These sketches were inspired by Comic-Con in San Diego. Anyone who knows me knows I am a big Comic-Con fan and attend annually. There are thousands of people at this event and many choose to dress in costume. These people are usually quite polite to pose for photographs out on the convention floor. But these people are also convention-goers and what I find really interesting are the more candid, pedestrian moments: Superman smoking a cigarette, Wonder Woman on her cell phone, wearing glasses with her purse slug up over her shoulder, middle-aged superheroes with their offspring in tow, etc. I also want to capture the energy, the hustle and bustle of the convention in this series because Comic-Con takes over San Diego and for those four or five days it really is a strange and different world.
This is a real departure in that it is not a print and because it was colored in photoshop (and when it comes to photoshop I am still a blind monkey poking at it with a stick). Though it is not my milieu, I think the subject matter benefits from the slick computer coloring. Upon printing it out I think this one is a tad overdone. Somewhere in the middle there was a version (that I didn't save, d'oh) that struck a better balance between the looseness of the original drawing and the slickness of the color.
Below is the original inked pencil drawing before photoshopping.
This is the second piece from the Comic-Con series. This piece addresses the phenomenon of couples in costume. It is common among the costume or 'cos play' types. I believe Elektra and Darth Maul from my previous post were a couple (though obviously they went in different directions thematically). Often times though they do dress in tandem. This couple chose X-wing fighter pilots. What I like about this piece is the expression on her face that suggests that this was his idea, and that she is playing along, dorking out for her sweetie. Ah, love....
