Batman v Ra's Al Ghul, private commission.

Babylon 5 private commission

Here's another recent private commission. Coincidently, another of a character from a 90's sci-fi show, this time Babylon 5.

Stargate Private Commission

Here's a commission I did for a client just recently. It's a character from the 90's sci-fi show Stargate, which I can't say I'm overly familiar with, so without trawling back through the commissioning emails, I don't know her name.

Poison Ivy private commission.

Just a quick post to show this commission I completed recently. Somewhat different to most of my commissions in a number of ways, firstly, this one is larger, being an A3 size.The commissioner asked for a naked Poison Ivy, but since Ivy without the costume is just another nude figure with no distinguishing features, I decided to add lots of greenery, so that the picture as a whole would still have the Ivy colour scheme (green & orange). I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, & quite surprised myself when I found I enjoyed rendering the old gnarly tree more than I did the actual figure of Ivy.......

Anyway, as usual with these sort of posts, if you fancy something like this yourself, you'll find my contact details in the sidebar on the right.

Wolverine Private Commission

Something I did recently for a mate. First the pencil rough, & then the finished thing, done with markers & brush pen. If you want one of your very own, the price is £75- plus postage, email link on the right.

EXCELSIOR!

Comics legend (there is quite simply no other word to describe him) Stan Lee, will be attending the London Film And Comic Con this coming weekend. As far as I am aware, this is Stan 'The Man's first appearance at a UK con in many years.

To mark the event, the show's organisers have put together a book of tributes to the Main Man, & I was asked to contribute. Now, I was never much of a Marvel Zombie myself but it doesn't take a genius to see that without Stan Lee the comic industry as we know it today simply would NOT exist. Which more or less explains my contribution, which is that the REAL secret identity of Spider-Man and all those other early Marvel superheroes is Stan himself.

Anyway, here's the promotions blurb from the organisers:-

EXCELSIOR: Steve Rude, Mark Buckingham, Alan Davis, Jose Delbo, Bryan Talbot, Mike Perkins, Chris Weston and Gary Frank are among the horde of artists from around the world paying tribute to Stan Lee on the occasion of his last European public appearance. Running to 68 pages in colour and black and white, Excelsior is a limited edition of 250 copies. It is available exclusively at the London Film and Comic Con, priced £10. If you can’t make it to the show, copies can be sent to you for £15 each (unsigned) or £80 (signed by Lee) within the UK . Email Mike Conroy at demigod@btconnect.com for full details, to enquire about price if you live elsewhere in the world and to obtain details of the originals that will be auctioned over the weekend as well as how to bid on them.

And here is my contribution, & the cover artwork (I wish I could tell you who did this, but I simply don't know.

Meltdown Man sketch.

It's been a while since I posted on here, sorry. Mostly that is because the material I have been working on is either 'hush-hush' or not particularly interesting.

Anyway, here's a thing I did fairly recently. Done in a sketchbook that a guy is passing round to as many 2000AD artists past & present as he can. I was totally free to draw whoever I pleased from the 2000AD stable, which for me would normally mean Rogue Trooper, however, since there was already two scarily fantastic Rogue contributions from both Dave Gibbons & Colin Wilson (yes, really... sheesh) in there, I decided to spread my net wider. Dredd was considered, as was Johnny Alpha, Matt Tallon (from the original Mean Arena), Slaine & various others. But in the end I came down to this guy, Nick Stone, 'The Meltdown Man'. I'll not go into the details of the original story, but I remember enjoying it, it involved Nick Stone (an ex SAS trooper) in a kind of a 'man out of time, Planet Of The Apes' thing, with beautiful artwork by Bellardineli. I suspect that when he drew the strip he was given an early still of Kurt Russell in Escape From New York (which was more or less contemporary with the strip), since as you can see, the resemblance is striking. What occurred to me only recently is that many years after this strip, Bravo Two Zero veteran, Andy McNab,  took to writing novels about an ex SAS trooper called Nick Stone. Coincidence or homage, who knows.

Any way, here's the sketch, done with a fineliner pen, & a brush pen. Also, a still of Kurt Russell in the aforementioned flick, for those unfamiliar with it.

From The Archives #8: Batman Private Commission, 2001

This was a private commission I did for a collector in the States. He originally wanted to buy a particular page of original art from the Batman/Aliens II book, however, when I told him that page wasn't for sale, he asked me to produce 'something similar' as a private commission.


If you'd be interested in something similar, the price for a commission of this type is £250 + p&p.

From The Archives #4: Emma Frost Private Commission

This is a commission I did almost ten years ago, infact, I have a feeling it was the first private commission I ever did. This was long before I even owned a computer, & as a result this is a scan of an old colour photocopy. The original was done with markers.

Rogue Trooper/Major Easy Commission

I was contacted recently by Eric Moore, author of the rather fabulous AIEEEE! blog, when he asked me to produce for him a private commission of Rogue Trooper & Hellman Of Hammer Force (from the gloriously violent 1970's comic, ACTION). His idea was to combine a character from the past with a more contemporary one. It could be argued that both Rogue & Hellman are old, but since Rogue has had a few brief outings in recent years I figure Eric just about gets away with it. Now anyone who has read this blog on anything approaching a regular basis will know I don't need asking twice to draw Rogue, & since I was a HUGE fan of Action when I was 11 years old, the opportunity to draw Hellman was tempting to say the least.

Anyhoo, I went ahead & did an initial pencil rough of a scene I thought would work, mainly just the figures with little costume detail, but then had to put it aside for quite a while due to deadline commitments. By the time I had come back to the piece, Eric had changed his mind, & now he wanted Major Easy instead of Hellman. This was an easy (pun intended) fix, since I realised when making the few changes necessary that Easy & Hellman have an almost identical silhouette, I even decided it wouldn't be necessary to change the gun I had given Hellman (a German MP40), since I figured Major Easy was the type of unconventional guy who wouldn't be a stickler for using regulation firearms all the time. So this was the final pencil layout, about 13 x 17 cm.






Having completed the layout, I scanned it into Photoshop, enlarged it to the right size, then printed it out & traced it through to the final board on my lightbox, using my usual Sharpies fine liners.












I was going to leave it at that, but at the last minute I decided a little touch of grey marker would help to really make the image 'pop'.

And hey presto, there we are, two characters who are never likely to meet, duke it out mano a mano... or something like that.

Eric plans to make the 'someone old someone new' a regular theme in his commission collection, & as such has started a blog to show them all off. Click the link below, take a look, & tell him I sent you. There's some really nice stuff on there already.

Someone Old, Someone New Blog!


If you're interested in something similar, an A4 'marker sketch' is usually £65 +p&p, but contact me with your requirements & I'll be able to give to a definite price.

Classic 70's Blade: Private Commission.

Here's another post showing something I did last year. This was commissioned by a fan in Germany. As you can see, it's Blade, as depicted in the classic Marvel series 'Tomb Of Dracula'. Unfortunately, it appears I didn't take a scan of the pencil/layout stage, so you'll have to make do with this, the final thing.

If you're interested in something similar, they're now £65 +p&p.

Captain Cymru Private Commission

It's been way too long since I posted anything on here..& there's a lot of stuff to post.. so let's get to it..

First up, here's a private commission I just did for Justin Gillett. The character is Captain Cymru, who is (I imagine) the 'Captain Britain' or maybe 'Captain Wales' from some alternate reality in Marvel's Universe... if I sound a bit vague, it's because I am...

A similar commission will set you back £50 + postage. However, I give no guarentees that I'll do it in color.. I just go with the flow, & do whatever feels right to me at the time..

Rogue Trooper Private Commission

Yeah ok, I know what you're thinking.."doesn't he do anything other than private commissions??"

Well, I do, but these are currently the only things I can show you.

So, Rogue Trooper marker sketch commission. Done in an attempt to evoke all those terrific Dave Gibbons black & white strips in 2000AD, hence the lack of colour, unlike my other marker sketch commissions. Something similar will set you back £50- plus p+p. Drop me a line if you're interested.

PSI Judge Private Commission

Another new post..& another new private commission... getting to be a habit, this.

Anyway, as you can see, the subject for this latest piece is a lady PSI Judge, from Judge Dredd. However, there is more to this than meets the eye... no, she's not a Transformer.. although that would be cool, but no, this is a representation of the client's (Johns Burdin) wife as one of Mega City 1's finest.

John is a huge Dredd fan, & is very active online with all kinds of Dredd related 'stuff'.

The rate for private commisions of this type, is £50- +p&p, email me if you're interested.

Winona Ryder Private Commission

Here's a look at another private commission I completed recently. The subject is Winona Ryder.

This piece was commissioned by Wynn Ryder (made up name?) and this is what he had to say about the finished thing..

"Staz, you are a genius! Thank you so much! I absolutely adore it. I'm completely in love with your style and this piece is one of the very best in my collection. I hope you enjoyed drawing her."

Wynn is obviosly a nice guy, who had been on the wakky bakky when he wrote that.


If you'd like to have a similar (marker sketch) piece, the price is £50- + postage & packaging.

Punisher Private Commission

I just wanted to share this with you guys. Graham Clements (who is on my MySpace friends list.. add me if you haven't already) recently commissioned me to do this (A4)Punisher 'marker sketch' piece for his girlfriend's birthday.

If any of you would like something similar, the price is £50- + p&p.

Doctor Strange Private Commission.

I recently completed a private commission for comic art collector Robert Turner, as you can see he wanted Marvel's Master Of The Mystical Art (how Stan Lee kept up the alliteration thing for 25 years I'll never know) Doctor Strange. Here's pencil sketch, & the finished piece.

If you want something similar, check out my MySpace page for details.

Deadpool Private Commission

Here's a private commission I completed recently for Ashley Barron, as you can tell he wanted Galactus, but since I have no idea what he looks like, I drew Deadpool for him instead...ok, ok.. he wanted Deadpool.. jeez.

Anyway, if you'd like one of your very own, check out my MySpace page where you will find details of the various private commissions I do.