Odds and Ends, Red Sonja WIP

Here's my thumbs for the Red Sonja contest. Lots of diving into battle behind a shield. The one similar to the one I chose, I abandoned because I think I saw one like it in a Conan mag by Simonson or Frank Thorne. Sonja looks so much like the girl from New Teen Titans. I ended up having to add her scales, change her boots and gloves etc. I was inspired to try this full pencil shaded version after seeing the process for Jenny Frison of Revival.
Red Sonja Cover Entry by xaqBazit on deviantART and this was a design for a mural at a local gym that I was supposed to do. But I landed a big penciling gig today, so I wanted to get these odds and ends up before I got busy again. Also posted a handful of unused/wip art on the From Blood facebook group.

Artists I like

I remember as a young boy the first artist I knew by name was a painter named John Gurche because I liked his paintings of dinosaurs and they were featured in a Kids magazine I was reading. Then the Hildibrant brothers as I was collecting their Marvel Cards and the Shadows of the Empire cards they did. Some artist I've really loved over the last few years I don't think I've mentioned yet are listed below. In fact most of my collecting these days have been centered around these artists now and anything and everything they've done. Chris Sprouse Giannis Milogiannis Becky Cloonan Danijel Zezelj - I haave no idea how this artist goes about their work. It almost looks like sillhouettes that are cut back into with whiteout - very distinct and interesting. Cully Hamner Paolo Rivera Marcos Martin Michael Hawthorne Kyle Baker in his late 80's/early 90's style on the Shadow or the Dick Tracy movie adaptation - his more cartoony stuff and new Tank Girl does nothing for me. Shawn McManus on Dr. Fate 80's Marshall Rogers on Batman And I've really enjoyed these messy covers by Frank Terran Frank Thorne Aron Wisenfeld Hugh Flemming - I find him even more interesting than Dave Doorman/Drew Struzan - he has a much more ground level approach to his angles that make even the most photoreferenced Star Wars cover seem like a brand new deleted scene etc. And for some reason I've come to learn that while I've known his work all my life from art in the Chris Hart how to books Gray Marrow's art is so flat it drives me nuts. I saw a story he did for Dark Horse for the Aliens franchise that was just not his thing.

Robyn Hood Samples Inking WIP

Some work in progress images I don't usually remember to take as I ink. I usually work all my pages at once and use one tool/technique at a time. Here it's mostly only the brush work that's been done. Usually go fat to fine. Also just got invited to a Wizard World show and have a lot of original pages from the last few years I'm looking to sell. So I hope to see you guys at one of the shows. Been working behind the scenes this last year, doing a lot of plotting and writing. And trying to find peace in the chaos that is an artist's life. Changed day jobs and moved too. Check out my DA page for the finished versions of these pages. http://xaqbazit.deviantart.com

Working in Layers

It's been a while but I thought I'd show how I'm working on some of my larger more complex pieces since doing the ship. Sharknado 2 poster Oops issue 3 cover I even ended up doing another layer to add the Clydesdale's hair around it's hooves but don't have that pictured here. The final version looks like this
Oopsish3 Cover by xaqBazit on deviantART I also got to be on some podcasts this year that I'll be posting links to shortly.