Watching from above

New illustration for Anna Mercury Artbook.
Pencilled half way inked, fully inked and colored by Digikore.
I drew 5 illus for this Artbook.
I'll post them litlle by little.

Hell-Work in progress (II)

Another illustration of the great red guy. I have played with several roughs until I agree with this figure.
The idea is to take advantage of the red color of a cardboard to "shape" Hellboy's face directly with ink and crayon.
A graphical experiment that I hope you like.
Still working on it...

Brand New Anna

Three moments of an illustration.
First, the rough sketch.
Second, the definitive drawing, with the same concept but changing some details and the whole figure of Warren Ellis' Anna Mercury.
Third, the illustration colored by Digikore (great work!).
You can find this one and other magnificent illustrations of great artists like Richard Ortiz, Facundo Percio, my friend Juanjo RyP or Paul Duffield in the Anna Mercury Artbook edited by Avatar Press.
Don't miss it!

The daltonic colorist

"Another Conan's face" as was published in the #53 of the Spanish edition of Conan the Barbarian.
I really don't know the name of the colourist, but I do not like the way in wich he gave the colors.
There is no depth in the jungle. Rarely I have seen a blue sea serpent and water of green color.
I am sure you can make it better.
The original b/w illustration is here.

From the dead (8-8)

Well, the last page isn't among my favorites. I had to hurry many things to close the chapter, and the 6 panels turn out to be a bit confused. Into the original size, the lines are much clearer. But I realize that I must have lightened the details to grant major clarity to the set. Many suggested things stay, others remaine outlined, and the sensation of urgency invades what till then had been a good narrative.

From the dead (7-8)

Battle was coming to an end. It continued to rage for long hours. The warriors were brave, and ferocious, but... how to defeat a dead army?
And now, Slam-Kath, the lord of the frozen lands, is coming towards you.
Can you feel the cold, cruel, insane air that surrounds him?

From the dead (6-8)

The ferocious battle of good vs evil.
The battle axe vs the allmighty sword.
A very dark, strong and dynamic page, where each panel have his own personality, creating powerful provocative montage.

From the dead (5-8)

Here we have the bad guy. Slam-kath, the lord of the frozen lands.
I thought that it would be interesting to draw him as an albino, to reinforce the idea of his link with the ices.
I remember to have drawn this page in a frantic way, almost directly inking from the beginning. The darker were getting the characters, the more I liked the final result. I was finding it almost dramatic.

From the dead (4-8)

I used to call this page the "BraveHeart scene". There's a speech from Sage's father which succinctly says "compromise of liberty leads to tyranny; but dying for liberty leads to freedom". And then. the battle comes.
But it will be in one more day.
Or two.

From the dead (3-8)

Here you have an old druid (in fact, a mixture between a druid and a shaman) bringing some bad news according to a prophecy. A druid was a member of the priestly and learned class in the ancient Celtic societies of Western Europe, Britain and Ireland. The Celtic communities that Druids served were polytheistic. They also show signs of animism, in their reverence for various aspects of the natural world, such as the land, sea and sky, and their veneration of other aspects of nature, such as sacred trees and groves (the oak and hazel were particularly revered), tops of hills, streams, lakes and plants such as the mistletoe. Fire was regarded as a symbol of several divinities and was associated with cleansing. Purported ritual killing and human sacrifice were aspects of druidic culture that shocked classical writers:"These men predict the future by observing the flight and calls of birds and by the sacrifice of holy animals: all orders of society are in their power... and in very important matters they prepare a human victim, plunging a dagger into his chest; by observing the way his limbs convulse as he falls and the gushing of his blood, they are able to read the future."

From the dead (1-8) (2-8)

Many of you you have asked for a new complete story. It's funny: you ask for it by private e-mail but you don't use the commentaries in the blog. Last Wednesday there were 240 visits and even not a single commentary. You are very shy... I'll close again the comments.
Anyway: there are holidays in my hometown and I'm going to spend my free time with my family. So, I'll post today two pages of the Sage's first comic-book. You have seen some samples in previous posts, but now I am going to show the complete 8 pages.

Sage was drawn in a big format. Paper was bigger than a A-3. The reproduction size was so small that a lot of lines were deformed and mixed. At the time, I was very influenced by Luis García's artwork (you can take a look to his superb genius here), so I was using a lot of line artwork instead of big black masses. Probably, if I had to redraw this stuff I won't use the same style. But I was so satisfied with it at that time.