Zulu's art

zuludelta · September 13, 2007, 12:05:49 PM

Aquaman, eh? Not really a fan, but I did like how he was portrayed in the JLU cartoon (although the mullet was pushing it a bit)... he looked a lot more imposing there than how I've traditionally seen him drawn, although the characterization did seem more "Namor-ish" to me, what with all the royal Atlantean attitude and acute disdain for surface-dwellers. Granted, my impressions of Aquaman have been shaped pretty much by the old Superfriends cartoons (I remember being in kindergarten and no one wanted to play as Aquaman. Come to think of it, nobody wanted to play as Robin or the Wonder Twin who could turn into water, either :lol:).

I might do a sketch one of these days, as I'm looking to get back into more traditional cartooning and caricaturing methods.

zuludelta · September 13, 2007, 10:36:49 PM

whipped this one up quick-like:

Juanjete · September 18, 2007, 02:39:32 AM

Very nice work!!

MJB · September 18, 2007, 12:20:44 PM

While Raph was always my favorite I can always appreciate a good TMNT pic.

-MJB

Uncle Yuan · September 18, 2007, 01:51:50 PM

Donatello FTW!!

zuludelta · September 18, 2007, 02:37:05 PM

Thanks for the comments. I haven't been able to clean it up or do any other ninja turtle-related images because I've been a little busy with a project. Anyway, here's a quick Wolverine drawing I managed to sneak in:

Also, a peek at a font I'm refining based on my own handwriting (still adjusting the kerning, and I haven't done the numerals and most of the punctuation yet):

Which leads me to ask, anybody know of any free, Windows-based, font creation programs? I've been using the trial version of High-Logic's FontCreator and I've got about three weeks left before the trial period ends. I don't even need anything that fancy since I manually adjust the kerning anyway, just something that supports smooth filters.

MJB · September 18, 2007, 03:15:14 PM

I haven't tried my hand at creating a font. Sorry, I can't help you.

-MJB

zuludelta · September 23, 2007, 10:15:56 PM

Thanks for the reply anyway Meej.

Here's another Punisher image:

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that I've got Team Fortress 2 on the brain :lol:

zuludelta · September 25, 2007, 03:01:50 AM

An unfinished Elektra piece (not sure if I still want to do the full figure or leave it as is):

Mowgli · September 25, 2007, 12:30:42 PM

I like the elektra pose. I would finish the legs and then drop a circle behind her (ala Mucha). That would look fantastic. Maybe even a shuriken design within the circle. I also dig that blockier, solid look for the Punisher. It has a good Frank Castle feel.

As for font making, I don't know. Sorry man.

zuludelta · September 25, 2007, 05:21:03 PM

Thanks for the comments and suggestions Mowg. I'll definitely expand on the Elektra image when I have time.

Seems like I'm stuck with FontCreator (now just 17 days left in the trial period!). Makes me wonder what the open-source/Linux communities use for making TrueType-compatible fonts. I've slowly been moving towards open-source applications for everything I do (video and audio encoding and editing, document handling) except for graphics work (I just can't wean myself away from the comforts of Photoshop, even though I've learned the rudiments of GIMP).

zuludelta · September 29, 2007, 07:45:33 PM

Here's the full Elektra image (click on the picture for a larger version):

Thanks to Mowgli for the suggestions.

Mowgli · October 04, 2007, 01:04:37 PM

Cool. I like the way you used the shuriken twice as a design element instead of just a picture of a throwing star. Well done indeed. :thumbup:

MJB · October 04, 2007, 03:46:50 PM

Not a fan of Electra but that pic is nice. Love the BG.

-MJB

zuludelta · October 04, 2007, 05:56:28 PM

Thanks guys.

Anyway, here are some preview pics of character designs I'm doing for a comic book being penned by Tortuga (I'll leave it to Tort to go into detail regarding their backgrounds, I don't want to misrepresent his creations or anything). All these characters are designed to fit into a particular timeframe by the way (Silver Age/early Bronze Age of comics), which is why I've intentionally gone out of my way to make them look a bit dated:

This is Magnate. Your Captain America-type team leader. He's armed with a sceptre/mace weapon that can channel energy.

Adrenaline. Team speedster, never makes public appearances unless she's completely covered (for a particular reason).

Successor. An ancient Viking/Nordic warrior with a huge honking sword. Ended up spending way too much time reading about ancient Runic symbols because I didn't want to incorporate symbols that would be misconstrued down the road as being offensive (as some of you may know, runic symbology has a history of being used by Nazis, fascists, and white supremacists), but I wanted to use them to give an air of authenticity to the design.

Drama Queen. The costume was inspired by mod fashion of the late 1960s. I shamelessly appropriated the likenesses of Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn for her face and hair (although you can't really tell behind the mask). It's pretty apparent in this earlier version fo the character, though:

Spectrum. Has the power to manipulate light. His insignia was partially inspired by the cover of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

I've got a few more conceptuals I'm still re-working. The funny thing about all this: They won't be spending too much time looking like they do in conceptuals in the comics themselves (at least not intiially, as far as I know).

I've been working on the sequentials of the first issue as well, although doing the breakdowns is a lot mroe challenging than I initially that it would be, and so I'm spending more time doing rough layouts and then throwing them out again:

Page 1 thumbnail:

Page 2 thumbnail:

I'm still reworking the layouts for the rest of the first issue, although I've started rendering the first page as well.

Uncle Yuan · October 04, 2007, 06:13:29 PM

Wow, ZD, this was just thing I was hoping you'd do with your new style. I can't imagine how time-consuming it must be! The character designs look great. I particularly like Drama Queen's logo!

BTW, Aunt Yuan is Indian. During a recent trip back to her homeland I picked up a T-shirt with a very ornate design of a swastika. The caption under the design says "Swastika: A symbol of enlightenment 3000 years before a European madman appropriated it."

zuludelta · October 04, 2007, 07:17:39 PM

Quote from: Uncle Yuan on October 04, 2007, 06:13:29 PM
Wow, ZD, this was just thing I was hoping you'd do with your new style. I can't imagine how time-consuming it must be! The character designs look great. I particularly like Drama Queen's logo!

Thanks, the Drama Queen logo was mostly Tort's idea. As you can see in the earlier design, I wanted to use a stylized version of the Greek letter psi (as a nod to her psychic powers), although I did come up with the stylized "Q" badge shape as a complement to Magnate's "M"/eagle..

Quote from: Uncle Yuan on October 04, 2007, 06:13:29 PMBTW, Aunt Yuan is Indian. During a recent trip back to her homeland I picked up a T-shirt with a very ornate design of a swastika. The caption under the design says "Swastika: A symbol of enlightenment 3000 years before a European madman appropriated it."

Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that the swastika (sauvastika, in Sanskrit, IIRC, and manji, in Japanese) was originally, primarily a fixture in Buddhist and Hindu iconography (and as many people also don't realize, Buddhism originated in India).

Also, contrary to popular notion, both left-facing and right-facing swastikas were used in Asia as benevolent symbols: most people assume that the left-facing swastika is the "good swastika" while the right-facing swastika is the "evil swastika" (probably because the right-facing swastika is associated with the Nazi Party and Hitler), although for some reason, the left-facing swastika was more popular in ancient times.

The Nazi Party swastika, as far as i can tell, isn't really a traditional swastika in itself, but an icon created from the crossing of two Eihwaz runes (the rune used to represent Yggdrasil, the World Tree in Norse mythology), rendered in a way that the conflation of those two runes also looks like a right-facing swastika. The Germanic/Nordic rune origin of the "Nazi swastika" makes much more sense when you see how much runes were used in Nazi uniforms. The "SS" insignia, for example (the black "lightning bolts") are stylized Sowilo runes while the badges used by the Nazi-sponsored Volksdeutsche divisions in Croatia incorporated the odal rune.

Of course, I wouldn't put it past the early Nazis to have simply appropriated Indian symbols and purposefully mixed them in with indigenous Germanic symbols. Even the word "Aryan" (also a Sanskrit-derived word) had a totally different connotation before the Nazis popularized its use to refer to the non-Semitic, fair-skinned population of Europe. Before the Nazis misappropriated the term, "Aryan" historically referred to the Persian subpopulation of India and the Middle East (the word "Iran" is actually a cognate meaning "Land of the Aryans"), many of whose descendants would eventually become the Romani ("Gypsy") populations of Europe, whom, in a tragically ironic twist of fate, would suffer horrible persecution under Nazi and Fascist rule.

Whew! I told you I spent too much time researching these things :D

Carravaggio · October 04, 2007, 07:38:55 PM

Love the original designs, ZD, i'll be keepin my eye on these in the future. Drama Queen's symbol is one of those things you look at and say "Why didn't I think of that?"
Great stuff.

Uncle Yuan · October 04, 2007, 08:04:02 PM

Quote from: zuludelta on October 04, 2007, 07:17:39 PM
Of course, I wouldn't put it past the early Nazis to have simply appropriated Indian symbols and purposefully mixed them in with indigenous Germanic symbols. Even the word "Aryan" (also a Sanskrit-derived word) had a totally different connotation before the Nazis popularized its use to refer to the non-Semitic, fair-skinned population of Europe. Before the Nazis misappropriated the term, "Aryan" historically referred to the Persian subpopulation of India and the Middle East (the word "Iran" is actually a cognate meaning "Land of the Aryans"), many of whose descendants would eventually become the Romani ("Gypsy") populations of Europe, whom, in a tragically ironic twist of fate, would suffer horrible persecution under Nazi and Fascist rule.

I never knew about the runic stuff and assumed that the above was the way it happened. I always considered it ironic that the "true" Aryans were swarthier than the semitic peoples Hitler was trying to set Europeans apart from.

MJB · October 05, 2007, 11:01:12 AM

You may call those costumes "dated" but I call them classic.

Those character designs are absolutely awesome. I can't express to you how great I think they are. Magnate's look alone makes me want to buy this comic. :mjb:

Awesome work Zulu and Tort.

-MJB

Outcast · October 05, 2007, 11:17:44 AM

Very creative costume designs Zulu! I don't know how you do it. :doh:

Impressive start for an original comic book. With a great cast of characters so far. ^_^

Expecting great things from this comics. :cool: Do your best guys!

Good luck! Make mine Zulu ! ;)

zuludelta · October 05, 2007, 02:30:18 PM

Thanks Meej, Outcast!

I have to admit, it feels pretty good getting some positive outside feedback, since working in a self-contained environment with Tort (and the occasional advice from my animator brother) sometimes makes me wonder if I'm making the right design decisions (and I end up second-guessing myself a lot of the time).

style · October 05, 2007, 05:43:22 PM

I can see Ren meshing these guys and you Zulu skining them! Love 'em just love 'em!!! My faves Adrenaline! :thumbup:

Nymph · October 10, 2007, 05:42:35 PM

ok umm wow! I LUV IT! :D

Especially Successor he is major cool! :thumbup:

I want to see more lol!

zuludelta · October 18, 2007, 11:55:20 PM

A couple of Wolverine costume re-designs:

MJB · October 19, 2007, 02:05:19 AM

Yellow and blue... Yuck! Gold and brown... okay. I miss the black shading in the G&B version.

-MJB

zuludelta · October 19, 2007, 02:44:51 AM

Quote from: MJB on October 19, 2007, 02:05:19 AM
Yellow and blue... Yuck! Gold and brown... okay. I miss the black shading in the G&B version.

-MJB

Yeah, I wasn't too fond of the yellow and blue myself, just did the palette swap as an afterthought (I might flip the colours... have him wear a yellow vest and blue pants instead). Good catch on the missing blacks in the brown uniform, thanks. Here's an updated version:

Panther_Gunn · October 19, 2007, 10:15:06 AM

Wolvie wears a hoodie?? :o Have chavs made it across the pond to Canada now? ;)

I can see the logic for the gloves and the tabis, but that hood-thing is just throwing the whole thing for me. It detracts from what might be a good design (for me), kinda like the ridiculously long hair the artist had on him in the Wolverine/Havok mini-series.

MJB · October 19, 2007, 11:02:40 AM

Very nice Zulu. :thumbup:

-MJB

Uncle Yuan · October 19, 2007, 11:26:30 AM

I gotta go with PG on this one. Normally I'm a big fan of your work, but the hoodie / cowl just isn't doing it for me.

Hm . . . stumbled across another censored word. Apparently the Latin word "cee yoo em" (as in hoodie cee yoo em cowl) isn't allowed. And "hoodie fluid cowl" just doesn't make sense.