Batman 47: The Principal Move In a Game of Chess

Howdy all. Been awhile since I posted last, and for that, I'm sorry. Anyway, here's a closer look at the cover for Batman 47, before it got all Pendantified:

Batman 47: The Principal... by ~justplainruk on deviantART

If you'd like to view the video commentary for this cover, you can do that here.

If, however, you'd just like to go the audio route with the commentary, well, you can do that here.

If you'd like to skip both options and think I'm an idiot for putting two versions of the commentary out on the Web, well, then you can go right here.

Thank you, and good night.

- Adam

Final Art for Genesis Avalon 3

Hi Peeps,
I thought you would like to see the final art before it was placed into the magazine format. Have fun! Hope you like it!

DC

Supergirl 30 and some news

Hi guys,

Here's the process for Supergirl 30. The episode had a few key moments but I thought the most fun was the idea of pizza. I combined the idea with the pose that pays homage to Superman # 1.

The other thing I wanted to bring up was my holiday sketch drive.
Simply put you get an 11 x 14 piece of art either water color or digital color.
Guaranteed delivery by Christmas if you order before December 10th.

Hit me up at mannycartoon@hotmail.com

Thanks and enjoy!

Happy Halloween

On behalf of myself and Paul Leclerc, we wanted to wish you all a Happy Halloween. And, what better way to celebrate than with a Selina/Kal wallpaper?

Paul did all of the linework and I colored it in photoshop. In his original he had Selina in the classic Robin suit, which I altered later to make it the Tim Drake suit. That's the only thing I changed on the linework. As far as coloring, I used Tim's colors for the suit, and I almost left Kal without green hair and a white face; then I thought that if he's gonna dress up he may as well go all out.

Selina's candy wrapper was a last minute addition, but I love it!

You can find all the different sizes here.

Progressions

Hi Guys,
I thought I would take a page from Manny's post and show the progression to the finished. Like Manny I usually start with a sketch. This gives me a chance to look through all the angles of light that I will be needing in the finished rendering. After that I begin my digital painting in Photoshop. From here, I try not to use any hard lines, trying to keep the illustration as soft yet structured. What we're left with is the finished product.

I usually try two variations to see which one has the most impact and discuss it with Kat (the almighty yet extremely cool director) and which ever direction she likes. We go from there. Hope you enjoy it!

Supergirl 29-Better late than never!

Hi Guys,

I'll be putting up similar posts for each cover as they are released.
This basically takes you thought my process a little.

I usually start with a really loose sketch in blue to sort of block in my shapes and staging. From there I love onto a slightly tighter sketch in a dark red to get in all the details.

My last step is bumping up the DIP and doing a final inking pass with darker versions of the objects they surround.

Let me know what you think in the comments section.

Final LSOK Commentary

It looks like we're about to get commentary crazy up in here.

Here is my final commentary for Superman. I've enjoyed working for nearly two years on the show, and look forward to working with Brian and Dale over on Defiant.

'Til next time.

Batman TAOD 45

Hope you like.

Batman TAOD 45 Cover by ~justplainruk on deviantART

Video commentary may be viewed here, if you're into that sort of thing.

fun show seeking new artist

its been fun, a year a half after my first cover and 15 covers later i will sadly be leaving defiant. however, this leaves a spot for someone else to step into fill those empty shoes, as mentioned on the previous post. so there is a gap as mentioned in twip but they are looking for someone so i hope this is an good thing, an oportunity for an up and coming artists looking to showcase their work, as i was, its a good group of guys (And girls) and you get some exciting scripts to work from. if your interested the contact info is in the previous post or in the latest TWIP. later, and thanks for the opportunity. -Z
ps: as always the inks and process work are on my blog.

Star Trek: Defiant, Ep. 39 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

Mea Culpa! and Artist News

Firstly, a giant "Mea Culpa" goes out to Kristen Bays, and the Art Blog audience at large for my neglecting to release the banner with the debut of Dixie 36. I have no excuse for doing so, especially since it was made ahead of time. I'm sorry. However, you can now see it along with the cover for Defiant 39.

Secondly, as heard on this week's TWIP, Zach Basset has made Star Trek: Defiant issue 39 his last. We all wish him the best.

However, that leaves us an opening that needs to be filled. If you are a Star Trek fan, and also an artist (or know someone who is) please contact either myself (carl@pendantaudio.com), or Jeffrey Bridges (jeffrey@pendantaudio.com) and submit a drawing or a link to an art portfolio.

We look forward to seeing your stuff!

Covering Supergirl

Hey guys it's great to be a part of the Pendant Family. The image you see is a really rough sketch of the main players in the Pendant Super girl cast. I hope I can bring something special to the party.

Manny

New Artist

I'm saddened to announce that Kristy Plotkin will no longer be working on Supergirl: Lost Daughter of Krypton. She has decided to give up her position due to personal reasons. We certainly wish her all the best in future endeavors.

Starting with Issue 29 the covers will be done by Manuel Aguilera.

Please join me in welcoming Manny to the "artist's pit".

Artist Transition

As mentioned in this week's TWIP, Maija Urrelo will be transitioning from Martian Manhunter (which recently ended production) and taking over cover duties for Seminar from Kristy Plotkin.

You can see Maija's Seminar debut in this month's release, episode 29.

Welcome Daniel Chon

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please join me in welcoming Daniel Chon. As he stated below, he is the cover artist for the as-yet-to-be-released Red Sands Investigations; as well as Genesis Avalon. His artwork will debut along with GA on September 28, 2009.

The Newbie

Hi Gang,

I'm Daniel and I'm the newbie here on the covers front. I've gotten to work with Jeffrey Bridges and Fiona Thraille on a very cool project called "Red Sands", and I'm already set to work with Kathryn Pryde on a new series called "Genesis Avalon" which has been a lot of fun and will really knock your socks off.


Thanks to everyone I've met so far. They've really made me feel welcome. I'm really looking forward to producing some hopefully really cool covers.

TTFN

New Artist for The Kingery

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In case you may have missed the announcement in TWIP, we now have a new artist for The Kingery. Paul Leclerc has stepped down from The Kingery, but will still be working on Catwoman: Queen of Thieves. Taking over for Paul is Nick Peneleton. You will see the debut of his artwork this month in The Kingery episode 3x04 - "Everybody Needs Money".

Please, join me in thanking Paul for his great work on the show, and, welcome Nick into the Artist's Pit.

Batman 43, Ex Tempus 5

Batman TAOD 43, Ex Tempus 5 by ~justplainruk on deviantART

For audio commentary, checka-check this link.

For video, try this one.

And listen to the episode for yourself to hear Elizabeth's sexy cooing as Pam Isley! Yowza!

Defiant 38

Star Trek: Defiant, 38 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
I have an in depth look at the inspiration, inks and alternate colored versions of this piece on my blog, here.

LSOK 55/ Ex Tempus 3

Hey everyone. Sorry, no audio commentary this month. It's Metallo's eye with the Zod shield in the center. That's all there really is to say.

Ex Tempus has ARRIVED

Late Defiant

I cut it very close with this one, and ran very late. I'm sorry for the wait, I had a lot going the week of the episode. Should have taken care of it sooner, that being said this is one of my favourite covers of the last few I've done. I used some interesting techniques coloring it and I urge you to read them at my blog also you can see just the digital colors and inks before I added the fx over the top using photos and layers in photoshop. Hope you like.

New Feeds

Now there are more ways to follow up with The Art of Pendant. We are now set up on Facebook and Twitter. Each will have its own unique content, so follow both. You'll find the links to them on your right hand side.

Superman: Last Son of Krypton Issue 54

Sorry for the delay. As promised, here's the commentary. Enjoy.

-Carl

Defiant 36

Star Trek: Defiant, Ep. 36 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
I wrote an in-depth blog about this one you can read here

Superman: Last Son of Krypton Issue 53

Sorry I'm late posting this everyone. It's been a hectic week. Commentary can be found here.

Catwoman Issue 9

Hey All,

Here's Catwoman 9 cover. I just had my wisdom tooth pulled out. Gonna sign off now. Enjoy..

Batman 40

Star Trek 35

Star Trek Defiant, Ep. 35 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART

You've asked, and I listened. Starting today, the banner won't contain the bare bones covers, but will instead have the typography on them.

LSOK 52

Look, it's Atomic Skull! And not Ghost Rider!


Commentary here!

I made this using water color and photoshop. I hope my covers will improve over time (i.e. drawing more than just Martian Manhunter's head) Sigh lol. I hope they still liked it. :D
I wonder what I'll do next?

Seminar 25

Hey all! Long time, no see. XD

I been busy.

Anyway, I'm the new Seminar artist: yayyyyy!

So here's mah first cover.
I actually played around with this a bit before sending it out.
So this is what I started with...well, like. I laid down the base of the tea cup, which was easy enough. I just used elliptical marquees and gradients, &ct. Look closely, there's like depth and stuff (no leaves though). XD The background was originally green because I was going to try and do a computer motherboard for the background. I came to my senses eventually, though I don't doubt that would have been freakin' awesome.
Then came the wave of tea. I was actually pretty proud of my wave. It made me sad I intended to have Mal popping out at the viewer...which would essentially cover it up. I tried to figure out just how much would get covered up with the following:I was like...eh. I like the pose. Let's see if it works. So I then had to squiggle in some white so I could lay down ...some form of line work.Oh, I forgot to mention the dingy little surfboard. That came before anything else - he needed to stand on something. =nod= Plus that would give me an ending point for whatever weird perspective I was going for.
Then I wanted to cry - he's completely covering the wave. =head desk= Thank goodness for layers! I'm smart sometimes (usually I forget to make layers for certain things...).

So yeah. I moved it. Because I wanted some of the work I put into the wave to show up. And I moved the cup, too. Thing was - Mal was so small when I shrunk him and moved the surfboard...so I kept messing around to figure out how I could have Mal IN YOUR FACE...and then...uh...I kept playing around with it centered but it didn't look right, so I moved it to the side a wee bit and made Mal BIG. Woo.

<
So then I added shading. =nod= You might notice the colors look a lot prettier like this. That's because .jpgs hate me and make my colors massively lighter.

Oh and fun sidenote, I rethought the positioning because I have a thing about mild symmetry. So I put it in the center and it looked a little awkward because I realized you couldn't see a handle. So I made one. >

It looks cool, but I guess it doesn't grab you as much. =nod=

I sent both out, though, because I was sleep deprived and indecisive.


Sooo...yeah. This is what happens when I have the forethought to prnt scrn. You get to see....my process? I guess I have a process. =shrug= It's fairly organic and there's a vast lack of forethought normally.


Perhaps if I gain massive forethought I'll make commentary in the future, though I'm already rambly enough in textual form. XD

Catwoman Issue 8

Hiya Folks,

I'll put up an auditory commentary on it soon. Here's cover 8 though. I'm not gonna post the photo references that I used cuz I took pictures of myself doing those poses....with a camera on a tripod.....and me jumpinng in the air onto my bed.....ya....anyways.......

Defiant 34

Star Trek Defiant, Ep. 34 by ~xaqBazit on deviantART
You can view my inks and comments on my blog, here.

The Kingery

Hey everybody. I just wanted to take some time out to thank Nick Hadley for all the hard work he has done on The Kingery for the past two years. Nick has decided to take a hiatus from doing the coverwork for the time being, but expects to be back sometime in the Fall.

In the meantime, Paul Leclerc (who you already know as cover artist for Catwoman: Queen of Thieves) has volunteered his services starting with Season 3, episode 1 which will debut on May 29.

So, on behalf of all the artists in Pendant, thanks for all the great covers and we wish you all the best on your hiatus.

Superman: Last Son of Krypton Issue 51

Hi everybody. I hope you're having a good Wednesday. My commentary is here, and this is the poster I was talking about:

-Carl

Hey! Kris here with a commentary for Wonder Woman Champion of Themyscira #38's cover. I dont normally make commentary stuff because, well, I do art for 2 shows, write and help on directing with another, edit 5 more shows, and act a bunch. My time is limited. But I got the program Adam Bell mentioned on his Ace of Detectives cover commentary and recorded the process of my cover art drawingz! The whole thing took about 3 and a half hours from start to finish, and you can watch it all in about 9 and a half minutes! Nice.

Also, note: This is the NEW TIARA! First time I've gotten to draw it! Diana got it from Clark back in the Superman Christmas episode! It's awesome looking.

Catwoman Issue 7

Hi All,

Sorry this has been so late. It's been busy at home and work! I've posted my reference photos for this one here.

The first is the covergirl of sports illustrated. I wanted Selina kneeling down because the story takes place in Japan. The background actually came first in my head. The classic Japanese Tea room walls, the hanging lanterns and the writing on the wall is "Cat" in Japanese (I hope it does, I just googled it on the net!!!)

Then I wanted Catwoman kneeling as if having tea (kindof.) And I came across the sports illustrated photo.

I included the rough sketch as well there, so you can see that.

Finally, I included 4 drawings of sketch cards that I did for an upcoming auction called Comics for Cure.

"There will be a public exhibition at Comics 2 Games, Florence, Ky location on April 4th 2009. The auction of all the original art cards will go online starting the week before the Sketch Card exhibition and will end that evening. All proceeds from the sale of the cards will go to the American Cancer Society."

www.comicsforcures.com is the website for more info.

See ya,

Paul

Batman 38: A special treat!

Click here! (and enjoy!)

Defiant 33

you can see my comments on the cover at my blog here.
or see the final colored version on my deviantart, here.

New Artist for Seminar

As mentioned in this week's (air date 2/22/09) TWIP Loran Skinkis is no longer able to continue on as cover artist for Semninar. Kristy Plotkin will now assume cover duties starting with next month's release. Congrats, Kristy; and we all wish Loran the best in all of his future artistic endeavours!

Superman: Last Son of Krypton Issue 50

This episode was pretty metal. I absolutely loved it, and drawing this cover. Commentary is here.

Catwoman Issue 6

Hey All,

Here's the cover for Catwoman Issue 6. I mixed some drawing from reference as well as some drawing from my own head. Catwoman was drawn from my head. I thought of a pose and drew it as a stick figure. Then I did alot of scribbling (gesture drawing) until I came up with the right look. I wanted her jumping from the page and so that was why I gave her that pose. I also wanted some foreshortening.

So I had her arm coming forward and threw in her whip doing a little 3D effect as well. The reference drawing came from Charlize Theron photo. I liked it a lot cuz it made her look frustrated that she hasn't caught up yet with Catwoman, yet it shows her overlooking her as she is getting closer and closer.

I did the drawing on a Blue Line art board. I just bought them and decided to try it out. It works well with pencils. The stomps smoothed out the pencils and blended them well.

All in all, I am pretty happy with it. I like the action in the drawing and I like the portrait drawing of Tsarina just so people can see what I think she would look like.

Enjoy!

commentary is below

Defiant, ep. 32

you can view my comments on this piece on my blog, here.

Superman: Last Son of Krypton Issue 49

Behold! Farfel in all of his glory! You can find the commentary here.

A new member of the blog!

Everybody, please join me in welcoming our newest member of the Art of Pendant family, Maija Urrelo. As mentioned in today's TWIP, Maija will be working on Martian Manhunter: Strange Visitor which will debut sometime in March. Look for a promotional poster for Martian Manhunter in the near future.

Welcome aboard, Maija!

Once Upon a Time in Vegas, chapter 17

Hey guys! Sorry I've been MIA for the last, oh, five chapters. It's been crazy over at casa de Julie lately.


Here's the lovely Ginger, making her cover debut. I was thinking of doing another Chloe cover, but Alicia gave me some great Gin-spiration. XD She was originally more pinup-y, but about halfway through I reread her character description and realized that she was supposed to be very thin, not 50s-style curvy. I had to go back and do some plastic surgery. ;) She's still a little curvier than she should be, I think, but oh well. Fortunately, there are lots of curvy ladies to draw in Vegas, so all my research is not for naught!


Anyways, I thought I'd go back and review the covers I missed, briefly.
Vegas 16. I think I did this one in record time, and I had a lot of fun painting glass in Photoshop. There was a big gaffe in this episode, though; the name tag is supposed to have a company logo on it. Whoops! I still want to go back and add one in...

Vegas 15. Chloe! I love her character but I was not entirely happy with this art. I can't wait to redeem her by drawing her again.

Vegas 14. The departure from people to still life was a little risky for me, but this cover planted itself in my brain and wouldn't let go. Fortunately, the producers liked the idea! I "sketched" the cover with vector shapes in Photoshop, and then painted over them. I am horrible at draftsmanship and can't draw a circle to save my life, so there we go.

Vegas 13. I think this is my favorite cover out of all the ones I've done. It came together quite well. In fact, here - have a close-up!


And that's it for me. See you in a few weeks!

Catwoman 5

Hi All,

Here's the Catwoman cover with the reference photo and the audio clip explaining the cover

See ya,

Paul

Poison cover

you can read up more on my thoughts about the cover on my deviantart page here.
or see the inks and other thoughts on my blog here.