scout

i drew this to send to my cousin at boy scout camp, so in a way it is based on a true story.

built

i don't think i've ever tried this hard to draw a building before. i usually just realize that i don't know what i'm doing and give up. though the result is modest, i have no choice but to consider this a raging success.

the blue team

i rewrote the plot of my g.i. joe story a little today, so my major bludd analogue sort of ended up changing allegiances, which necessitated a change in color palette.

afro-american panther

here is my coworker vince, and inspired by his renewed interest in black comic book characters, my version of roadblock from g.i. joe and a few black panthers.

captain gore

here's my take on cobra's major bludd:

hey ladies

new character designs for some of the female characters.


(not drawn to scale.)

henchmen

on the left is a new pose of the standard henchman. the other 2 are an initial design and a revision of an elite henchman of some kind. the version in the center looked a little busy to me.



and here is a doodle that illustrates how the different components of the helmet might work separately, and offers our nameless henchman a moment to enjoy a cold beverage.

zipatone

ever since i read wizard's "how to draw: advanced techniques" comic, i have been curious about using something called zipatone, a page of tiny, equidistant dots that you can cut into shapes to simulate gray shades in 2-tone comics. in the old days, i guess they were forced to use this stuff, but some people still do because it has a cool effect.

today i realized that i could do it the easy way by making my own digital page of zipatone dots in photoshop.

back from the drawing board

another round of potential zartan costumes. they're based on the generic henchman uniform i made yesterday, but with a couple of alterations that let you know he is someone important.



i think i will adapt the real zartan's facepaint (or whatever it is) and hood by giving my version a skin condition that makes him sensitive to sunlight. that would explain the hood, and i can explain the eye makeup as some kind of grease paint that prevents a painful glare when he has to go outside.

general issue

today i thought a little bit about what my cobra soldiers would be wearing. i need to blend the iconic henchmen uniforms from the g.i. joe cartoon with something with a little more basis in the real world. the biggest challenge will be the helmets, as cool-looking helmets and practical ones seem to be mutually exclusive.

i started by photo referencing some SWAT team and military gear from real life, and was happy to see that some troopers really do wear faceplates.


this is the same blue i chose for zartan's pants, thinking that maybe he wouldn't be as different from the other troopers in my version as he was in g.i. joe, aside from the non-regulation hoodie.

this dark red circle was intended to be a stand-in for a cobra-like logo that i would design later, but now i'm thinking it looks pretty good.