Santa's Little Helper

This is Gadfly Lad, a character I created for my Blockade Boy blog. He's a shrimpy nineteen-year-old detective, with scant body hair, a peachfuzz mustache, and scraggly sideburns. In other words, he looks like I did, back in college. Plus, he slicks his hair down with about a gallon of gel every morning. He's from the planet Imsk, a famous location in Legion of Super-Heroes lore. Like all natives of Imsk, he can shrink down to doll-size -- and even smaller! He's already pretty petite, though.

His costume references the one Shrinking Violet wore, during the Legion's 1970's incarnation... y'know, the one with a lot of exposed cleavage, and a very stylized arrow pointing down to her lady bits. Gadfly Lad's outfit parodies the hyper-sexualized costumes that super-heroines are sometimes drawn with, with the added twist that he doesn't have much to show off. Oh, and his flying harness is based on this model, from a WW2-era Justice Society of America story:

I don't think any of my readers have figured that part out, yet. Or at least, they haven't said anything.

Gadfly Lad is very smart, but he's not well-versed, socially. This has led him into acting like a know-it-all; a world-class eavesdropper and buttinsky; and a "rules Nazi" on par with the worst cases from the world of D&D. And because he's not all that comfortable talking to people face-to-face, he's prone to addressing folks from over their shoulders.

I created Gadfly Lad specifically to spark conflict with Blockade Boy. As a former space-pirate and a habitual trespasser, Blockade Boy isn't much for rules. He's fearless, very opinionated, and a bit of a bully at times (although he'd never admit it). So I thought it would be fun to put Blockade Boy and Gadfly Lad in a setting where they're coworkers. When Blockade Boy was a space-pirate captain, he could "pull rank" on his crew, in order to get his way. He can't do that with Gadfly Lad. And it drives him apeshit.

In his current storyline, Blockade Boy has gone undercover as a futuristic mall Santa Claus. Guess who got tagged to play the requisite "elf"? So now these two jerkwads have to spend lots and lots of time together. And since Santa "outranks" his elves, Blockade Boy has pounced on the opportunity to push Gadfly Lad around.

Since my whacked-out future/alien version of Santa owes more to Zeus and Odin than it does to Saint Nicholas, I decided that the elf would look a bit like one of Odin's ravens. It also gave me an excuse to keep Gadfly Lad in his flying harness, just like Blockade Boy managed to work a recolored version of his force-field bracelets into his Santa costume. This would be the second time I've drawn Gadfly Lad, and the first time I've drawn him "realistically."

Since I normally draw, y'know, attractive people, it was fun to depict somebody with a less-than-ideal body type. Gadfly Lad is small, but wiry. He's a "hard gainer", as the gym queens say. Also, his hands and feet are much larger, proportionally, than the average. (I accidentally made the feet two different sizes, but c'est la vie.) This is a little bit like my own physique -- not that I have large hands, but my wrists are ridiculously thin and delicate-looking*, so my stubby paws look huge by comparison. Just as in the cartoon version, Gadfly Lad sports a large, round noggin. I probably made it a little too big, to be honest. Without the body hair, he'd look like a little kid.

The costume's beaky mask is based on the "long nose" masks popular at the Venice Carnival. The straps for the flying harness have been incorporated into a variation on traditional German lederhosen. The hair is spiked up, like ruffled feathers -- by Blockade Boy, who trapped a shrunk-down Gadfly Lad in a jar and poked at his coif with a toothbrush. (Blockade Boy: dickish control freak.)

I needed reference photos of wiry, shirtless guys to add just the right amount of realism to my Gadfly Elf. A Google search on "Iggy Pop" did the trick!

I also realized that Iggy's scoliosis/Elephant Man posturing was the kind of thing I had already pictured my wriggly, anxious Gadfly Lad doing. (See my original cartoon of him, which I created in October.) It was truly serendipitous.

*I've stopped wearing watches, because even the smallest men's watch is way too loose on my wrist. And no, I'm not about to wear a woman's or a child's watch. Wiseass.

I Say Thee, Ho, Ho, Ho

Over at my "Blockade Boy" blog, B.B. goes undercover as a mall Santa, on an alien planet, 980 years in the future. The beefy, oversexed hero discovers that time and distance have transmogrified the concept of "jolly old Saint Nick" into something like Dickens' Ghost of Christmas Present, as filtered through the brain of Robert E. Howard. (Not that he complains, of course.)

This is watercolor pencil and ink. I tried to loosen up my brush work, both with the watercolor mixing and with the inking. I think it turned out pretty well.

It took me a while to settle on a costume design. I knew I wanted his muscular arms and chest to be exposed, like a professional wrestler's, since it was the antithesis of the portly gent's physique. I tried different cloaks and unbuttoned coats on him. At one point, Future Santa had a tall, furry hat, like the Russian cousin of Santa, Grandfather Frost. Finally, I settled on just a simple cloak, chained together (under the beard) and a crown of holly. I put most of the details on the belt/codpiece and the boots. The bear image comes from old coats of arms.

Conceptually, I knew I wanted this less-than-welcoming Santa to pose in his chair like a barbarian king. Online, I found this iconic image of King Conan...

...and I knew right away it was ripe for parody/homage. I created Future Santa's barbed candy cane weapon based on Conan's spear.

My Future Santa also has an "elf" assistant, whose costume is raven-themed -- because Future Santa also looks a bit like the Norse god, Odin. I'll post that picture later this week (when I get around to drawing th' dang thing.)

E.T.A. Hoffmann and the Real Girl

I've been listening to the opera, Les Contes d'Hoffmann, pretty obsessively over the last week. I've listened to three versions (two with Placido Domingo in the title role) and I've looked at some YouTube videos of the Kleinzach and Olympia arias. I'm no opera buff, but I think the music is beautiful -- so beautiful it almost makes me want to cry, if that makes any sense. Also, I love the story. It alternates between comic and tragic, and overall the tone is gothic, creepy, and disturbing. If you get the chance, you should rent the Michael Powell film of it, "The Tales of Hoffmann." It's vastly entertaining, and packed with imagery the MST3K guys would call "good old fashioned nightmare fuel." (George Romero has been quoted as saying it's his favorite movie.)

I thought it would be fun to do paintings of Hoffman and his unlucky love affairs. But before I get started on the paintings -- which could be a while -- I want to do some studies, so I can settle on a composition. This is a pencil drawing of Hoffmann and his first love, the mechanical doll, Olympia. Hoffmann, the poor dumb dope, doesn't realize she's a robot because he's been sold spectacles which -- unknown to himself -- make her appear to be a living person. Olympia's "father", Spalanzani, plans to use Hoffmann's infatuation with Olympia to fleece him of all his money. Hoffmann's dance with Olympia ends with the mechanical woman going haywire and flinging him about the room. His spectacles get smashed, and he recovers his senses just in time to witness Olympia getting torn apart by Spalanzani's disgruntled business partner, Dr. Coppelius. (That's Coppelius lurking in the background, in the nifty bicorn hat.)

I always enjoy doing research for my artwork, and this was no exception. For starters, I wanted the costumes to be contemporaneous with the real E.T.A. Hoffmann , who was born in 1776. In the "Olympia" sequence of "Les Contes d'Hoffmann", he's a traveling student, looking for a scientist to whom he can apprentice himself. My guess was, that meant that he was around twenty. Ultimately, the fashions I chose for both Hoffmann and Olympia wound up being more appropriate for the early 1800's, instead of the early 1790's. That was close enough, I figured, especially considering that a lot of opera companies set the sequence in the 1830's or later.

Olympia's gown is based on a "fashion plate" of that period that I found online. I eschewed styles with longer sleeves, because they didn't make Olympia look "girlish" enough. Since Spalanzani tries to pass Olympia off as both his daughter and as a suitable mate for Hoffmann, my guess is that she's meant to look like she's in her mid-to-late teens. Both her dress and hairstyle are inspired by ancient Greece, which was the style back then. Happily, the Greek look compliments her name.

Hoffmann's outfit is based on one worn by Hugh Grant in the movie "Sense and Sensibility." According to one costume website I visited, it's a conservative look for the time (around 1800). I love how the sleeves extend partially over the hands. Timewise, this outfit is probably a few years older -- at least! -- than Olympia's. And that suits me just fine. I figure Hoffman wouldn't be a rake, but merely a poor, wandering student who's found himself in another country. Similarly, Hoffmann's hair is unkempt and a bit spiky, since he'd only spend money for a haircut every so often. It's an intentional contrast with Olympia's elaborate curls. Hoffman's glasses are more like goggles than the rectangular, "Ben Franklin" style shades a man would have worn back then. This is also intentional. I like the shape of them better, and they have more of a jarring, sci-fi feel to them, which is the effect I want. Incidentally, one minor defect of Powell's film is the whacked-out, Elton John-style glasses Hoffmann wears -- they're so ridiculous, they make it hard to take Hoffmann seriously as a romantic hero. Seriously -- there's this one close-up where actor Robert Rounseville's pudgy, Vincent D'Onofrio-like face is all aglow with delight and surprise, and with the crazy glasses on, he's the Ghost of Charles Nelson Reilly Future. It's uncanny.

I wanted to keep the background simple, like a Toulouse-Lautrec poster or a Pre-Raphaelite painting. I decided to swipe -- er, borrow the drapery from a painting of Louis XVI. The wall directly behind Hoffmann and Olympia will definitely extend downward a little more in the next version of this that I do, so that it doesn't line up exactly with the wall in the background.

I'm pretty busy at the moment, so I don't know just when I'll be able to work on a painting of this subject, but I feel like I now at least have a good basis for it.

Deuce

"Deuce", a character created by fellow blogger Silvercat. Since Silvercat submitted the winning look in my "Blockade Boy" costume design contest, I reciprocated by agreeing to redesign the costumes for two of her characters. Deuce is a Harley Quinn-type sidekick. I sent Silvercat three penciled cartoon sketches of costume ideas. She selected this one, and sent me back the sketch with some ideas for color styling (as you can see on the bottom of the picture). I mistakenly interpreted the white skin on the sketches as being uncolored rather than white, so she had to fix it herself. Originally posted on Silvercat's LiveJournal on October 2, 2007.

Krazy Lantern

George Herriman's Krazy Kat as Hal "Green Lantern" Jordan, in a tribute to the latter character's habit of getting konked on the head. Originally posted on Scipio Garling's fantastic "Absorbascon" blog, on October 31, 2007. I based the cartoon on this panel from the book "America's Great Comic-Strip Artists" by Richard Marschall (Abbeville Press):

My penciled version also had Offissa Pupp, as Hawkman, standing disapprovingly in the background, but it made the composition too busy. At one point I tried casting the anonymous bystander in Herriman's original as the Flash, but again, it distracted from the main idea of the parody. Herriman was a master of pen-and-ink. I have nothing even approaching his facility. Thankfully, I was able to achieve a similar look with a brush.

Cernunnos

Acrylic painting of the Celtic god, Cernunnos. I worked on it this summer.

Space Pirates on Parade

My "Blockade Boy" blog character, back in his days as a space-pirate, leading his crew in a celebratory (and compulsory) march. Originally posted on that blog on July 4, 2007. This cartoon also appeared in the September, 2007 issue of "Instinct" magazine.

Red Skull 3

My redesign of the Communist version of the Marvel Comics villain, the Red Skull. The skeletal headgear is based on a Soviet-era gasmask. Originally published on my "Blockade Boy" blog on May 7, 2007.

Weight Wizard

This is a pastel portrait of Weight Wizard, a small-time "Legion of Super-Heroes" character, extensively redesigned for my "Blockade Boy" blog. Originally posted over there on August 27, 2007.

Misfit Super-Heroes

Here are four super-heroes I created for my "Blockade Boy" blog. Originally posted there on October 2, 2007, and based on concepts from the "Legion of Super-Heroes" universe. From left-to-right: Gadfly Lad, Dentata Damsel, Nightmare Boy, and Frigid Queen.

Dynamo Kid

Here's my redesign of another little-known Legion of Super-Heroes character. Originally posted on my "Blockade Boy" blog on September 3, 2007.

Rainbow Girl

This is my redesign of a terribly obscure Legion of Super-Heroes character. It was originally posted on my "Blockade Boy" blog on July 2, 2007.

Comet

My rendition of Comet, a superhero created by cartoonist Brian Andersen. This was originally posted on my "Blockade Boy" blog on September 8, 2007, and was later published in issue #3 of his comic, "So Super Duper."

The Enchanter

My design for a male version of the DC Comics character, the Enchantress. Originally posted on my Blockade Boy website on April 10, 2007. The magic symbol is a "very old ideogram" for fire, according to "The Complete Encyclopedia of Signs and Symbols" by Mark O'Connell and Raje Airey.