Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Last Son of Krypton



Here's another superhero themed drawing, this one of the first (and most famous) superhero: Superman!

I drew this one up as my contribution to the upcoming "Visions of an Icon" art exhibition, which will feature tons of drawings of Kal-El (that's his Kryptonian name -- I know this because I'm geeky) by canadian illustrators and comic artists. All the drawings in the show, including mine, will be auctioned off as a fundraiser for the Shuster Awards -- the canadian comic creator awards named after Superman co-creator Joe Shuster.

I have to admit this one was pretty quick and fun to draw -- I drew the thumbnail sketch shown below really quickly, like in 20 minutes or so, and did only the most minor tweaks to it on the way to the final art. The biggest change was that I went with green as my tone-colour -- mainly because my wife noted that green fit the krypton/kryptonite connection.

Mind you, I do have a tendency to go with green anyway...

Incidentally, I got the inspiration for the composition of this drawing from a non-superman related source. There's a very famous Will Eisner Spirit story called, I think, "the Visitor" or something like that, with a great splash page featuring a portrait of the Spirit framed inside a planet. I remember seeing that page when I was about 14 or 15 years old and staring at it for a long time, just absorbed in the beauty and mood of that piece. I was thinking again of that splash page and the kind of atmosphere it evoked when I came up with the thumbnail.