HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! HO, HO, HO!

I felt like I should probably post something holiday related but really didn't have anything done that fell under that catagory. Fortunately I have this one character design for a project I'm working on that does meet those qualifications. So I hope everyone has a happy holiday and hopefully you'll dig this battle hardened, warrior version of Santa. Peace.

Alien in Color

Lately I've been trying to expand my bag of tricks, so with the help of my brother, I've been learning to color in photoshop. Yeah, I know, what took me so long? You whippersnappers have it easy, back when I was in high school it wasn't as common place and when I tried to learn it I totally sucked and was turned off from trying to learn it for a while.

Anyway, I figured I'd try to color something simple so I colored that little alien bugger from a few posts back. I'm still trying to find my coloring style but I think I'm getting there.

Blaaah! Happy Halloween!

Some people may remember I posted a pencil sketch a while back of a creepy looking Dracula, well, I did a cleaned up version of that and my brother (Michael Roanhaus) put some colors down on the count. So, with out further a do, here he is in all his creepy colorful glory! Hope you enjoy, and oh yeah, have a Happy Halloween (and hopefully you won't get any crummy apples while trick or treating.)

Please Fill This.

This is just some little alien guy I sketched up and I figured he turned out good enough to put up here. He's asking for a specimen of some sort, but of what only he knows for sure.

Street Fighter IV

While I normally use this blog to just post artwork, I came across this bit of news the other day and had to post a link to it: http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3163721

Now lately I haven't been playing too many video games, but when I saw the trailer for the long awaited Street Fighter IV I was definitely floored, and aside from maybe the next installment of Super Smash Bros., this is the game I've been waiting for. Hopefully Capcom will keep the newest SF traditional to it's pixelated roots and not make it 3d (they already did that with the EX games and those weren't so great) but judging from the trailer it looks like they may take it into 3D which may not be so bad if they can actually make the graphics look as cool and stylish as they do in the trailer. Anyway, Capcom is supposed to be releasing more info on the game within the next week but for now the trailer will do as Street Fighter fans can only speculate on how the game is going to play.

Oh yeah, for fun and because the trailer got me so excited about the game, I just had to do a quick sketch of Ryu getting ready for battle. The first image is a cleaner version done in my regular style, while the one after that is a grittier version that I played around with a bit in photoshop.

It's the Batman!

Man it's been awhile since I've updated this thing. I've been pretty busy working on a bunch of different projects and kind of wanted to hold off putting anything on here until I had something other than a half assed sketch to put up. Anyway, since in my previous post (which was like 2 months ago) I had Marvel characters posted, so I figured I'd try my hand at some DC characters and who better to draw than Batman and some of his rogues?

Anyway, looking back I probably wouldn't have drawn Batman so bulky, sure it makes him look kind like the DKR Batman but still he's probably a little too big there. For Mr.Freeze I tried to give him more of a retro looking deep sea diver look, and while looking for reference on that I also came across some astronaut gear that I mixed in with the design. The rest of the characters I just tried to give them a twisted kind of Nightmare Before Christmas look, and the Joker is more of a cross between a messed up marionette puppet and something from Prince's wardrobe.

Hopefully it won't be another 2 months until my next post, but I recently started putting up some of the linework to these colored pieces on my deviant art account at http://www.marcusmuller.deviantart.com/ for anyone that once to see that stuff.

Oh yeah, colors on the Batman characters were done by Michael Roanhaus too.

Marvel Adv. Avengers

Most of the stuff I draw is non superhero related, so I figured I would put some stuff up here lately that falls into that category.

For this rendition of the Avengers I went by the lineup that's in Marvel's kids line of comics (I believe it's called Marvel Adventures) since the roster for that usually stays pretty consistent and isn't always changing. I just went with pretty simple standing poses for the figures to get a feel for them but it was pretty fun to draw nonetheless.

As always the linework is by me and the colors are by Michael Roanhaus.

ConEdison Kids Characters

Here's the last of the ConEdison Kids stuff that I talked about in my last post. Mostly it's just the ConEdison Kids characters that they used for the back cover and some character sketches of Supergirl, Krypto, and the family featured in the 2 page comic I penciled. I also penciled the 2 safety activity rooms in the book but I figured I'd just focus on the characters for this post. Overall a pretty fun project.

ConEdison Kids Comic

This past fall I did some work for a ConEdison Kids safety comic that featured DC comics characters in it. It was one of those things that was handed out to grade school kids to teach them electrical safety and all that jazz. Anyway, unless if you're in gradeschool I doubt you've seen it so I've posted up my pencil work for the sequential pages and poster I did and I will probably post up the rest of the artwork I did for it later this week.

Also, kind of a funny story too (okay maybe not funny but more interesting...at least to me anyway,) back when I first got this gig I was asked if I could pencil the pages in an animated style but one that did not look like it was from any of the DC animated series cartoons that are out there(for some type of licensing reasons I guess.) I figured that wouldn't be too difficult since I already draw pretty animated, I would just simplify things a bit. Anyway, after I'm done with the sequential pages and I'm working on the poster, they send me some artwork to reference for Superman that another artist did for an earlier story in the book. To my surprise the artwork was done in the exact same style as the animated series Superman cartoon and then I later find out that so was everyone else's artwork too! So now I feel like a complete goon and wish I had just drawn in that style because then the artwork would have been consistent throughout and my stuff wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb. Ah well, at least it was a fun project to work on and it helped out the children too! Electrical safety! Now that's the important thing folks! Don't you forget it!

Kung Fu Grandpa

Uh, I think the title is pretty self explanatory but just incase you don't get it, it's a quick sketch of a kung fu grandpa.

Monkeyin' Around

Here's another colored piece for those that may have enjoyed the last one.

Linework by me, colors by my brother Michael Roanhaus. Check my gallery link somewhere on this page if you want to see the uncolored version.

I've been trying to post updates on a bit more of a regular schedule incase anyone didn't notice.

I'm Back and In Color

Wow, to anyone who actually checks out my blog I'm sorry it's been so long since I've put anything up here. Anyway, I have something kind of new ( I say kind of because the image has been up here before just not in color) and this time it's actually colored. So all those lineart haters can shut up now here's a colored piece of artwork just for you.

The colors were done by my brother Michael Roanhaus and since this one turned out so good I'll probably have him color a few other things too.

Critters

I've been slacking off and it's been awhile since I've posted anything new on here. I've been busy working on some projects and my scanner has been crapping out on me lately but I'll try to post up some of the newer stuff I've been penciling in my sketchbook lately. In the mean time, here are some random critters I sketched one day. The one in the bottom right probably turned out the best.

Batman Legos

Over the summer I had the chance to work on my first project for DC Comic's creative service department. This would also be my first project for one of the major comic publishers and it was quite an interesting experience, mostly because the creative service department deals with licensed properties and the company DC was creating the project for (Lego) had to oversee and approve everything (end of run-on sentence.)

This led to some interesting hours at the drawing board, as apparently, because of certain copyright and legal jargon, the Lego people can only be depicted bending their arms and legs a certain way according to whatever the design model was that was copyrighted. So I had to redraw and revise pages several times because of this and also, because some times when they'd get back to us with notes on corrections and whatnot, the corrections would either be incredibly vague or contradictory(the whole situation is kind of funny now that I think about it.)

Finally, the Lego people were in New York for something or other, and met up with the editor on the project and we got things straightened out. Overall though I had a blast working on the project and I got pre-built Batman Lego toys to use for reference out of it too. Though I'm not too sure that many people actually got to see the final product, as it was given away at last year's San Diego Comic Con at the Lego booth. The only way I got copies of it were from some friends that attended the con. To anyone that did get a copy of it, I hope ya liked it. I'll probably put the final colored pages up in the gallery page eventually.

Old Samurai

If you can't tell by now, I like to draw samurais(which will become even more apparent in the coming weeks as a post more sketches up.) There's something about feudal Japan and that culture that I just find cool and fun to draw. I have a creator owned comic book project of mine that I've been working on, but will have to wait to be finished until I can clear out some other projects that have been piling up. In the mean time I hope ya dig this feudal doodle of an old samurai warrior enjoying a smoke.

Belated Holidays

This first sketch was penciled back around Halloween. I kind of like how Dracula turned out looking both creepy and goofy at the same time(not unlike myself I've been told.)
This second illustration I penciled around the winter holidays for my brother who's in college and obsessed with zombies. Originally, I was thinking of having some undead reindeer behind old zombie claus but I figured it would be best to just have the main focus on him. So, I just penciled in some arctic terrain back there.

Dino Frisbee

Pandas and Samurais

I finally decided to get with the times here and get in on this whole "blogging" thing. It should be interesting since the extent of my computer skills are pretty much limited to checking my e-mail (and I still have problems with that some times).

Anywho, for my first post I've got some scribblings I pulled from my sketchbook of what else but of a samurai/bushido looking dude and a panda snacking on some bamboo (because samurais and pandas rule). I'll try and get around to posting a few sketches a week inbetween working on stuff (keyword being "try").

Also, a big thanks to Mr. Bernie Gonzalez for creating the banner thingy (or whatever it's called, I'm not too hip to what those crazy kids are calling things these days) at the top of this page and for helping me set up this blog and creating a gallery page for me. Check out some of Bernie's groovy artwork by clicking on the link at the right side there and you can thank me later (I'll take cans of grape soda and bags of Doritos if you have any).

Later-Marcus