The final piece of the puzzle

aka 'Hela 'va good show old chap' – Mad Thinker

Well, it finally came in – Hela in all her deathly magnificence!

With annotations from the sculptor Peter Hutchins...

Hela: Asgardian Goddess of Death. Sculpted @90mm in height.

Three resin duplicate patterns.

Profile of her left side, from a slightly elevated angle.
She's sculpted by hand, ie. traditionally with no digital assistance.

Rear 3/4 view.

Rear view of the Goddess of Death.

Sculpted to compliment each other at a scale of 88mm -90mm.

First paint from Banjo.

Second paint with black mask and 'antlers'.

One man and his dog (Pete with Conall).

Don't forget Bridie the cat!

A beautiful sculpt to end the collection, Thanks Pete.

Skurge improved

More aggressive pose, with snarled mouth, axe held a bit higher, plus all the final detailing.

If this was Facebook it'd get ...

... from me.

Hela shots coming soon.

Dan.

Skurge early stage

Thought I'd show you the first Skurge in progress digital images - nice bulky frame, with nice smooth contours, but lacking in dynamism somewhat. I've asked for the obvious costume detailing, aswell as much more aggression in the pose and facial expression - we await the improved version...




On a side note Kev Hopgood (who did the original sketch), had a go at a digital sculpt, just for fun. Although not quite as sharp, I like the meaner take on the character.

Wolfsbane cover mock-up

The truth is out there...

 THE NEVER TO BE MADE 20.

I'm sure I had a newer list of the possible 201 extension (but I found this one from aug 2011, a year ago!)

It's by no means the final list but a scratch list from which to start adding/removing names.
EDIT: This was my wishlist that EM will not be making.

Dan’s Prelim List: 201-220

1. JACKAL spidey villain
2 SILVER SAMURAI x-men villain
3. WHITE TIGER marv knight
4. USAgent avgrs
5. HIGH EVOLUTIONARY viilain
6. JIGSAW marv knight villain
7. SELENE x-men villian female
8. misty knight marv knight female
9. WARLOCK x-men
10. THUNDRA  female villain
11. BARON MORDO marv knight/supernatural villain
13. SAGE x-men female
14. BROTHER VOODOO supernatural/horror
15. WHIRLWIND avgrs viilain
16. KILLRAVEN curveball/alt. universe
17. MANTIS avgrs
18. COUNT NEFARIA villain
19. Rocket Racoon (?) GotG
20. GREY GARGOYLE avgrs villain

TARANTULA
SPEEDBALL/Penance?
TOMBSTONE
GARGOYLE
HYPERION
DUST
COUNT NEFARIA
SHATTERSTAR
ANOLE
NIGHTMARE
DEATH”S HEAD




Pictures of the reception cabinet (Sorry about the Distinguished Company crossover! it was arranged by the receptionist, who also did these photos for me - Thanks Linda Burnette, your much more than a receptionist to me :)

Oh yeah nearly forgot, here's the concept sketch for next special ...

Thanks for all the feedback (and LaWay for the sketch redux), I have sent message to the sculptors to remove any reference to guns in their sculpt!

Inside The Engine Room

Hi

Seeing how much you all loved my step-by-step Owl intro (slight sarcasm there :)
Here’s a step by step of how I designed the Swordsman intro page...

Again another character who’s not in that many comics with good big images to choose from (that’s why we commissioned a fresh cover), so some jiggery-pockery was needed to produce a page 2 (in my mind the second most important image needed after the cover, third being the main image on page 10 Amazing Secrets).

So I came across an old black and white pic from issue 7 of FOOM magazine (by Dave Cockrum).

Did the best I could colouring it up using my basic skills.





Then I thought “what if he was ripping through the page?”
Found this image from Essential Avengers. Perfect.

 Although it took some cloning and redrawing to get a full ‘rip’ image.

Cobbled together some Swordsman related panels as the backdrop. (I also economically re-used this throughout magazine as backgrounds).

  Took the word balloon from Swordy’s first appearance Avengers 19 (I also used the Kirby drawn figure on page 10-11).

Designed a simple logo.

 Fit all the pieces together (bust him over the text for full effect!) and you have an effective page 2 for your magazine.

 

Or you could let the professionals have a go...
 
COVERS UNCOVERED

Final Shaman cover art courtesy of Andie Tong

Final design WBN

Final design Vance Astro

Trapster Final design

Made the logo from this recent Deadpool cover. I think you'll agree it's gooey stuff.

SPECIALS UPDATE:

Thanks for the forum poll and all your comments on who should be the final special.

Again I must re-iterate, EM management will make the final decision.

We haven’t come to decision yet, but we are narrowing the field down, I will reveal the final player in the game as soon as I know for sure.





FINAL THOUGHTS:
 
Hey Stan’s a collector too!...
http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/42-20381457/stan-lee#.UAWXXeIyqnY.facebook

SPECIAL NEWS!

Yippee! We have been given another special!

I have come up with a shortlist for the management to choose from.

They will be looking a price points (sizes) and overall saleability of the particular character, so we wait with anticipation their choice(s).

The 6 options we gave were:

Lockjaw
Strong Guy
Archangel
Skurge
Destroyer
Groot & Rocket Raccoon (not a double pack - RR would be on his shoulder or something)

I looked at the forum polls as well as blog votes, also overall deserve-abiltiy and visual power.
I did want to maybe give the option of Red Hulk or Planet Hulk, but there seemed very little fan interest in those (although I would imagine they may sell well to the wider audience?)

I think this a good mix from which to choose from - EM management decision will be final (with a hopefully a little input from Rich and myself - I have my personal favs, but I'm glad it's not my final decision).

Thanks for all those still with us - there's life in the old dog yet.


'Variant' Covers

Every month Diamond Previews requests the latest covers for their catalogue, they work a good few months ahead of me, so as such I haven't always got a cover image ready to send them. So I do a mock-up cover featuring whatever artwork I can quickly get my hands on to create a realistic visual representation of the character. Here are some recent 'variants' that will only be used in Previews...

We had planned to commission new art for J.J.J., but hadn't got around to it by the time Previews wanted a cover, so I found this rather animated shot on google (later discovered it was from the Ultimate Spider-Man universe), Editor John Tomlinson kindly donated his signiture for the logo (which I later dumped for a font based logo).

Another one we were still to commission, eventually became the page 2 image. Actually makes a very fine cover...

Used the '80s handbook image for this one, with the cover to Avengers #19 for a background. Not bad but, not up to standards as a final cover. (note the 'the' was dropped on final logo). This pic of Swordy was eventually used on page 3.

Andie Tong will eventually do a fresh cover for Shaman, but for Previews I went with his figure sketch with a tundra background cribbed from Snowbird's issue. Again actually quite nice - but I'm sure Andie's new cover will be more dynamic and much bettererererer.

 

Hey, here it is...

We got Steven Butler to do the Terrax wraparound, but I threw together this cover in it's absence.

The final art wasn't ready for Tiger Shark so I did a quick colouring up of John Royle's sketch.
(NB. I didn't like my initial logo so went for some original comic book lettering on the final cover).

Hope your enjoyed this little trip through the inner workings of the CMFC.


 Th-th-th-the that's all f-f-folks!

Bonus Art Blog

I said I wouldn't be back for 2 weeks but I couldn't resist!

I'm just going to upload things that I think may interest you as they arise.

As I've just finished The Owl's very own magazine, I thought I'd share something of the processes of putting the mag together. You may think all the images come from a big Marvel database (they do have an image library but it's nowhere near good enough for our purposes - I think it has 3 or 4 dodgy pics of the Owl).

We did order the Cover image directly from Marvel, but this takes forward planning so I mainly just reserve that service for cover images that I know I'll need. The ordering process can take up to 2-3 weeks.

So we do a bit of research and compile a list of all the characters appearances (and buy as many as we can) - I think The Owl had about 70 appearance (not all useable!)

So you can imagine it was difficult to find a large full page image of the meanie for the intro page! I found this Pin-up by Gene Colan from Daredevil Annual 1 (DD Masterwork Vol.3).

As lovely as it is, it had text on it and very garish bright colours - so I thought why not re-colour it and give it a moodier feel.

Firstly I scanned the page at 800dpi and isolated the black line art (fairly easy to do using channels in Photoshop) creating a layer of just black. Then I went about removing the bits I didn't want (the lettering and captions) and carefully filling in the tree where I'd removed the box, plus extending the tree on the left (to allow for the shape of our magazine and the text area that goes over the artwork).

Then creating layers underneath the black line art I started to add colour and textures. I created the background by overlaying two google images of night sky together and playing about with the colour (settled for the moody purple). I found actual photos of an owl and tree bark and merged those in aswell. I also gave old Leyland Owlsley a bit of texture to his cape and shoes.

 

Looks kinda ugly until the black line art is overlayed, and pulls it all together (and looks amazing IMO!)

 

Finally add the design and text elements (the logo was simple enough to create using an existing font). Et voila! the IFC (inside front cover) or intro page as I call it, is ready...

This page maybe took me 1-2 hours to achieve. Purists may balk at this modernising of vintage comics, but the original line work is still there to be seen and changes had to be made to make it fit our format. So why not update if you are respectful of the original? 

'Nuff said.

PS someone asked about the numbers on the base stickers. They are purely made up to look like some sort of official numbering system, but they are randomly generated and have no baring on when or where they were made (Don't ask me why they do it!)

PPS A purely hypothetical question - But if we were to get another special before we wave adios, who should it be? Lockjaw, Destroyer, Skurge, Red Hulk, Onslaught? Who would really deserve the final spot in the collection?

PPPS You've done a great job getting the membership numbers up (189?), but I'd really love to get in to 200 members, so if anyone hasn't joined yet please do.

Bye for now. Dan