Batman- My Process

 Hello there everyone,

Today I am posting my most recent piece, a commission of Batman- Arkham City.  Now, this is not a completely faithful following of the artwork for the game (which I find to be amazing) but my own version of Bats and friends.  Now, you may be wondering 2 things( probably more) why only these characters and why are the photos so shitty?  Great questions!  The commission was basically free reign for me, all that was requested was Batman and Nightwing from the game with one color integrated into the black and white.  So I basically decided to use the characters which I know are in the game and that I personally like and thought of something fun to draw and to try something different stylistically for a change (which I hope to keep building on more).  As for the picture quality... well thats what happens when you drop a digital camera several thousand times, the several thousand and first time creates an awesome grid effect on our photos every once and a while (which I personally love for experimental photography, which I may post a few of the cooler ones on here sooner or later but sucks because you never know when it will work now).  Anyways, here are some basic descriptions on how I got from pencils to finished scan, enjoy!

Pencils, this is mostly 4h with some 2h added in for some of the areas i wanted to emphasize.   But this is mostly a flat drawing on high end watercolor paper.  most of this was lightened even more after the photo so the pencils will not overpower the ink wash or paint.

Ink wash one, mostly a Winsor & Newton  mop brush with a #6 round for the areas i didn't want to bleed. 

More is ink added to my tub of ink and water to help create a little darker tone for the wash.

Added another layer of grey with a splash more of ink to help create definition.  Batman is inked with an even smaller Winsor & Newton round brush and Speedball nib (sorry, I can't remember which quill point it is but it's small, for good line control) 

Batman is defined a bit more and then I work my "one color" into the "dream state" or "collage" or whatever else you want to call it background.  I like dream state because I was going for the "who the hell can I trust/ beat the crap out" of  mind set of Batman.  This is first a layer of phthalo blue and sky blue mopped over the grey tone with hints of green and permanent rose.  the lines are straight indigo blue.





 

Final Scanned image.  Some of the defining colors of the friends and villains are dabbed in and Batman's cowl and gauntlets are darkened a bit more with ink wash.
    

Oscillate Wildly and fun with markers

Oscillate Wildly, Pg 1 panel 2

Kate Bishop, Hawkeye, Copics, india ink

Random, markers and ink

Angel lost her wings, markers, ink

Dark Mary Marvel, markers, ink

So I've been putting in a normal 40 hour work week (ugh) plus another 20+ (more then that too if you count the hours i put in on my down time at the real job) of my own time for the past 4 weeks to pencil, ink, and grey tone the story Oscillate Wildly.  For all the time I put in I'm generally happy with the outcome.  As always, I completed it and I'm really happy with some images while also really wishing I had time to re work others... but I don't.  Deadline is here and I'm just glad to be done with it.  As much as I love telling straight forward stories I'm excited to try and push myself into new genres and explore mixing in a "painterly"style into my work.  I have several ideas for images that I hope to have done in time for Phoenix Comicon... scratch that, I Will have done in time for Comicon.  Here are some practice images in markers that will be somewhat similar to what I will have in store for you once con rolls aroundbut think more Hopper and less pin up .

A new panel

Hello all, so I've already broke my resolution to post once a week... oh well.  Here is a treat for you to show that yes, I actually have been working on art and not just working my day job and playing xbox...

This is a panel from page one of Oscillate Wildly, which will be a story in Unite and Take Over 2 published by Spazdog Press.  Hopefully I did my job and you can tell this is a scene in a doughnut shop...  This is pre grey tone and pre clean up.  If you look close you can see all my sketchyness, mistakes and possible word balloons in the mix. This is 2h pencil, brush with india ink, Pitt india ink pens for straight lines all on canson comic board... so it can't take ink wash being much too light weight of paper, it would warp like all hell and look terrible.  Plus I can cheat and clean up any mistakes in Photoshop so thats how I'll paint the grays.

Watercolor step by step

So I figured I would post a nice step by step tutorial of sorts for my painting process.  Of course I got a little carried away and forgot to write down everything I did and stop and take photos.  But, this still is a pretty good example of how I go about creating my watercolor paintings.  So here we go..

Initial Pencils, lightly drawn with a 2h and 4h pencil on Arches watercolor paper.  I like to keep the pencils light so they won't take away from the paint.

1st layer of paint is mop brushed in.  I generally soak the areas i want the paint to flow into and then dab in light tones as a underpainting effect.  Then I added some darker tones to the areas that will help give the painting a full range of values and depth.

So I forgot to take pictures of some of the rendering phases so this is painting as almost complete.  I've added in quite a bit of burnt sienna and indigo blue for my dark values along with mixing in quite a bit of permanent magenta for my warmer values for wolvie's skin tone.

So here is the finished version (for now).  I've added in some watered down india ink to give wolverine a slight "inking" look and to really add some darks into the shadow areas.  Once dry I will probably go back in and add some more darks to the image to finish fleshing out all the values I want in there. 

I'm Back

I'm back with a new years resolution to keep up on my blogging so we will see how long it takes for me to break it again. I've worked on quite a few new images and it will take too long to post them all so just check out my deviantart page if you want to catch up on things. New pictures are in the works and will be posted soon, I'm trying out some new techniques and we will see if they will be beneficial to my work. Happy New year everyone!

Matt

Laryngitis, Art and More!

Who has 2 thumbs, a mean case of laryngitis and 2 days left of voting for his Phoenix Comicon Badge Art Contest? This GUY! So yell at your friends to vote for me since I can't [link]

As for my work I'm still working on the pencils for Buddha Monkey Issue 2 and they are coming along nicely. Sonic Youth 5 is just about ready so any social life and sleep will soon be gone when I'm working on both. I also have about 15 new sketch cards that are sketched in and waiting for color, I just haven't had the time to finish them up yet. I'm hoping by May 26th (PHX Comicon) I'll have about 20 new sketch cards, prints of my badge art and my Hawkeye drawing and issue 5 of Sonic Youth complete. Also, if any one wants a commission done by or at PHXCC just send me a shout and I'll get working on that too.

Last but least for all my metal heads out there, Between the Buried and Me just released their new EP Parallax: the Hypersleep Dialogues. So just go buy it because once again, they will melt your mind with their songs!

Hello! Voting for the Phoenix Comicon Badge Art competition is coming close to ending and I need your votes to help secure my spot as a contest winner. If you haven't already voted, please click on the link and then click that you like my Supergirl image. If you've already voted, please make one of your friends vote! I'll have prints available at con for purchase and I'll also have the original ink drawing for sale as well.

http://phoenixcomicon.com/badge_art/finalist/13

On a separate note, Buddha Monkey is moving along well and I've heard the Sonic Youth number 5 script is done so I'm going to be busy for some time to come!