brilliant actor would still have made the 50th anniversary episode a memorable one. But alas, I am not in charge of Doctor Who and like many, just have my opinions.

So here is my simple piece with Paul McGann as The Doctor and John Hurt as the War Doctor.

Enjoy.

More Lone Ranger

Yeah, I know. The Lone Ranger again. Wait!! I meant, the Lone Ranger!! AGAIN!!  I don't care what anyone else thinks really, and there are plenty of opinions out there about the Lone Ranger. Say what you will, I always will have a soft spot for the character, and as I have waxed poetically about it in previous posts, you can look for it if you are interested. I honestly have mixed feelings about the newest movie. While I don't hate it like most critics out there, I also had a few problems with it but I thought it was fun and I appreciated that I could watch it with my son. I must admit that I have also re-edited the movie for my own viewing. Nothing fancy mind you. Not some professional level job with high end equipment and programs. Just Windows Movie Maker and some cuts you can see, but most turned out pretty seamless. I mainly cut parts of the Ranger acting a little too goofy for me and I think I trimmed about 10 minutes, but I also think that it works better. Yeah, I am basically a critic too.

So more on the picture. I really just kept this on my portable tablet computer to work on in my church cafe on the days when my son had basketball practice. If I finished my "real work", I basically had something to do. So I basically just noodled this one little by little. I tried a few things different and used it as a learning exercise as well. While I have "frankensteined" reference together before, never to the extent that I did with this one. Overall I was pretty happy with it. Some of my pencil lines got blown out a bit as I cropped the figure much more drastically than I originally intended.

So even if you are not a fan of the movie or the character, I hope you can at least enjoy the picture.

I don't usually share my reference, but here is the "frankenstein" as well as the progression of the painting.

007

MegaCon is just a few days away. I can't wait. This will be my second year in a row there with a table at artist alley and I am hoping for a good show. I have so many new pieces and a variety of styles to show as well. One special print I will be offering is a collaborative effort between myself and the very talented Danny Haas. While we were in New Orleans I mentioned that I had early drafts of a James Bond piece that I had stalled on and casually asked if he wanted to help me with it. He did. Then came the prospect of actually figuring out a way for us both to be represented in the piece as our styles are very different. Turns out, they merged quite nicely. I gave Danny the loose sketches of each Bond and then Danny worked his vector magic bringing each one to life. We then simply put my drawing back over the top and added a bit of flourish. Pretty simple and I think pretty effective.

So if you are at MegaCon this weekend you may want to think about picking one of these up. We are only printed 40 of them (we will each have 20) and when they are gone, they are gone! So get one. Get one for a friend! We won't even charge extra for us both to sign it either.

Hellboy!

I have always loved Hellboy. I remember when he first came out and have many of this first appearances. I have also been lucky enough to have met Mike Mignola on two occasions. One before Hellboy and one after. Super nice guy! For some reason, I don't have enough Hellboy on my shelf. I will have to rectify that. I enjoyed both movies (and still hold out hope for a third) as well as the animated version too. For this picture of the big red guy, I took the obvious visage of Ron Perlman and modified some of his proportions to be a bit more comic like. Bigger brow, jaw and more space from his nose to lip. Not too drastic, but enough. This was a really fun piece to work on and am pretty happy with the results. I hope you all like it as well.

Here is the progression of the piece as well. Enjoy!

Gold Monkeys

I am highly susceptible sometimes. Recently, over on my Facebook page, someone simply stated in a comment or message, "Tales of the Gold Monkey". If you don't know what that is, Google it. It was a tv show back in the early '80's that had many of the conventions of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I remember watching the show and liking it. I have also not seen it since and memories sometimes have a way to romanticize the past and in most cases, it's better that way. That is not to say that I won't be Googling it myself once I am done typing this! This was really just supposed to be a simple sketch and then I got carried away. Again. So here is Stephen Collins as Jake Cutter and his one-eyed dog Jack!

Also, while looking for pics for reference to the show, I came across some old drawings used to advertise the show in TV Guide. I remember these pics and had clipped them and taped them to the back of my bedroom door as a kid. That's what I would do. Don't judge me! I am not 100% sure, but they look like early Drew Struzan illustrations.