Since we last saw our heroes and villian, a lot of work has been done. The first step was adding in the background color. I kept with the red gradient that was established in the original color. I wanted it to be white in the middle of the page because I know that this is where Cyclops’ optic beam hits Magneto’s shield. This is actually achieved with two layers. A red to white radial gradient. This was covered by a darker red to transparent radial gradient. The next step was laying down the flat color. This sounds easy, but it was a time consuming process.

After this, I started working on Magneto’s shield. Though his powers are usually represented by purple “energy” someone in 1981 determined that this image would show green light. Probably to separate it from the red background. You can’t have a red and purple figure on a red background surrounded by purple light.

I drew in some of the green energy effect, but I thought that it was missing something. I created a new folder for layers that would sit on top of the ink lines. For this I used a white brush and drew scribbled lines. I duplicated this layer and added a green outline filter. I then added a gausian blur to this layer. This gave the effect that the white lines have a green glow.

Though this part isn’t finished yet, I moved over to start work on Cyclops’ optic beam. This is going to be the primary source of light for the entire image. After a couple of failed attempts, I determined that the main part of the beam should be white and have a red glow. There were two other effects that I hoped to include. I wanted to show the energy of the beam exploding out of his visor. Plus I really wanted to show the impact and reflection of the beam off of Magneto’s shield. Getting these three effects to work well together has been a difficult feat.

This drawing is nowhere near finished, but working on the special effects is a lot more interesting than adding the flat color.

So far I’ve recreated an X-Men cover using a pencil in my sketchbook. Then I scanned it in and started recreating the drawing digitally while still getting comfortable with my Wacom Tablet. On the computer, I redrew Cyclops, Storm and Kitty Pryde, and then it was time for Magneto. The original impetus for the recreation.

Originally, I knew that I had to redraw Magneto’s leg.  As I was redrawing his helmet, I realized that the light from Cyclops’ optic beams wouldn’t reflect off of his helmet as I had originally pencilled it.

Once I fixed this problem, I started inking the rest of Magneto.  After inking the hands, I realized that hands don’t look like that.  I have read a lot of comic books over the years, and one thing that always catches my eye is an artist that can draw good, realistic looking hands.  Tom Raney is someone who I have always admired.  Though his art is constantly evolving and getting better, his hands have always been top-notch. Carlos Pacheco, while I haven’t read much of his recent work, he is someone who had a unique, but good approach to drawing hands. 

Anyway, one of the advantages of this project is having the time to take a step back and re-evaluate parts of the drawing.  And Magneto’s hands are one area that really needed work.  In the next illustration, you’ll be able to see the original pencils, then the rough layer of the new hands, and finally the inked hand (without line weight or shading).  This was a good example of drawing how things look, as opposed to how you think they look, makes a drawing much better.

Next time I hope to tackle inking the rest of Magneto’s body, including re-drawing his leg, the inspiration for this whole, long project.

After I finished the pencilled drawing, I wanted to try to color it in Photoshop.  I had done this once before with a different X-Men drawing. As I was scanning in the drawing, I was able to really see the illustration from afar.  When I looked at it from a new angle, I noticed that Magneto’s leg was not drawn very well. I would have to fix this in Photoshop.

And then I remembered my brand new Wacom Intuos tablet!

I figured that this would be the perfect project to start practicing using the tablet.  So, I started “inking” the drawing.I’ve always pencilled from left to right, and then inked from right to left.  This was to help avoid smudging the graphite. For this project, that wouldn’t be a problem.  

I started by inking Cyclops.  It probably took me 20 tries just to get the curve of his head correct.

 From there I continued inking the rest of his body.  Since there will be a very strong light source (the light from Cyclops’ optic beams) I decided to stick with the heavy black areas.  

I also opted to have the regular line art on one layer, and keep the solid black areas on a separate layer.  I’ve found that using a lot of different layers is giving me a lot of options for different effects that I’m looking to do.  

After I finished inking Cyclops, I moved to Storm and Kitty Pryde. I knew that this would be tricky because it is two characters that are intertwined, so line weight was going to be very important in showing the delineation of the two characters. 

The great thing about this tablet is that it gives me a lot of control between light “brush strokes” and heavy ones.  It’s similar to when I was experimenting with brush inking back in high school.  But I don’t have to constantly re-dip the brush in the ink.  Using thin lines allowed me to add in a lot of detail to show that Kitty Pryde had been caught in an explosion (or something like that, it’s been a long time since I read the issue. All I remember is that Magneto was the one that injured her.)

For this image, I left in the whole background to give you a feeling of how I keep my Photoshop menus. I’m one of those people that always keeps my menus in the same place. I don’t understand how people can waste time looking around for their Layers palate or something like that.

Next time, I’ll get tackle Magneto. That’s where I’ll have to start drawing with the Wacom Tablet as opposed to just tracing my pencilled illustration.

About a month ago, I had a day off and I started sketching.  I’ve been looking at a lot of original comic book art lately, and I’ve noticed that a lot of artists recreate famous, classic covers.  Looking at the art of John Byrne, Fred Hembeck and (my favorite) Arthur Adams’ recreations inspired me to try one for myself.

(and make no mistake, there is NO WAY that I am comparing anything that I do to any professional artist.)

I looked through a lot of X-Men covers at comics.org. I noticed that Uncanny X-Men 150, originally drawn by Dave Cockrum, had a few characters (not as many as a lot of X-Men covers), a bit of action, and a bit of emotion.  Once chosen, I then got to drawing. 

One of the main reasons why I don’t draw a lot (besides lack of time) is that I can be a perfectionist when I’m using graphics programs.  So for this project, I wanted to make sure that I did everything by hand.  The logo and the type on the cover would be drawn by hand, imperfections and all.  

Next time I’ll explain how this project evolved into a much larger project than I originally envisioned.

For a large version of my pencilled drawing, please click on this image.