Random artwork post

Here's another bunch of multi-choice pics. If you have followed my new Tumblr blog, you'll have already seen these, if not.. well feast your eyes. All are raw scans straight from the artwork without any re-editing in Photoshop. Lots of drawings of planes for some reason, all of which were done for various projects for (children's book publisher) Usborne. The Rasta kung fu guy was a preliminary character design for a proposed children's animated show. The two kids messing about in the water was an illustration done for a children's fiction book. The western pic is the raw scan of the art for a panel of a Jonah Hex comic I drew a little while ago, & finally, the page of rough pencils were done for my run on DC's Unknown Soldier.

Thumbs, roughs, sketches & assorted scans.

Here's another bunch of (hopefully) previously unposted stuff.

Artwork raw scans

Here's a few raw scans of artwork from various projects. This is before the bluelines have been removed, & before the images have been cropped to fit into the final artwork for the relevant pages.

All Star Western, Vampire

In an attempt to keep this blog ticking along rather than stagnate for weeks at a time while I'm waiting for something new to post, I have decided to try to keep it up dated with small posts of process images. Time will tell if I can keep up the habit. Here's the first. This drawing was done for a panel in All Star Western for DC a couple of years ago, & shows the vampire Mircalla chomping down on Doctor 13's neck. I drew it in pencil first, then converted it to blueline in Photoshop, then did the inking on a printout of that blueline. The inks were done with a mixture of Sharpie ultra fine markers, & brush pen.

On another note, I started an accompanying blog on Tumblr some time back, but never really got the hang of it, so that too was left in suspended animation for a while. I'm going to try to keep that updated too, admittedly with the same images I'm posting here, but if you find the Tumblr platform more to your liking that Blogger, bookmark this link, & follow me there. I'll add a link to the sidebar too.

http://stazjohnsonart.tumblr.com/

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.

Some recent work

Been a little while since I posted here, so here's a little update. These are a few of the pieces I did for a gaming book, yes, those things which were popular back in the 80's are still going strong....apparently. Anyway, I did twenty for the book, these were my favorites. The watercolour wash gives them a slightly different look to most of my work, but if the opportunity arises, I might utilise the technique in some of my regular comic work.

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Klarion #3 (DC Comics)

I was asked recently to provide a little 'last minute' help on DC Comics new Klarion title. Working directly over blue printouts of (regular artist) Trevor McCarthy's layouts, I did quick pencils, in a similar way as to how I would on my own layouts. Though on this job I was asked to approximate Trevor's style as closely as possible, to provide some consistency in the issue's art. I did the best I could on that point, though mimicing other styles has never been my strong point, so really all I could do was to produce superficially similar material. When time got a bit tight, I dropped the pencilling stage, & drew directly in ink over Trevor's layouts, a risky policy for sure, but needs must at times.

As best as I could tell by looking as Trevor's own finished pages, he produces a lot (if not all) the final art digitally, including a few rather funky panel borders. Working on a fifteen year old computer, with all the performance shortcomings you might expect that would bring, producing similar borders was beyond my capabilities, so I handed that task over to the series colorist. As such, all I'm showing here are  selected bits of the 'analogue' work I did. If you want to see how the actual pages turned out, check out the issue for yourself, it's in the shops now (cover below).

By the way, this happens to be the two hundredth post on this blog...& it only took me nine years to get here, quite amazing really! I think a small celebration is in order......

Con sketches for sale.

Yesterday (November 30) I appeared at the Wales Comic Con in Wrexham. The event (as is usual these days it seems) featured a few comic pros & a whole bunch of celebrities from film, TV & sport. Despite it being extremely well attended (the queue went around the block more than once before the doors opened) it was something of a quiet affair for me personally, unfortunately. As a result, in the frequent gaps in activity, I took the time to do a few unsolicited sketches, a couple of which did eventually find homes, but the six shown here were left like wallflowers awaiting a dance..... So if anyone reading this (does anyone still read this??) fancies having one (it might solve the Christmas present dilemma for that one particularly awkward relative) they are available on a 'first come first served' basis for the paltry sum of £22 which includes postage (UK residents only, if you're a damn foreigner ask for postage rates). Just leave me a message in the comments, or at staz.johnson@yahoo.com. Given that there are three 'Hulk' images, you'd probably better specify exactly which one you want, if you have a preference.

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.

KnightConUK

I'll be making another public appearance this weekend... & no, I don't mean 'doing my shopping in the Asda',. I'll be at the KnightConUK show in Doncaster. I have to say, this is a bit of an odd fit for me, given that is almost entirely a TV/movie media event. However, hopefully there will be some crossover audience into comic fans. Personally, I'm hoping to get an up close & personal view of the Batmobiles!!

I'll be doing the usual business, if you're a regular reader of this blog you'll know what that means. In addition to sketches (charged at £25 for a single figure, like the example below) there will be signed comic & posters too.

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