DARTH VADER

Here's my pretty-much-close-to-final version of Darth Vader for Josh Frost's book '100 Ways To The Dark Side'. I might do some final tweaks before I call it done.

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Well, a month has gone by and I've done more than just some final tweaks. I wound up redoing certain parts, most noticeably his jawline and grill. I still see things I'd want to work on, but I need to call this one finished. While working on it, I also did a version based on a sketch posted earlier. At the bottom of this post is my original pencil sketch for the final design, that included more of Vader's body, before I decided to just concentrate on the helmet. Has it improved with all these changes? Looking at them side by side now, I see things in the first attempt that I like but also things I see have improved. A special shout out to my buddy, Bill, who spent much time helping out with feedback and ideas about the piece. Carlos and Rob deserve some props, as well, for their feedback along the way. Well, at any rate, that's enough Darth Vader for awhile!

Darth Vader sketches

I was recently asked to participate in a new book, being put together by Josh Frost, called '100 Ways To The Dark Side', a collection of interpretations of Darth Vader. These are some sketches and studies I did while working on my submission, which I'll post soon. While these drawings (except for the top sketch) are more realistic, I went with an exaggerated cartoon style for my final piece.

Sketchbook Stuff

Here we have some sketches of:

Edward G. Robinson in ...?
Rondo Hatton in 'House of Horrors'
Lon Chaney in 'London After Midnight'
and Gojira.

In space no one can hear you sketch...

Some sketches of the creature from the first Alien movie, designed by H.R. Giger and brought to reality by Carlo Rambaldi (who is probably most famous for designing E.T.).

Nine Of Nine-the Monster Sketch Card Series Ends!

The first three auctions of these Monster sketch cards that I put up on Ebay a week ago have just ended, with no bids. I had two watchers on one of the cards and one watcher on two others. Oh well. I have the second set up currently, and those will be ending soon, also 99.9% sure without bids, either. Ok, 100% sure. I'm not gonna put these last few up, but if I do some more mainstream characters, I'll give it another shot. I've got two blank sketch cards left, so we'll see. Still, these were a lot of fun to do. Top to bottom we have:

7 of 9 - Revelation

8 of 9 - Not In His Right Mind

9 of 9 - Where His Fate Led Him

The MOnSteR SKetch CaRd SeRiEs - COLLECT THEM ALL!!

Here are 4 thru 6 (of 9.)

Top to bottom, we have:

The Jaw Of Justiz

Before It Occured

Arisen!

Monster Sketch Card Series - Now on Ebay!

I was in Jim Hanley's this afternoon and saw for sale of pack of 12 blank sketch cards and sleeves from BlueLineArt. I bought the pack, figuring it might be fun to do a few and throw them up on Ebay and see what happens. Granted, it isn't the sexy bosomy babe, Marvel super-hero or LOTR/SW depiction that's more the norm on the sketch cards up for sale, but we'll see! I'm doing a series of nine; these are the first three. Who knows, I might just do a Marvel hero or other well-known character later on. These were done with brush marker (and a few tweaks with Microns) and copic markers for tones. I spent about a half hour on each one. I gave them titles...and they are, top to bottom (clicking on the links will take you to each card's Ebay auction):

The Redeemer

Tip Of His Tongue

From The Other Side

Tree Frog

Going through some old folders of art and copies, I came across this color copy of a gouache painting I did back in September 1993. I haven't been able to track down the original yet. At the time I was working at my second full-time apparel job, doing kids activewear at Dadco Fashions, in the Empire State Building. I mainly worked on a line called Kids For Animals, so I got to draw lots of animals and dinosaurs and naturally had reference books lying around. (pre-internet folks!). At the end of one day, I picked up some gouache paints that were around, but had never been used, and started painting from a photo of a tree frog in one of the books. I didn't do any pencil under-drawing on this one.

Surfer Shark

n to do some fun generic prints. I've also had the opportunity to do some licensed work. Doing research on Power Rangers to determine which Ranger and Megazord was from which of the dozen + Power Ranger shows in the PR - Super Legends, 15th Anniversary highly uninformative style guide, was not that bad a way to spend an afternoon).

Still, though, the most fun is always getting the chance to do my own original graphics, for screens.

I worked on a couple of versions of the shark - they were pretty similar, but inked differently to the final version - which I wasn't entirely happy with and decided not to use. I reworked the pencils, and then 'inked' the shark in Illustrator. The wave background was a pencil drawing that I inked by hand.

A Wizard, A True Star

Recent Randomness

Sketches from recent months and weeks.

Color Page

Had a couple of friends over today to draw and hang out. Here's one of the pages I worked on. Colors are copic markers on the figures and colored pencils for the backgrounds.

My SHOWN'D online portfolio

I've finally gotten around to representing myself online with the sort of work I do for a living - apparel design. From time to time on this blog I've showcased a number of projects I've done at work, but for the most part, everything on my portfolio site hasn't been seen before. It's got girls, boys, mens and ladies designs for sleepwear. You can check it out at
www.shownd.com/justinleiter

Monster Page

Sat down yesterday and started doing some sketching and this is what resulted.

Stephen

Another painting from my days at S.V.A. (1990 to be precise-yikes, nineteen years ago, that's insane...), a portrait of my brother-in-law, Stephen Falvo. This was done for Marvin Mattelson's Illustration class. Mattelson was an illustrator famous for his very tight, super detailed acrylic paintings. He gave that up a number of years ago and began just doing commissioned oil portraits in a classical realist style. He still teaches and holds workshops at S.V.A., though I don't know if his methods are the same as when I studied with him. Back in the early 1990's, he had a very developed system, where he had everyone work according to his steps and technique about mixing colors and working with pre-mixed gradients of tone. Though he used his technique with acrylics, I did my painting in oils. The original measures 10 3/4" X 9 1/4".

The Return of Kooky Mini-Comics

The second Kooky Mini-Comic. The first one can be found by clicking

here

This has been sitting around since I did it sometime last year. Maybe it should have stayed sitting.

Lycanthrope

I've long held a fascination for werewolves, going back even before The Howling and An American Werewolf in London finally realized on screen an amazing Werewolf transformation. In High School, wih a fellow film-making friend, named, I kid you not, Wolfgang (who also had a love of werewolves), we made our own version of An American Werewolf, dubbed Lycanthrope. Basically it was An American Werewolf in High School. Here, in honor of the werewolf, a quick sketch.

Tenement Funster!

My new purple shoes
Bin amazin' the people next door
And my rock'n'roll forty fives
Bin enragin' the folks on the lower floor

I got a way with the girls on my block
Try my best to be a real individual
And when we go down to smokies and rock
They line up like it's some kind of ritual
Oh give me a good guitar
And you can say that my hair's a disgrace
Or just find me an open car
I'll make the speed of light outa this place

I like the good things in life
But most of the best things ain't free
It's the same situation just cuts like a knife
When you're young and you're poor and you're crazy
Young and you're crazy...

Oh give me a good guitar
And you can say that my hair's a disgrace
Or just find me an open car
I'll make the speed of light outa this place

music and lyrics by Roger Taylor

This was done as a project while at S.V.A. in 1990. The subject was to illustrate a lyric from a song. I choose Queen's 'Tenement Funster', written and sung by their drummer, Roger Taylor, for their third album, Sheer Heartattack. I went back into it with some Photoshop fixes, mainly the socks, which I was never happy with in the original. Painted in oils on 15X20 hot press Bainbridge Illustration board. The only two sketches I did for the project are here, where I tried using a different lyric from the song for one of the them.

Bettie Page

Here's my contribution to a blog agreement among a few friends, to draw a pic of the recently passed away, great pin-up queen of the 50's, Ms. Bettie Page.

Speed Racer-The Next Generation

Earlier this year I began doing style guide art for the new Cartoon Network animated series, 'Speed Racer-The Next Generation'. Working alone and in collaboration with some friends we created a number of poses and character art for licensors to use as they needed. These can be used on anything from garments to school supplies to paper plates. IDW Publishing decided to use a couple of my pieces for the covers of their Speed Racer-Next Generation comic. For issue #1 they used some exisiting style guide art, but went with mine on issue #2. There's an ad for the next issue, also using my artwork, in the back. Unfortunately, I didn't get any credit in the individual comic, but I should get a mention in the trade paperback collected edition. The background textures in both were added by someone in the IDW art department, utilizing other style guide art. The leaping Chim Chim was published in IDW's digest sized Speed Racer-The Next Generation Animated, Vol. 1.

Posted here alongside the finished Illustrator files are some of my original pencil drawings and inks for a few of the pieces I did. Most of the art seen here was done this way, with the exception of the Chim Chim ones, where I did all the inking directly in Illustrator. Besides the stuff here, and the Next Generation art that I did in collaboration with friends (they would do the pencils, then I would go in and tighten that up, ink it, and do the final Illustrator art), I also did some classic Speed Racer art, updating old drawings, including two pieces used as life-size standees for display purposes; one of Speed and the Mach 5 and the other of Racer X and the Shooting Star.

All artwork copyright Speed Racer Enterprises.