Illustration Friday: "RIPPLE"..

"A small ripple in the water, stirred the enormous creature from it's slumber.."

Here's this week's installment towards the online "Illustration Friday" experience.. Once again, I didn't get the image as finished, as I'd have liked. But the discipline of having a weekly deadline, is forcing me to work faster. Something that's never been my strong suit. And a part of my Skill Set, I'm hoping to improve upon. One more reason, why I wanted to start contributing regularly!

This week's subject is: "Ripple". And here's what I came up with..

As should appear obvious,-- I (again) chose the opportunity to exercise my Frazetta muscles! The composition and staging, definitely owes a lot to his Fantasy Art.. There are some details that still need some tweaking. And it could probably use a 2nd "scrub" in Photoshop, to remove some of the visual noise. But I'm kinda happy with the way it turned out, for the most part.

Years ago, I finished a similar image to this one, featuring Mike Mignola's HELLBOY character. I think the experience of working on that, helped this one. I can also see where there's a bit of a Bernie Wrightson influence coming thru in the creature pose.. But of course, Wrightson was something of a Frazetta devotee back-in-the-day, too..

If I have time, I'll update this pic with a color version.. Dunno if I'll make it by Friday, though. As another freelance Design/Layout job, happily fell into my lap today..

Coupla HELLBOYs..

Last weekend, me & Suzanne caught a matinee of the HELLBOY sequel.. It wasn't as good as the IRON MAN movie, but a vast improvement on the first HELLBOY film. Which I only caught up with recently, on cable..
We both enjoyed Del Toro's PAN'S LABYRINTH quite a bit. So the Design work we saw in the Preview ads, really caught our eyes. You can read Suzanne's comments on the movie here, on her BLOG..

There was a time years ago, when I was quite the ravenous HELLBOY fan.. I read all the comic-books. Bought all the collected volumes, etc. Wore a HELLBOY baseball hat, everywhere I went.. A friend bought me the HELLBOY lighter, even though I don't smoke.. I even picked up one of the HELLBOY lunchboxes, 'cuz I thought it looked too cool..

While visiting the San Diego ComicCon a number of years back,-- I even bought a few pages of 'Original Art' from Mignola himself.. He was even kind enough to throw in a complimentary (and highly-collectible!) HELLBOY coffee cup, which I still drink from every morning!
I was so enamoured with the character, that I even tried "animating" a HELLBOY rotation! You can view some of my attempts at this, both here and here..
In short, I was once a total HELLBOY nerd!!!

But somewhere along the way, the character's mystique got a little flat & tired for me.. Maybe it's just that I found the stories becoming too familiar. I still enjoy Mignola's artwork.. But lately, he's got so many other artists doing the stories.. And that has zero appeal for me.

Even so, I noticed after going thru some of my own older artwork.. That I've drawn Mignola's character a remarkable number of times! Some were done to just satisfy my own curiousity. Others, were commissioned work, done at conventions, etc..
Here's one from 2004, that I did for a guy named "Otto" from Warren, Michigan.. I think I may have met him thru Jonell Napper's dandy HELLBOY messageboard..

And here's another (more elaborate) HELLBOY image, from around the same period. Maybe, a bit later? This illustration was done as an eBay Charity Auction item, that was won by a guy named "Poom" from Chicago..
The Auction was designed to help raise $ to help cover the medical costs for Rick Cortes, who had suffered a stroke, at that time.. He & I, both helped Jonell Napper early on, when she was putting together her 'www.hellboy.com' website..

Rick Cortes, is also the main guy at 'The Drawing Board' messageboard, that invited me to become a fellow Moderator.. He's got a HELLBOY 'original art' collection that makes my meagre set, look like a mere pittance. But I don't hold that against him..
He's a helluva nice guy. Who not surprisingly, answers to the name of "HellboyOne" as his DB moniker!

Well, that's all for now.. See ya around!