A Hero Molded In Clay

Back in 2004, I commissioned a very talented sculptor, Arahom Radjah, to sculpt a maquette of Silverado. Arahom was still living in Brazil at the time and we communicated daily to bring the character to three dimensional life. I was overly impressed with the final product and his professionalism and ended up asking him to do more characters from another property I created.

Arahom has since moved to the United States and just started his own company, ARH Studios, producing a series of collectible statues. The Silverado maquette stands about 12" high and made of resin.

Rushing Through

Hard to believe time whizzed by and it's been almost a month since my last post. Here is a quick sketch of Silverado charging through traffic as part of a recent exercise to loosen up my drawing skills. Overall time was less than half hour using a ballpoint pen, a 2B pencil, and a blue Col-Erase pencil. How's that for quickness to keep up with time?

October Madness

The baseball playoffs are in full force and both the Yankees and Angels are still duking it out in extra innings past midnight. While those die hard Yankees fans are braving the heavy rain, I'm calling in couple of very talented artists, Tom Morgan and Chris Stevens, to pinch hit and spin their version of Silverado. Both are solid home runs.

Triple Trouble

Here's another presentation piece I did last year. This time, we see Silverado duke it out with a trio of professional mercenaries hired by Fax Lang. Like with the piece shown below, this was penciled in ball point pen and shaded with 2B pencil. When time allows, my intention is to clean up each of the pieces and color them in photoshop to make them more presentable, hence the meaning of "presentation".

A Thorn In His Side

Early in 2008 just when I started to pull Silverado out of limbo, I worked on a series of presentation pieces. Single panel stories that show the whole picture without words and best exemplify the spirit, mood, and direction I wanted to go. Each of these pieces took me about a half hour from quick thumbnails to final transferred into legal size paper in wide screen format. All were done in ball point pen and shaded in 2B pencil. I completed a total of ten pieces, a few which I will share here.

Big Red

Here's the first super powered villain I created for Silverado when I was working on the property in the early stages. The very first bad guy other than the main adversary, Fax Lang, and one of the loonies terrorizing the streets of Meridian. This baddie is one hulking mass hiding his horribly disfigured face under a red hood. Someone I came up with while re-watching Jason in one of the sometimes good, and mostly horrid Friday the 13th flicks. I thought that this is what Jason would look like if he knew how to dress spiffy. He became the subject of my Silverado flash animation cartoon I completed in early 2000. Once I figure out how to convert the format to work here, I'll post it for viewing.

The Popcorn Man

Maniacal, murderous, and unpredictably crazy. A psychopath who will kill anyone at a moment's notice, merely for his own amusement. The egomaniacal Popcorn Man decided he has found an opponent worthy of his criminal genius and found that he takes far greater satisfaction in outwitting Silverado than he might in simply killing him.

Dusting Off The Pages

Here are the first three pencilled pages of issue #2. These pages were started in late summer of 2004, and then put away not to be seen again until now. I was on my way to getting the second comic book finished and ready for 2005, then life suddenly got a full grasp on me and barely found any time to put full attention to the project. I am slowly trying to get back into the swing and hopefully finish the story. Maybe soon.

In Cryogenic State

Here's the cover for issue two that I completed shortly after receiving the first issue from the printer and has remained in my computer untouched since then. Back then, I liked the cover enough and considered it final. But looking at it now, not so much and probably will re-do the cover once I get around to finishing the interior pages of the second issue.

A Damsel In Distress

I was going through files of old drawings and came across this one which I forgot exist. This piece was drawn in 2001 on 11 X 17 comic book board with HB pencil. Here we see a super bad guy with a cool name about to hand it to a hopeless victim and the hero about to save the day. As I recall while working on the first comic book, this illustration was going to serve as the cover to the third issue after completing the story arc for the first two issues. Now, about issue two...

Ever Vigilant

Here is a second piece I did to continue learning Photoshop. See that moon in the background? That's the same moon I used on the first action piece. When I was working on this drawing, I had no intention other than to improve my skills using the software and the final illustration ended up serving two things a few years later. First, as an image underlay on the inside back cover of the first issue of the comic book. And second, the image was re-used for postcards handed out to help promote awareness.

Jumping Into Action

Back in 1999, I found myself with some free time between gigs and took it upon myself to start learning Photoshop. My good friend, Andre Nieves, was kind enough to share me his knowledge of the software and walked me through to get started. What you see here is my first attempt in coloring an action piece using Photoshop and was very pleased with how it turned out.