May 1, 1993.
Well, we're back to the old stuff. Which is good, as I don't have any new stuff to post yet. Things have been quite... tiring here. Life is busy. But it'll do that.
This is Wolverine, obviously. Or I hope obviously. Couldn't get enough of the little runt back in the day. Now... eh. Don't get me wrong- I like the character well enough, but it's hard to buy into the character anymore when he's probably as ubiquitous as Spider-Man anymore. For Kirby's sake, he's on a cartoon for little kids! You know, the guy with foot-long metal claws who kills people? Little bit odd, that.
But I digress. This particular picture is known as, in the parlance of the industry, a 'swipe'. A swipe is when one artist uses another artist's work- usually a pose, but can go so far as to copy the actual style or composition. Often done without acknowledging the shoulders upon which they stand. If they do make the proper sounds (usually "-name-, after Kirby" for example), the swipe is known as an homage. Splitting hairs, but then that's what fandom does best. Let's see- using my profound geek memory, as I recall this is a swipe of Liam Sharp's Death's Head II, probably from one of the early issues. But considerably less detailed than Mr. Sharp's work. The original drawing was a character called, surprisingly, Death's Head II. I at least did the work to make it look like someone different.
'Swiping' is a big deal nowadays in the industry, what with the ready availability of photo references online. There's one artist who is almost as well-known for his swiping photo references as he is for his drawing ability. I remember his earliest work- honestly, it was better then than it is now, but I know I'm a minority opinion. He's gotten so bad, in the most recent issue of the book he shares art chores on, he swiped a different artist and 'drew' the exact same character in the exact same way- but the artist he ripped off is an amazingly different style of artist. Shame, shame! Swiping is something many artists do at one time or another, and it's difficult to say where using photo reference ends and swiping begins, and I'm probably not one to make that call. I've done it in the past- especially in terms of posing and so on- but then again, I'm not being paid for it. Oh well, as long as someone is paying for the work, artists will continue doing it.
Okay, off the soapbox.
Enjoy the day!
In other news, I think I figured out what to go as for Halloween. My only problem now is finding all of the things I need. You'd think Gothic stuff would be more in now, but you'd be wrong. Or perhaps over the age of 17 and shopping somewhere other than Hot Topic.
Also, I went to my first Haunted House in well over 20 years. I had a lot of fun, but I came to the realization that I should've been going for at least the past 10 years. I walked in and started figuring out what the gags would be, where the surprises were coming from, how they did the gags, and what music they were using. I enjoyed it, but if I were younger, or less jaded, I wouldn't be so interested in the how of it and just enjoy the spectacle. Still, I'm hoping to go to another one this weekend.
Music: "Terrible Lie" - Nine Inch Nails
No comments:
Post a Comment