Joker in Dark Lilac

After posting Batman, it was suggested I try my hand at a Joker illustration.  Based on a panel from Dark Knights: Metals #6 (Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion killed it) in simple pen and ink.  It has probably been 20 years since I drew the Joker.

Drawn with an Edison Nouveau fountain pen and Lamy Dark Lilac ink (with a touch of green for his hair).  The ink goes from a light lavender to a, well, dark lilac when layered.   And it has a really, really neat green sheen that you can see in the jacket (click on the figure to embiggen', it is difficult to see on the scan).

                                        Pen & Ink on 98 lbs paper 7x10

Here is the very quick gesture drawing in purple pencil (sensing a theme). 

Bad Anatomy Batman

It started as an exercise to see how much ink my new notebook could handle (a decent amount as it turns out).  However, it did not turn out well for the Dark Knight's anatomy.  Oooph. . I do like the chiaroscuro black and white contrast.

                                    Pen & ink on 98 lbs paper 7x10

Pure Pure American Look -- Brush Work

Back in the day (see below), I used to draw using a brush.  Finding the old comic book pages has inspired me to start using a dip brush again.  Comparing today's work vs the work I did as a 17, well, I have a long way to go to get back to that level of skill and ease. 

Below is a HS project done in my junior year for Commercial Art class.  We had to draw a fashion figure (hence the elongated proportions of the model; for fashion figures you use 10 head heights vs 7-8 head heights for normal figures) and create a newspaper add to go with it.  This was before computer layout programs, so the lettering was hand drawn using a ruling pen.  All individual images were captured via camera and pasted on card stock where I drew the border (also with ruling pen).  The class was stressful, but I remember how much fun we all had.  The class was 3 hours per day, and aside from all the projects that we worked on, we all created art to impress each other or make each other laugh (like MacGyvering a light box to create a Bat signal to shine into the classrooms across the quad). 

The original figure and advertisement were too big to fit even on my 11x14 sized scanner!