Friday, September 21, 2007

Test Your Mettle




Today I'm rounding out this week's theme of "guys in armor" with the best-known armored comic book character, Iron Man. I've always been a big fan of Iron Man... or at least his armor. This picture came about mostly because I was looking for a chance to draw Iron Man, and I finally had a pose come into my head that worked for him. The armor is no particular era (Iron Man changes his design pretty darn frequently), but is probably most like his "Mark IV" armor (if anyone cares) which is the one most people who've seen the '60's cartoon would recognize. I'm pleased with how smoothly the picture came out, especially since this was the first time I'd drawn any kind of comic book character in some time. It's always a challenge to draw their over-defined musculature without making them ridiculous (setting aside the argument over the inherent ridiculousness of superheroes). They're always fun to draw, regardless of how muscular they are. The other goal of the picture was to get a sense of motion in the figure- I'm working to avoid making my figures look stiff and unnatural. Making them look like they're 'alive' is the hardest part of any drawing.



And here's me fooling around with Photoshop. I thought I'd give a go at coloring this one first- mainly because the lines were pretty solid on him, which made it easier to use the "paint bucket" feature to fill in large areas. The whole color job took about 5 minutes. Again, much to learn.

Nothing more to report here... have a good weekend, and I'll see you back on Monday.

Next week: Revisiting (very) Old Haunts, and the Return of the Art Department!

Music: "Flathead" - The Fratellis

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