ARMORsWARmS part 3 of 3

I have more Beetles in mind but these were the last three I drew before I got it out of my system so I could go back to my 'real work' (though it all pays the same, not at all). For late comers this series of sketches is based on the armored adventurer Abe Jenkins who most notoriously went by the name The Beetle, but also the jet themed hero MACH 1 through MACH 5.

 On the LEFT
Flanged bombardier beetles can shoot boiling hot fluid, this made them a natural choice for this project. I was thinking of making some kind of long range energy weapon for this design but I didn't include it in the drawing because I was also playing with the idea of him having a few dozen drones.  The armor has many design elements from MACH 1. I thought the blister beetle from my sketch looks a little like a skull (it's upside down so crane your neck to see it). Somehow making the skull motif in the mask made him look something like Iron Man
 On the RIGHT
The blister beetle is actually range of beetles that excrete a nasty burning chemical. I took the giant butt of the bug and made it a tank for his primary weapon that squirts some acidic sludge.

 

On the LEFT and RIGHT
When I got stuck on the other designs I drew these to that are basically just studies of the MACH 1 (Left) and MACH 2 (right) armors. I did try to insect them up a little espeacially the MACH 1. I also put different forearm blasters on MACH 1 because he is supposed to be based on the fire fly, so I wanted to have a few elements that could glow

ARMORsWARmS part 2 of 3

To recap: This is the second in a series of sketches where I took designs of Marvel Comics' The Beetle (aka Abe Jenkins aka MACH I-V) and adapted them to take after various beetles. Different beetles means different powers. These are not in any kind of logical order. I'm just posting them in the order they appear in my sketch book.

On the LEFT
The rove beetle can shoot it's jaw making it the perfect candidate for becoming Beetle armor. This was one of the last drawings to be finished, so my approach was to take what I learned from the others and base the design on the insect itself. He would be a mid to close range fighter so I put spinning blades on his forearms. I've also made a little doodle of what the jaw launched would look like. I would probably redesign it to be something more disturbing.

On the RIGHT
The hercules beetle is a weird creature. The horn on the head and collar make a claw to help it wrestle opponents. Hercules in mythology and Marvel comics is a great wrestler, which I kept in mind for this design. The head and collar claw is modeled after the animal and I made the face minimalistic with Spider-man shaped eyes. I wanted to make this armor stronger than the others but without just drawing the character bigger than the others or bulkier. What I decided on was adding two insectile legs. The wearer can use these arms to help manipulate someone caught in the head claw or to hook into the back of the gauntlets to make punches more devastating. Instead of antenni I gave this costume two energy blasters that aim up at whoever is caught in the claw.

 On the LEFT
The whirligig is an aquatic beetle. It has an unusual shape so I tried to capture that to the design. They eyes are based on goggles worn in the first version of The Beetle's armor. Also the first version of Jenkins armor had these weird tentacle fingers gauntlets that I slapped on there. I figured if anyone needed to be able to stick to things it would be this guy.

On the RIGHT
I believe this Beetle design comes from the golden tortoise back beetle. I took a different approach on this one. I thought the shape of the animal resembled Captain America's shield, so I incorporated flavors of Cap along with Beetle motifs. The two antenna are placed like an insects but I rendered them off of the antenna off of Jenkin's MACH II armor.

ARMORsWARmS part 1 of 3

I'm going to start putting Sketches up on Saturdays starting with this series I call ARMORsWARmS. This series is me at my geekiest. In the Iron Man comics there was a miniseries called ARMOR WARS, where Tony Stark finds out his technology was stolen and different supervillains are using the technology to upgrade their tech. The idea of ARMORsWARmS is if this happened to Abe Jenkins AKA The Beetle.
That isn't even the dorkiest part. In addition to being a comic dork, I am a zoology nerd, and hence each of these armors will be based on a different Beetle.

On the LEFT
This is a study of Mark Bagley's take on the Beetle. Bagley used to make technical drawings for the military, so I wanted to try to draw his design before attempting my own.
On the RIGHT
This is the first idea I had. The Rhino is a popular Spider-Man villain who was part of The Beetle's Sinister Syndicate. The Rhino's power is to break things by ramming them with his head. Because the design on the left is so bulky I decided to base the rhinoceros beetle armor on it, adding a rhinoceros beetle horn, and changing the chest plate to keep it from being a repaint. If you look closely you can see I added some mandibles though I can't imagine them having any practical applications.

On the LEFT
 This armor is based on the tiger beetle, which is one of the fastest runners in the insect kingdom. The design is based on elements from The Beetle's superhero alias MACH 2. I did spend some time thinking about the tech on these drawings. The Beetles main technical achievement is that he created a super material that made his wings work, for a speedster the material would be used in the armor's joints.
On the RIGHT
The golith beetle is a big bug. There was also a Golith villan who was on the Masters of Evil and The Thunderbolts with Jenkins. The armor design is basically a bulked up version of the original Beetle, except the body is covered in expanding plates to accommodate the growing powers of the wearer. the the wings and mask can somehow grow too.

To be continued next week when I post four more...

Explorers of the Unknown Review and a word about bias

I've been involved with the comics community for a long time. I know a lot of people who make comics. ?
Some are drawing group friends. Online friends. Convention friends. So my reviews are bias to some degree because I know many creators beyond what I learn about them from their work. I normally avoid pointing this out but there is something that must be considered when reviewing Explorers of the Unknown:

You are probably never going to meet anyone more excited about comics than the writer of the series Seth Fronzoli. If you've met Josh Elder he runs a close second for me. This counts for something for me. Maybe it shouldn't when I put on the reviewer hat.

When in the time I hung out with Seth he was a writer skulking around my artist group trying to find an artist to work with. Everyone in the group at the time was writing their own stuff. But he kept showing up, kept networking, kept helping us out when he could. Now he has a collaborator and  a webcomic that has run over 100 pages.

He was tenacious and as far as I know it was never because he expects a big pay off from a movie deal or something (though I'm sure he'd like that). There are delusional people who do that. Seth loves the medium.

Now lets take a look at the product of that love...

Web-Comic Review
Title: Explorers of the Unknown http://www.drunkduck.com/Explorers_Of_the_Unknown/index.php?p=442876
Creator(s): Seth Fronzoli, Shawn Atkins

Art
The art is highly stylized and would be at home at Slave Labor Graphics (though the series does eventually become color). In the beginning there are a few sequences that are a bit hard to read as shapes blend together. The artist takes many anatomical liberties but they do more good than harm.
There are a few panels where the artist splices black and white photographs into the page. The effect works better in some places than others and used infrequently enough to take me out of the story when I come across it so my brain can point out the obvious "Oh he used a photo here for some reason."


Another visual issue is the lettering. I'd like to give it kudos for being different than standard lettering but I can't do that when it is barely readable on some pages. A font size that may be perfectly readable on the printed page can easily become a blurry eyesore on the web.
Later in the series a minimalistic color pallet is very effectively brought in and adds to the graffiti feel of the series.

Writing



Explorers of the unknown is a romp. These are silly adventures in a world of mishmash genres. The writing doesn't get in the way of this. He has brought his, well I don't want use the word spunk... He brought his energy, heart, and playfulness.
The characters and plots are only as developed as they need to be. The nice thing about an ongoing story is that characters are going to develop with every page. The only drawback is that the reader has to trust the writer long enough for the pay off.



Overall
If you are a fan of The Umbrella Academy you will probably enjoy Explorers of the Unknown. Not just because you find the redundant title amusing.


http://www.drunkduck.com/Explorers_Of_the_Unknown/index.php?p=442876

Dexter Early Cuts Review (a few minor spoilers)

I'm looking forward to tonight's episode of Dexter. The Showtime series has from it's beginning been a dark reflection of mainstream superhero comics. All the elements are there: Dexter is a vigilante who works for the police as a day job. Dexter has unusual abilities (he can often recognize others with a dark side) with a dramatic origin. Special training. More recently in the new season Dexter, Julia Stiles is trying out to be his new sidekick.
I'm not the first to notice this connection. In the continuity of the show there is a comic based on Dexter's work. Showtime has been promoting Dexter for years at ComicCon. And last year Sho.com has been running webisodes of a Dexter animated series called "Early Cuts" which features the art of many great cartoonist.

Webisode Review
Title: Dexter Early Cuts http://www.sho.com/site/dexter/webisodes.do
Creator(s): Michael C. Hall, Kyle Baker, Ty Templeton, Andre Vera Martinez, Devin Lawson, Tim Schlattmann, Lauren Gussis, Bill Sienkiewicz and David Mack.

Art

All of the art is really spot on though the style varies from artist to artist. Sometimes the images are a little to spot on of actor Michael C. Hall which is odd when some things are rotoscoped and others are not. My favorite work is the Dark Echo story illustrated by Sienkiewicz and Mack. They compliment each other well and really match the tone of the series.
The animation is fairly static. It's closer to animated panels of a webcomic than an animated series. Most of the time this isn't an issue but there is one conversation in particular where the mouth animation took me out of the story.

Writing
The writing blends in perfectly with the show because it is written by members of the writing staff. Being an animated series allows them to create sequences that may be too expensive or difficult to film. Yet they don't over do it.


Sound

If you are a fan of Michael C. Hall's narration on the show prepare for some ear candy. Thanks to the static animation much of the dialogue that would be present in live action is replaced with narration. It is really effective with Dexter because it puts the audience in an uncomfortable place next to Dexter's thoughts.

Overall
This is one of my dream projects. Before this project came out I was keeping an ear toward my friends in LA hoping they would make some contact on Dexter I could pitch a Dexter webcomic to (my idea was a parrallell series that would retell each episode of the show from different characters points of view). This series is an even better idea. And the animation is a better idea.
http://www.sho.com/site/dexter/webisodes.do