Batman

In the past, I've never really enjoyed drawing Batman. Prior to this year, I can count the amount of Batman doodles I've drawn in my life on one hand. Even at conventions, when I get a request for Batman, I try to ask them to pick something else. Lately however, I've started to enjoy trying to do my take on the guy. So here's a quick Batman painting I completed about a week ago. Like all of my recent work, it was painted in gouache and ink on a 12" x 17" piece of board.

The Uncanny X-men

This one is a large painting in gouache and ink I did a little while ago. I've actually painted the original X-men team once before, but not in an action shot or in costume. While I grew up in the 80's and read the Claremont/Byrne comics of the team as a kid, the original lineup of mutants is my favourite. You can check out my various roughs that lead to the final art below:

Originally, I drew up this rough composition, but I hated it since it had so much dead space between figures:



So after some failed tinkering, I sat down and drew up a newer thumbnail which I liked much better. It's hard to read, I know, but it was enough to point me in the right direction:



That thumbnail lead to this new rough, which I used as the basis of the painting:



While the final art is done traditionally in goauche and ink, the roughs and the pencils were done digitally in Alias Sketchbook Pro -- a fun little drawing program I sometimes use for the novelty of drawing on my computer.