Here’s my newest Avengers Sketch Card. Iron Man in his newest Armor a.k.a The “Bleeding Edge Armor”. This armor was a challenge. Not sure I got the helmet just right. But I’m doing these sketch cards quickly. I’m trying not to overthink or overwork the drawings.
For this Sketch card, I used my regular .05 HB Mechanical Pencil. Started with a very quick gesture sketch then quickly defined the armor. I had fun with this one. Iron Man had always been a great visual character.
January Day 2 and here’s a new drawing. Black Widow, my newest Avengers Sketch Card. I’ll be drawing a new sketch card every day this year. So by the end, I”ll have about 365.
For this drawing, I tried to make a more dynamic pose. So there’s some foreshortening in her stance. I used an HB .05 mechanical pencil. This card took me about 18 minutes. I’m trying to do these sketch cards fast and try not to worry about making them perfect. It’s a fun exercise for me.
Captain America, Bucky Barnes Avengers Sketch Card – Day 1
2011 is a new year and I’m giving myself a new personal challenge. Last year I did a couple of sketch cards. I had intended to do one every day, unfortunately, I didn’t follow through. But this year I’m rechallenging myself! Heck yeah! My goal is to have 365 Sketch Cards done by the end of the year!
The cards I drew last year were of Thor and Hawkeye of the Avengers. This year I’m going to continue with the Avengers-themed sketch cards. I’ve always been a massive fan of the Avengers, in fact the first comic book I read was an Avenges book. Also, the Avengers movie is being filmed in my backyard of Albuquerque, NM this summer. So it just feels right!
Here’s my first Avengers sketch card for the year, the New Captain America a.k.a Bucky. It’s a quick sketch that took me about 16 minutes. I used an HB .05 mechanical pencil. The reflective nature of the costume was challenging, but I think it came out ok. I had fun with this sketch card!
I’ve recently started to enjoy inking with pen and ink. In the past, I’ve focused on inking digitally using either Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator. But I decided to tackle inking in the physical world. I have found inking with pen and bush to be more satisfying to me personally. I still believe that digital inking is a great technique. But for the time being, I will try to sharpen my skills in more traditional ways. My tools of choice have been a 102 nib pen and a size 4 sable brush.
I’ve been inking my own work, and that has been a great experience. I’ve decided to try inking other comic artists’ work too. My hope is that this will help me learn new creative approaches to comic art. I looked all over for a penciled piece I’d like to ink, then I found this super awesome piece of Thor vs. Taskmaster by comic book artist Mahmud Asrar. It comes from Avengers: The Initiative #32 Page 4. I found this on Mahmud’s DeviantArt page. I had fun inking these pencils. I will definitely be inking more comic pages in the future. – Shazam!
Cool! I Am A Secret Avenger! A few months ago with countless other comic fans, I entered a contest to join the Avengers. PaZow, I won! I was one of the few chosen. The photo I sent was put in the first issue of the new Secret Avengers comic.
The ad with all the winners had this cool tagline “Upon hearing the battle cry, “Avengers Assemble” these are the brave warriors that heeded the call and joined the ranks of Earths Mightiest Heroes at IAmAnAvenger.com” This was especially cool for me, not just because I huge comic nerd. But because the first comic I read when I discovered comics was an Avenger comic. So if you can find an issue of Secret Avengers #1, make sure to check out me and the other honorary Avengers.
I’ve decided to do a quick pencil drawing every few days. What better way than to draw on a Sketch Card? It gives me the opportunity to practice drawing different characters, and it’s also fun! Sketch cards are the size of collectible cards. They’ve become very popular in the past few years.
For this sketch card, I decided to continue with the Heroic Age theme and draw another Avenger. So I penciled a quick sketch of Thor. It’s cool because the Thor movie is being filmed here in Santa Fe. I even tried out to be an extra in the film. No callback, but it was still fun. This drawing took me about 18 minutes. I used an HB .05 mechanical pencil. I had fun with this sketch card. More sketches to come…Shazam!
A few months ago I ordered some cool sketch cards online. These were trading card size, 2.5″ x 3″ Bristol board paper. Well, I finally got around to actually drawing on one last night. In the middle of cleaning my apartment, I was struck with the inspiration to draw. So I reached over and grabbed a loose sketch card.
The Avengers have been in the news lately with their Heroic Age reboot. So I thought, “Hey, I’ll draw Hawkeye“. So here’s my quick sketch of Hawkeye. I did this in about 15 minutes with an HB .05 mechanical pencil. I tried to keep it loose, but add shadows and highlights. I’m really happy with this drawing. I will definitely be doing more sketch card drawings.
A few months ago I was vising my mom’s house where I found a box of old drawings I did when I was a kid. There were drawings I did of Veritech fighters from Robotech to comic books and superheroes. Last night I was looking through these treasures from my childhood. I had a blast remembering how I’d stay up late, looking at my comics and wanting to create and recreate these awesome artworks. One of the drawings that jumped out to me last night was this one of Iron Man. I drew this 20 years ago in 1989 when I was 14 years old.
In the late 80s I was reading all the Marvel Comic I could get my hands on, but Iron Man was on the top of my favorites list. I’m a huge science fiction fan and Iron Man was a perfect meld of Sci-Fi and Comics. This drawing was a recreation of the cover of Iron Man 244, it was originally drawn by Bob Layton. I remember being blown away by the split screen showing Iron Man’s then-current suit and his original grey one. I had to redraw it. So this is not a tracing, but a recreation of a cool comic cover. This is how I learned to draw. I’d look at a comic and try to recreate it. I didn’t take any art classes when I was young, but I loved to draw.
Looking at this drawing I did as a bright-eyed kid so many years ago really reminded me of the passion I had for comic book art back then. I feel very lucky that as an adult I haven’t lost that passion. I plan on posting more of my childhood drawing up, so keep an eye out. -PoW, Zap, Zooom!
Here’s a pencil drawing I did of Thor the God of Thunder from Marvel Comics. It’s his new costume he’s been wearing since his return to his own monthly title. Which by the way is a very excellent read.
This drawing started off as me just sketching while watching a movie, but became more detailed as I got into the drawing. I totally lost interest in the movie. I have recently been drawing mainly with an H6 Staedtler wood pencil, but for this drawing, I decided to try a different lead. I actually used a much softer pencil, an HB woodless Ebony.
I tried not to sharpen the pencil or use an eraser much. I started off with a very light sketch and build on top of it adding details and shadows. The lines on this drawing are much thicker than I usually do. Using a softer lead was a challenge for me, but I really like the results. I’m excited to digitally ink this in Illustrator. I will make sure to post the inked version when I’m done.
Comic books have always seemed to be an important part of my life in one form or the other. I’ve been a fan of the stories, the rich character development, and histories, of course, the artwork, a hardcore collector, and I even owned and ran my own comic shop for years. My all-time dream is to be able to create my own comic book or be involved in the creative part of the industry. I am in the process of achieving that dream, and with hard work and determination I know I’ll reach my dream.
When looking back at my love affair with the comic book genre I realized that I actually remember the very first comic book I read. This was 25 years ago and I was like 9 years old. I didn’t go to any comic shops and I wasn’t actively looking for a comic book. I was just at home being a nerdy kid playing with my Star Wars toys. My aunt Ruth came over to my house for a visit. She handed me a stack of comics. They were taken from her husband who was a comic book collector. She was clearing out space at her home and thought I might like them. I had never really been interested in comic books before, sure I had watched Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends as well as the Super Friends cartoon. So I knew about superheroes, but this was my first introduction to the amazing world of comic (sequential) storytelling.
My Introduction to the World of Comic Books
The very first comic I read from the stack of comics she gave me was The Mighty Avengers 242. So this is officially the first comic book I ever read.
I remember the cover caught my eye because I wanted to know who the shadow figure was and why everyone looked so shocked. What I also remember most about this issue was the introduction of Mockingbird by Hawkeye to the Avengers. It was a good introduction issue for a new reader like myself.
There wasn’t really a lot of action in this issue, but there was a compelling story. The comic showed me how this group was friends and close like family. This can only really be shown in a long-running story. So I wanted to know more about these characters.
It ends with Captain America, Wasp, She-Hulk, Thor, Captain Marvel, and Hawkeye heading to a strange structure in Central Park New York, and getting zapped away. As a kid I didn’t know what was happening, did they die or what?
The next comic book I read was Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars 1. With a great cover like that, you’d think it would’ve been the first one, I’d read. It’s actually my good fortune that I read this comic next. Avengers 242 leads right into this one. You can imagine my pleasant surprise to discover the Avengers didn’t die but were instead transported to an arena with a lot of other superheroes.
Again being that this was my first time reading comic books it was great to start with this issue too. It introduced me to all the major characters (heroes and villains) in the Marvel Comics universe. With a quick synopsis of who they were and what they were all about.
The premise of Secret Wars was that of a super cosmic being named the Beyonder and how he gathered Earth’s greatest heroes and villains to basically fight to the death. The winner would receive their heart’s desire. I remember how Galactus flies to attack the entity and is swapped like an insect. As a 9-year-old kid, this just blew me away.
The third comic I read was probably the most famous of the lot. Amazing Spider-Man 252. As most people know (well at least the one’s in comic book circles) this is the first appearance of Spider-Man’s black suit. Which we later learn is actually an alien Symbiote life form. Years later the suit eventually becomes one of Spider-Man’s deadliest villains named Venom.
I was familiar with Spider-Man from his Saturday morning cartoon series on tv, but this Spider-Man was very different. This Peter Parker was much grittier. He wasn’t as go-lucky as I had known him from the cartoon. With the addition of this black suit, the charter just seemed darker to me.
I remember the first page of the comic shows the Daily Bugle with the headline about missing superheroes. This issue takes place after the event of Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars. So I was excited to know that Spider-Man would survive the Secret War. This was the first Spider-Man comic I had ever read and I was very intrigued by how different it was, I was super excited to read more.
The final comic in the group my aunt gave me was the one that showed me the depth of storytelling and character development that could be found in comic books. Sure I was only a kid but the story really blew me away and I knew this was something special. The comic was Phoenix the Untold Story and my introduction to the world of mutants and the X-Men.
This story is a reprint of Uncanny X-Men 137 with the original attended ending. It takes place after the Dark Phoenix Saga and is where Jen Grey is judged for her crimes as Phoenix. Like the Avengers comic I read, this group of heroes were more than just teammates, they were a family.
This comic book takes us through the minds of all the heroes, showing their hopes and dreams. It shows the love that Jean and Scott have for each other and the pain her loss will bring to the whole group. The X-Men fight against aliens with their own powers for Jean’s life. In the end, she sacrifice’s herself before the darkness that was Phoenix could return to harm her friends.
As I look back at these first comic books I read, I fully realized how lucky I was. These were groundbreaking stories and a great way to start my life as a comic book reader. I had no knowledge that comic book stores existed back then so every time my parents would put gas I’d look for the comic section. I didn’t care if the comics were bent (which they usually were) I was just excited to see what cool new stuff was out. I remember there was a gas station named the Good Time Store and its logo was a big smiley face. That’s where I always found the latest issues of Secret Wars.
It’s been a great 25 years of comic reading. There have been so many great story arcs and a few not so good, but it’s always been a huge pleasure. These stories have had the greatest visuals imaginable and anything is possible. I’ve read all the great character development through the hero’s adventures and tragedies. Although I started as a Marvel Comics fan I now read other comic companies like DC, Dark Horse, and so many Independent comics. I know that for the next 25 years and most likely the rest of my life I will enjoy reading comic books. They are our modern mythology and I thank my Aunt Ruth for introducing them to me.
