More Evil Women

Here are two Princess of Power redesigns that I had done, and was quite happy with. Catra, and Scorpia. I remember the fans recieved Catra well, but didn't like Scorpia so much. I guess she was maybe a bit TOO monstrous, but I like her as is. They're bad, not all bad females should be pretty in my opinion.

The Pumpkin of Calamity!

One of the things I love most about the he-man.org community is just that, it feels like a nice friendly community. Fans collect together and share. They share their drawings, their writings, their custom and sculpting work, as well as their general love for all things dealing with Masters of the Universe and Princess of Power. These pieces are from a fun little fan project headed by Sllohcin (Ric Nicholls). The idea was to do a classic Halloween themed battle using the masters, drawn in a style that mimics Mike Mignola's fabulous work. The Evil Lyn sketch below was my first stab at getting a feel for his style for the project. The above is the final piece. Ric did a lot of hard work organizing this thing as well as planning out the look of the whole thing. I helped a little with some background work and some colors as well as the drawings of Evil Lyn. All credits are listed on the piece. It was probably one of the more successful fan projects done. Way to go Ric!

President Washington

Today is double post day!
I also just finished my Washington portrait for our Imagine Learning Artists challenge. Enjoy this brief break in the MotU madness. And though President's day is long gone now for us Americans. Still nice to reflect on history for but a second.

Teela, Gold

If this looks a little exagerated and stylized... that was the intent. I was playing in photoshop, I think it was when 7.0 came out, and I was going for some more varied textures. The heavy oils in the border, the gold foil in the center, and a classic painted look on an exagerated Teela. Very wierd piece overall, mostly experimental, but I still keep it around as one of my favorite MotU pieces that I've done over the years. I think if I ever did a print of this, I'd have to play with gold leafing or at least some gold paint on that circle. :)

Man-At-Arms

I wish I had done this one at a higher resolution, but what you see is what you get. I did this a long time ago, when I was doing a digital sketch a day. I kept the sketches small and fast. I remember I was looking at a lot of Bob Peak's stuff when I did this one, I was more concerned with texture than anything else here if I remember right. I've always liked this piece for how loose and raw it is.

Hordak's Separation Spell

In the She-Ra post, Hordak is mentioned. He's basically the baddest of the bad. In the new Mike Young Productions Masters of the Universe cartoon, we learn that Eons ago, Hordak tried to split Eternia into two pieces, a good half and an evil half... He almost succeeded. I was working from a cool tutorial on how to illustrate planets in photoshop, and came up with this piece. Kinda fun no? Now honestly... splitting a planet in half? He may be the baddest of the bad... However he's lacking in the brains department methinks... But then, most evil beings are.

She-Ra!

He-Man's twin sister. They were separated shortly after they were born. The Evil Horde ruler Hordak invaded Eternia and snatched away the infant princess. He raised her as one of his minions. Many years later, after the twins had reached adulthood, the Sorceress of Grayskull summoned He-Man to go to Etheria to find his long lost twin sister and give her the Sword of Protection, that she may also share in the Power of Grayskull and fight evil in the Universe. As the princess was convinced of her wrong affiliation with the Horde, she left with He-Man to be come She-Ra, Princess of Power and leader of the Rebellion against the evil Horde on Etheria. This was a drawing I did shortly after the Four Horsemen sculpt of the character was revealed to be the Mattel exclusive figure for the 2004 Comic Summer Conventions, both San Diego Comic Con and Wizard World Chicago. This design is based on the new exclusive figure. ( The sword is different as at that time I didn't know what the sword was going to look like, it hadn't yet been revealed.)

Castle Grayskull.

Here is a rare post. Something traditional from me.
I did this way back in 1998 or 1999 when I was working for DSW, an ad agency in SLC.
This was done on tracing paper, with a black and white prismacolor pencil, and some fancy schmancy expensive markers for the color. I then spray mounted it on some black matting. Why? I have no idea. Just for the heck of it I suppose. I remember I wanted to sculpt a little Castle Grayskull to put in my fish tank... Again, Why? I have NO idea. Needless to say, I've not sculpted one yet for the fish tank. Though I did have a mini Merman in there for some time.

Skeletor

MotU is always about He-Man vs. Skeletor. Skeletor trying to get into Castle Grayskull. We all know that story. Skeletor is an iconic villian, no one can deny that. He ranks up there with Darth Vader, Hitler, the Devil himself... Skeletor holds his own very well against them all.

I love the redesigned Skeletor that the Four Horsemen did in 2001, they really captured a great and very definitive look for ol' bonehead. But there is a side to Skeletor that I see, that is more akin to the early minicomics penciled by Alfredo P. Alcala, something dark, sinister, a creepy goblin kind of look that he captured that I wanted to capture here in this sketchy portrait at best. An essence of gloom and doom and spooky evil. The oposite of our Heroic Warrior He-Man.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe ala Nate Baertsch

If you like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and She-Ra Princess of Power?
Then don't visit this blog for the next few weeks!
I'm going to be posting some of my favorite fan and professional works for MotU and PoP. It's interesting as I pull my favorites, the different little experimentations I've done over the years with these characters. Most of what will be posted has already been seen on the He-Man.org fan art forum. But here you will get to see some of them at a higher resolution than before. And on a very few, I've retouched some of them up a little nicer than they were before. This little body of work will span about for to five years. With one piece that I did traditionally way back when He-Man.org started sometime in 1998. Let me know what you think of the pieces as they pop up. If you've followed my work over at the .org, then it should bring back some funky memories. By the Power of GRAYSKULL! :)

This first piece was a fast head study of He-Man quickly colored in photoshop. The Four Horsemen recently announced that He-Man will be in Wave 6 of their mini statue line up by Neca. I doubt he'll sport a new hairdo, but I'd love to see him look a little more like this.

Brush strokes...

Sometimes it's fun to see some of the up close details in a piece.
Not that mine is anything spectacular, but one can still see how I built things up as you look at the brush strokes on this piece. It's really not as tight as one might think.
Hope all my American friends had a great President's day Weekend!

A Great President

As a part of my Imagine Learning Artist's challenge, we're doing Lincoln or Washington.
Abraham Lincoln is probably one of my favorite Presidents, so I quite enjoyed taking the time, this time of year to remember him, as well as Washington and all the other great men that have served in this capacity for our country. Whether or not you agree or like any particular president of this country. It's still good to pause and respect that person or that office. It's an enormous task to put on any one human being, a very great and respected responsibility.

So I went with a straight forward painted portrait. Pretty boring I know, however for me it felt SOOOOO good to do a face study, and really paint in some detail. I feel like it's been ages since I sat down to do just that, I'm feeling rushed on a lot of things so it was nice to just focus on this for a few moments. It took a total of about five hours, some at work durring training time, and a little at home. It was all done in Painter, using their Oils flats brushes.
You comments are welcome.

Inky Oz

This is another challenge that we had over at the Imagine Learning Artists challenge.
I didn't get as far on this as I had hoped. And I'm only half satisfied with what I've got! I do hope to finish this sometime, it's been fun living in Oz for a little bit. I hate the Tin man, and I hate some of the poses so there will be some major fixes and revisions next time we see this...
But here it is anyway, sorry I've been away for a spell.