Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Aquarian

Aquarian

Here is the original entry for the Aquarian to the "Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe".  

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And here is my entry to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Redux.  

This one was a bit of a cheat for me.  I actually submitted a story idea to Marvel Comics for an Aquarian One-Shot about 15 years ago using pretty much this redesign of the character.  Sad, but true--with the sad part being that of all the characters in the Marvel Universe, I picked the Aquarian, of course.  :-D

I don't know why, but the character somehow captured my imagination.  The story involved Wundarr/Aquarian getting a Cosmic Cube and deciding to give humanity enlightenment--whether it wanted it or not.  It was going to be part action-adventure/part deep, philosophical treatise about the nature humanity...  Well, stuff that strikes you as philosophically deep when you're in your mid-twenties (but, probably isn't).  It had references to Wundarr/Aquarian selling his life-story to a comic book company, involved Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four, and the death of Disco music.  

Needless to say, it was rejected.  :-)

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Here's the part where I usually say "Here's the process of those who are interested"... but, this time there really isn't much involved in the process.  This is the first picture I did as digital from start-to-finish and forgot to do screen shots of the steps along the way until it was mostly done.  

But, just so I'm not leaving anyone empty-handed, I created a new document in PhotoShop that was 1,500 x 2,500 pixels, and then started working in black-and-white to lay down values, first.  I used a chalk-based brush which I found left an interesting texture.  (I have no idea if I got it from one of the DVD's from the many issues of "ImagineFX Magazine" I have, or if it was a free one I found on the internet.  Sorry!)  

When I was finished with the black-and-white digital drawing, I created a new MULTIPLY LAYER and set to colorizing the work.  Lastly, I added a glow to the Cosmic Cube and called it DONE!

Now that I look at it, though, I think I like the black-and-white version of the picture more than the colorized version. Sigh...

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This was done digitally in PhotoShop.

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