The Lone Ranger!

Many know of my LOVE of The Lone Ranger! A favorite of mine since my father introduced me to the character when I was really young. I have fond memories of watching re-runs of the show with him and my favorite Christmas present as a child was the Lone Ranger toy that still sits on my shelf

So what would MY Lone Ranger look like? I always pictured him all in black with a white shirt and hat and the only color would be the red neckerchief. And from my reading of the character, early publicity photos of him from his radio days he is dressed all in black so there is some history there. As much as I love Clayton Moore, I doubt a real western hero would dress in a skintight powder blue outfit.

Recently discovered a new channel on our Roku and it has not only the old Lone Ranger TV shows but the 1967 animated show that I had never seen before. And while it has "limited" animation, I found the background art to be quite striking in it's bold graphic quality and the plots of the episodes are clearly influenced by the Wild Wild West with many steampunk additions to the show. I enjoyed it and was inspired to draw while watching. After I had my sketch I immediately went into it to flesh it out. I mean, I was relaxing out by the pool with my iPad. I only really used the HB Pencil in ArtStudioPro to do the whole thing and didn't work in my normal layer discipline. Instead I just kept going over the same layer and built it up. I was having fun but ultimately, ....I didn't like it. It's ok sketch but I felt I could do better if I stopped and thought about it. Maybe take it in a different direction. I decided to scrap the painted version and go minimalist. Then after I thought I was done, I even removed more lines and keeping the only color the red of the scarf. I was pretty pleased with the result. I hope you enjoyed this little journey and the peek into my process for it. I hope you like the picture too!

Enjoy!