SUPERHEROES/ART – Spider-Ham vs. Captain Carrot

GASP! In color!

This week’s Superhero vs. Superhero drawing  is a spoof of the famous Superman vs The Amazing Spider-Man cover published in 1976:

The cover was drawn by Ross Andru and Dick Giordano.  I had a very short conversion with Greg Willits (of the Catholics Next Door podcast) which lead me to want to draw the spoof. He’s a big fan of Captain Carrot.

I wanted to spoof the cover but I didn’t want to draw that very detailed background.  It would take too long to replicate.  I went online looking for a black and white copy of the cover. I found one but the jpeg had too low of a resolution. I own a reprint copy of the comic, and in the back there’s an explanation of how the cover was conceived.

There’s a black and white version there.  I scanned that version and that’s what I used for my background.

I took out Supes and Spidey and drew the cartoony characters in there instead.  Only, I found I had to adjust the tower.  Spider-Ham has bigger feet and he’s shorter.  when I drew him on the tower, it didn’t look right.

I ended up taking the tower art and enlarging it so that it looked more like Spider-Ham was on the  tower.

Once all the elements where drawn, I printed the black and white drawing on bristol board.  The line work on the characters where printed in non photo blue but the background was printed in black and white.

I then inked Captain Carrot and Spider-Ham using my good Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.

Once I was done, I scanned the drawing back in and colored it, trying to match the colors of the original cover.  That was a pain, but I did it.

I had an absolute blast working on this drawing.  I had a difficult time, NOT working on it.  All wanted to do was draw it.

While Greg is a big fan of Capt. Carrot, I’m a big fan of Spider-Ham.

See, Peter Porker: The Spectacular Spider-Ham #15 was the first comic book I’d ever bought when I was in middle school. I bought it at a Circle K near my house.

I’d had comics when I was a little kid but there was something about having bought the comic myself that made me really own it.

Also, I picked it myself for myself and that made a big difference.  It looked fun and silly.

Once I read it, I wanted more and I went back for more.  They eventually cancelled the book but had short eight page Spider-Ham back up stories on some Marvel Tales comics,  which featured Spider-Man.

I picked those up for the Spider-Ham back ups but eventually ended up reading the Spider-Man stories also.  They hooked me and I’ve been reading superhero comics ever since.

This it the first time I’ve ever drawn Spider-Ham and I couldn’t help feeling nostalgic the whole time. It was fun. I hope you like it as much as I liked drawing it.

SUPERHEROES/ART- Magneto vs. Dr. Polaris

This week’s Superhero vs Superhero drawing gave me a lot of trouble. Seeing it, you wouldn’t think it did.

This is Magneto (Marvel) vs Dr. Polaris (DC).   They’re both the “masters of magnetism,” of their respective universes. And of course they’re now chibi refrigerator magnets holding up a drawing my son Ambrose drew when he was two.

The reason this drawing gave a me trouble was because of the lack of real planning.

The first time around I roughed it out and showed it to my wife to see if the joke “read.” I had drawn the two characters their actual size, hanging off a refrigerator.  The problem  was, they were so big, they covered up the fridge and my wife didn’t realize they were magnets.  They just looked like they were floating in a kitchen, in front of a fridge.

I scrapped the idea and simply wasn’t going to do it. I drew the Human Torch vs Fire drawing I posted last week instead.

Then I talked about it with a friend who gave me the idea to make them chibi style magnets.  That’s what I ended up doing.

Thing is, then I got ambitious. I decided I should digitally paint this drawing and not simply ink it. And by “paint,” I meant, not just color but get rid of all the lines and do a full painting.  They’re simple characters, I thought it shouldn’t be a problem.

So I began the process, and quickly realized  two things, one, I couldn’t paint all that well, and two, painting the drawing was going to take WAY too long.

So I quit.  It left me feeling really frustrated and I felt, I’d failed. On top of that, I seemed I wasted a lot of time I need to get other things done.

I had roughed out and cleaned up the drawing digitally. The line work was pretty much done.  Only, I didn’t like it.  I wasn’t sure what to do, but I ended up turning the clean up lines into non-photo blue and printed it out  so I could ink it by hand. Which I did.

And then I had a fight with my Pentel Pocket Brush Pens because the ink was too saturated and wouldn’t let me make subtle lines.  I ended experimenting with a Zebra WF1 Scientific Brush (Small Size) which worked alright. Although,  I think I still like the Tombow Fude Brush Pen I used last week more.

So in the end this simple drawing gave me more trouble than I wanted it to and it left me wanting to paint.  Which I think I”ll start doing soon.

SUPERHEROES/ART- Human Torch vs. Fire

This time on Superhero vs. Superhero we have Johnny Storm, The Human Torch (Marvel) vs. Fire (DC).  Both of them turn on fire powers which make them both become beings of fire.  Which of course, would set off the fire sprinklers anywhere they went.

Not much more to tell about this drawing.  You can read more about each character by clicking the hyperlink for each person.

This drawing was done in my usual way of roughing it out digitally in non photo blue, but the inking was done a little differently.  I found the Pentel Pocket Brush Pens  I was using was producing too much ink.  The brush was so saturated I couldn’t draw thin subtle lines. I picked up a Tombow Fude Brush Pen and used that instead.  The flames on Johnny and Fire where done with the pen, as well as many other subtle details.  It’s really a good pen. I’m going to have to use it more often.

SUPERHEROES/ART – Tigra vs. Cheetah

For the Superhero vs. Superhero fight this week, we’ve got Tigra  (Marvel) vs. Cheetah (DC).  They fight because they’re practically the same character, only one is a Tiger and the other a Cheetah. One is a villain, the other is a hero.

Cheetah, by the way is specifically a Wonder Woman villain.

For more info on each character click the hyperlinks on each.

I drew this after having bought the image book GIANT-SIZE KUNG FU BIBLE STORIES anthology comic.  It had an eight page story drawn by Bruce Timm in it, and it made me want to draw girls.

This was drawn in my usual method of roughing out the drawing digitally, in non-photo blue, in  Photoshop and then printing it out to ink it by hand.

This time I used various pens like Microns, a Pentel Pocket pen, and a special felt tip brush pen, whose’s brand I don’t know.