Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Entry 120: THE RED WING

Hi, friends-
Did you see that? The image that I put just above this bit of text you're reading now? Or are you like me, where you skip over all pictures and get straight to the words, the sweet sweet words. Well maybe you've never heard that a picture is worth a thousand words... I bet you feel foolish now. It's okay, you can easily scroll back up, view the picture, get you're thousand words worth, and meet me back down here.
So that image is a variant cover I just did for Johnathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra's new Image series The Red Wing. And I mean I JUST did it. I finished it just a second ago... It doesn't matter when you are reading this, it will always have been just a second ago. My finishing that image exists in a dimension of time that is infinite and just one second off from the dimension of time we exist in... Time dimensions. Doesn't m-theory include 11 dimensions of space. What about other dimensions of time... I'll have to look into that- whether or not there are other dimensions of time. I'll figure that out this after noon and get back to you. Easy.
I was excited to do this cover for my buddy and co-creator on Shield, Jonathan. This series is just my kind of thing. I like sci-fi and I have a real fondness for time travel, which this story has. It's going to be pretty cool I think. Plus I like any opportunity to do a complete image myself.
Here is the official press release:
Berkeley, CA – 13 June, 2011 – The debut issue of Jonathan Hickman's new creator-owned miniseries THE RED WING will welcome S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Dustin Weaver to the fold as he joins Hickman and artist Nick Pitarra with a special one-time variant cover.
"I'm fortunate in that I get to work with a lot of extremely talented artists, and one of my favorites is my partner in crime on Marvel's S.H.I.E.L.D., Dustin Weaver," said Hickman. "When I asked him if he'd be willing to contribute a cover for our debut issue, and he responded with this little slice of heaven, well, we were all pretty excited."
THE RED WING #1 (MAY110423), a 32-page full color comic book for $3.50, will be in stores July 6. The Dustin Weaver Variant Cover (MAY118022) is available for order now.

But that's not all! There is more to this entry. There is this:

That's right, I drew Snow White.
This was for the weekly Periscope Studio sketch challenge. The challenge was simply "Disney Princesses." I'm not a huge fan of the Snow White film. There are other Disney films I like better, but Snow White is the most Iconic Disney princes, in the fact that she was the first but also in her design. The short black hair, the red, the yellow, the blue... She's Super Man basically. So based on the fact that she's such a great looking character design, I went with here. You can see all of the work from this challenge here.
That's it. Catch you on the flippy

6 comments:

  1. You, sir, are making it awfully hard to avoid buying variant covers!
    That's fantastic. Love the color & composition. Reminds me of a Steranko cover.
    (While still being all yours.)
    Beautiful Snow White as well. I like that her face & expression are more grounded in reality than cartoony.
    Red Wing was already a must-buy for me - now I have an additional cover to pick up.
    Killing me....

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  2. Awesome art. Looks like what might happen if Magneto flew an X-Wing :)
    And Snow White is also neat. Especially like the detail on the Blue Jay...

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  3. Thanks, man!
    I was definitely going for a kind of retro 70's/80's sci-fi thing. I'm sure I've seen a kind of square spiral tunnel effect in some old sci-fi as some kind of portal. Not sure where I'm remembering that from.
    Part of what inspired this image was the star-gate sequence at the end 2001. Something about the close up of the face with the reflected lights on the visor, and the geometric patterns in the star-gate.
    I'm glad you like it.

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  4. Ha! You're right. It is kind of like Magneto as an x-wing pilot. The Star Wars influence over me is not one that I try to hide.

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  5. AWESOME!
    Dustin! This. Is. Awesome. Thanks so much for kicking ass on the Red Wing variant! I went googoogaga when Hickman sent it to me. So cool.
    If its ever for sale...I'd be interested in buying it from you if I can save up the money.
    Thanks a ton man!

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  6. Re: AWESOME!
    HEY! NICK PITARRA! Thanks for stopping by!
    And congratulations on the book, man. I know it's not out yet, but I'm betting it's going to do pretty well for you guys. The preview pages you have on your blog look great.
    I'm glad you like my variant. Since these are your designs, they're your toys, this is your turf, getting your approval is important to me.
    I'm looking forward to getting to read the book. I asked Jonathan if he could send me a pdf or something, but he hasn't yet. To busy architect-ing the Marvel universe I guess.
    Nice job on the Shield infinity story too, by the way. I was envious that you got to draw that story. Out of the 4, that was the one when I read the script I really regretted that I couldn't do it. But you did a good job with it.

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