This picture was inspired by Jim Lee who's magnificent run as penciller
on the UNCANNY X-MEN® back in the early 90's rose the title to sales staggering proportions. In
the original picture however, I believe it was a panel in either issue # 274, # 275 or somewhere around
then that WOLVERINE® was wearing his alternate brown uniform. I didn't want to use that one for
this picture though. I'm a big fan of the trademark yellow and blue battle togs myself and that's
the one I've incorporated for this piece. Now, I'll give you a couple of seconds to gear up, settle
in and put your game face on. Okay, time's up. Here we go. Here are the tools we'll be using; Bob Ross'
Gesso, a roll of Friskfilm (25"X 4yd is good, but whatever size you have works just as well), an X-acto
knife, I used a 20X30 Illustration Board but you can use whatever size works for you, airbrush (one of your
liking of course), Createx paints of Yellow, Golden Yellow, Tinting Black, Tinting White, Gray, Blue, Opaque White, Burnt Orange,
Dark Brown, Fluorescent Magenta and Light Blue.
- STEP ONE:
First I pencilled the entire image on 20X30 illustration board
with a light foundation of Gesso. I embellished that line drawing with black ink except the Adamantium
claws which I'll leave alone for now. I placed frisket paper over the entire piece and cut out each part
that I'm going to color in later with an x-acto knife. Be careful not to cut too deep or you'll risk
cutting into the board and believe me, you don't want that. You'll notice that I have newspaper strips
around the image itself. I was low on frisket paper so I only covered WOLVERINE. I couldn't cover the
entire 20X30 Illustration Board from corner to corner so where the frisket paper ended, that's where
I put newspaper strips down and taped it to the edges of the frisket paper. You're laughing, (I am too)
but it works. It prevents overspray from getting on parts of the picture you don't want any color on.
Hey, whatever works right? Frisket paper and money does not grow on trees. At least not in
my backyard when I last checked.
- STEP TWO:
I remove the frisket paper from the parts of the picture that I wanted to
color Yellow, which in this case is the thigh region and the middle of the
back. Make sure that all the other parts of the picture that are NOT being
colored yellow are still covered in frisket paper. I've made the mistake of
inadvertently lifting parts of the frisket paper off of areas that I didn't
want colored in a specific color and filling it in with that color. It's
pretty hard to fix after it's been messed up. Take the time to make sure
that you've got the right parts of the picture exposed. Createx Yellow is
sprayed on this exposed area at this time.
- STEP THREE:
Now on the same exposed areas that I colored yellow, I spray the edges of
that same area with a color combination of Createx Burnt Orange mixed with
several drops of Tinting White. I sprayed this color combo on the muscle
lines in his thighs and spine as well as the outer portions of the exposed
yellow areas. Once that is done, I lightly spray the entire exposed area
with Golden Yellow.
- STEP FOUR:
I allowed a few minutes to pass before I recovered the areas I just
airbrushed with the frisket paper. You absolutely DO NOT want to place
frisket paper over areas that haven't had time to air dry from your last
application. Reason being, when you lift that frisket paper off of that wet
area later , you will be lifting everything underneath that frisket paper as
well, which in this case is the inked portion of the design. You'll have a
disaster of epic proportions ((!) That's artist speak) Now I expose the
areas that I want to color in Blue only! Follow the same instructions from
Step 2. Make sure only the areas you want colored in Blue are exposed. At
this time, the area I airbrushed in yellow is already covered. So I
airbrushed the gloves, shoulder couplings and the extended pointers from
WOLVERINE's boots.
- STEP FIVE:
I added a little violet into the mix to create a nice little depth to the
blue that I'd already sprayed in. Bear in mind that as far as the colors go,
I have no color reference for the WOLVERINE picture to go back to. Remember
back in step 1 I told you that the original picture had WOLVERINE in a
different colored costume than the one I'm using here. I'm just coloring as
I go along. Hopefully, when you do a piece you'll have a color reference to
work with. It really helps.
- STEP SIX:
Now, I've recovered the parts that I airbrushed Blue and Violet with frisket
paper still following the "caution" directions I mentioned in Step 4. I did
2 things in this step. I remove the frisket paper from the Adamantium Claws
and spray a very light color combo of Light Blue and several drops of Gray.
I wanted the claws to have the impression of reflection and the gleam of a
knife or something thereof. It's probably the only part of the picture that
I wasn't crazy about in the end results. While it does look okay, it's not
the way I'd envisioned it.
- STEP SIXA:
The second thing I colored in this picture is WOLVERINE's flesh exposed
areas mainly the arms and face. I used Fleshtone with a few drops of dark
brown and 2 drops of fluorescent magenta. I was actually surprised at the
results of this color combination. When I do portraits, I use extender, Dark
Brown, Light Brown and no Fleshtone at all. But I didn't use these colors to
do the skin portion for WOLVERINE.
- STEP SEVEN:
This step is for the tongue color. After reapplying frisket paper over the
face, I used Fluorescent Magenta and a couple of drops of dark brown. I
didn't want the tongue color to be very vibrant here and I kept the teeth
and all surrounding areas still covered in frisket paper.
- STEP EIGHT:
The hair is next. I never understood in comics why a character would have
blue hair. Those of you who've read comics in the past know what I'm talking
about. If an individual had dark hair, for example black, there would be
streaks in the hair that would be colored blue including our guy Logan here
aka WOLVERINE. Well, I wasn't having that. I used for the hair color 1 part
Tinting Black and 1 part Gray. This was more of a experiment on my part. I
didn't want his hair to be completely black, but just indicating that it was
black. With the ink beneath the paint, I felt that a tint of a combination
of Tinting Black and Gray would do the trick here.
- STEP NINE:
Okay. WOLVERINE is completely done now. All of the newspaper strips that I
used to protect the rest of the picture from overspray has been completely
removed leaving behind just WOLVERINE covered in frisket paper.
- STEP TEN:
Now to concentrate on the background. I really had no idea of what type of
background I was going to do until I got to this part. I had a couple of
ideas while I was doing WOLVERINE, but they didn't seem to suit the picture.
Having done the winter scene and forest scene before with him in other
pictures, I wanted something between a jungle and a swamp and just said,
hell I'll combine the two. A new set of newspaper strips has been applied to
the picture and very little frisket paper. Remember what I said about it not
growing on trees. I didn't want this image to be full bleed which is a term
used to describe that a picture actually runs off of the illustration board
or in simpler terms, border free. Instead I came up with an idea of having
him leaping out of this swampy jungle as if he's tearing through the image
itself and the background only extends from the lower left across the back
of him to the upper right.
- STEP ELEVEN:
Remember that in order to work on the background, make sure that WOLVERINE
is completely protected by the frisket paper. That way you can work on the
background without any concerns of ruining the character in the foreground.
The background was inspired by a picture I saw from a painting by Frank
Frazetta, one of the truly great artists of our time.
- STEP TWELVE:
More color and detail is applied to the background and you can begin to see
it coming out.
- STEP THIRTEEN:
I'm almost done here. The background and WOLVERINE are finished. All of the
frisket paper has been removed as well as all of the newspaper strips. So
what else is there to do? I wasn't satisfied because it seemed like
something was missing. I added high lights to the blades reflections on the
left side.
- STEP FOURTEEN:
Now I'm finished. (refer to picture at the top of the page)
I added a shadow around the claws and legs to give it that
comin' at'cha feel! From bang to bullets this piece took a couple of days,
but that wasn't uninterrupted time though. A brother does have a regular job
you know. However, if I was working on this from beginning to end without
interruption which is almost an impossibility, I'd say it would've taken
about 6 hours. Not bad because I'm a detail and perfectionist nut which
tends to elongate a project sometimes. Overall, I was satisfied with the
conclusion. Hope you were too. Give it a shot and let me know of the
results. Remember, most of these steps are basic ones. Once you get comfortable
you'll start to incorporate more complex and intricate procedures to reach your
completed objective. Feel free to contact me anytime. Happy spraying to you.....
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