Commission Piece

Here's the process for a recent HeroesCon commission. This particular patron of the arts requested Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and Black Canary from the Hard-Traveling Heroes era. I did a little Goggling before I realized I have these guys in toy form. That helped a bunch.

I liked the idea of a tight shot on their three faces with fists upraised, but that seemed like a cheat for such a large image. I pulled the camera back for more of the figures. I played with action shots before going back to a portrait.

This image is 9 x 12. I fixated on a diagonal composition to lend energy to what I feared would be a stiff image, but I dropped it once I moved to a full-size 11x14 sketch. I switched out Arrow's hands too.

The full-size pencils came out pretty well, although I was constantly making Canary's hips larger. I also redid Arrow's head because that angle was tougher than I expected. I decided against the arrows in his fist because the arrowheads would be too close to the paper edge. It mad that corner feel crowded.

After tracing the sketch onto an 11 x 17 Bristol board with a lightbox, I colored it (using Bic fine point markers). The swatches at the bottom of the image will be trimmed away.

Combining marker, Sharpies and Micron Pen ink, I added the blacks. Still think the hips are too small, but the lighting effect came out OK. I also tweaked Lantern's symbol with a Wite-Out pen and brush, a neat new contraption that's better than a simple correction pen.

I emailed the final image to the customer, and he liked it.

If you want your own commission for HeroesCon (or after), just click the commission image link to the right.