Unwanted Valentines: Blaine the Mono

Unwanted Valentines:

Blaine the Mono

This Unwanted Valentine is a mash-up of Stephen King and "The Simpsons".  Blaine the Mono is the (dare I say it?) crazy train from King's "Dark Tower" series--a twisted, self-aware monorail that loves riddles and is on a suicide run hoping to take Roland and his Ka-Tet with him.  

From "The Simpsons", it's the awesome card Ralph Wiggum gets from Lisa Simpson for Valentine's Day after she takes pity on him.  Ralph takes the card as an invitation to be Lisa's boyfriend.  A very sweet episode, all around.  And it contains one of my Top 20 favorite lines from "The Simpsons": 

RALPH: "The doctors said I wouldn't have so many nose bleeds if I kept my finger outta there."

Here is a screen capture of the famous card that Lisa Simpson gave to Ralph Wiggum.

Now, of course one cannot have a mash-up of Blaine the Mono and "The Simpsons" without invoking the much beloved song from "Marge vs. The Monorail".  (The song begins about one minute into the video.)

Also, Blaine is a Pain. :-)

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STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils for Blaine and Mono, done with blue lead on a sheet of card stock.  I also included one of the skull/hearts I was going to insert into the card, as well.  I even accidentally had the foresight to draw only a single rail on the train tracks, just to head off any comments about Blaine being a MONORAIL.  ;-)

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STEP TWO:  I did the inks with a Sharpie bleed-proof pen and scanned it into PhotoShop.

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STEP THREE:  I figured it would be more creepy to do a more realistic skull on the cartoonish train, so I added a layer and did a more painted-looking skull overtop the train's face.

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STEP FOUR:  Here's everything all together.  I colored everything with a MULTIPLY Layer, with some extra highlights on the skull done over top a New Layer.  I also duplicated the skull/hearts and scattered them about to match the "I Choo-Choo-Choose You" card.

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Done with pen-and-ink on 8-1/2" x 11" cardstock and colored digitally.

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Unwanted Valentines: Mars Attacks!

Unwanted Valentines:

Mars Attacks!

Well, Valentine's Day sneaked up on me this year, so I'll only have a couple "Unwanted Valentines" this time around.

This one came about from the obvious joke of "Men are from Mars".  :-D

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STEP ONE:  I pencilled the Mars Attacks! Martian's head as a heart-shape on a piece of cardstock.  I then scanned it into PhotoShop.

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STEP TWO: I move the pencils a a top Layer and set it to MULTIPLY.  I then started to use the chalk brush in PhotoShop to digitally paint the Martian's head.

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STEP THREE:  Here it is about halfway done and without the guide over top of it.  I was far enough along to jettison the guidelines altogether by this point.

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STEP FOUR:  This is the finished Martian's heart-shaped head.  I added the lettering above (OK, as it was just an "I" and a "U", that barely counts as lettering), and used a 25 pixel line around 'em and called the card above "DONE!"

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Done digitally in PhotoShop.
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Celestials: Tiamut the Dreaming Celestial (Part 2)

Celestials: 

Tiamut the Dreaming Celestial

To continue from the previous post, here is the golden armored version of the Dreaming Celestial, formerly Tiamut the Communicator before his "Fall from Grace".  I find the story of the Dreaming Celestial to be something which captures my imagination and would like to work on further.  Aw, heck, I'm just a fan of the Celestials in general and will definitely be doing more with them in the future.

However, for now I will be taking a little break from this series and finish off most of the major Celestials at a later date.

Here is the original version of Tiamut.  I've included both the Kirby version from his original Eternals series in the 1970's (Issue #18) and a more recent version that I used as the primary reference.

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STEP ONE:  I used a blue lead 0.5mm mechanical pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" cardstock for the pencils.

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STEP TWO:  The inking was done with a fine point Sharpie Non-Bleed pen and a PITT Brush tip pen to fill in the black areas and add some line variation.

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STEP THREE:  I scanned the image into PhotoShop and colorized it with a MULTIPLY Layer, keeping the color scheme somewhat consistent to the previous Celestials entries I did for the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: REDUX EDITION.

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This was done with pen-and-ink on 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" cardstock and colored in PhotoShop.

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Celestials: Tiamut the Dreaming Celestial (Part 1)

Celestials: 

Tiamut the Dreaming Celestial

There are essentially two versions of Tiamut: The Dreaming Celestial.  This one is from the mid-80's, where I first encountered the story of The Dreaming Celestial in the pages of the 12-Part Eternals mini-series.  The story involved a Deviant, Ghaur, attempting to tap into the energies of a "Dreaming Celestial" to become a godlike being, crush his enemies, and establish himself as master of all he surveyed.  Y'know, the usual.

There is also a golden armored version who appeared for 2 pages in the original Jack Kirby Eternals series (Issue #18, if you're interested), and then made his appearance again in another Eternals series in the mid-2000's.  And, since there are two versions, I will be doing the golden-armored Tiamut in my next post.

Here's the original pic.  While he was drawn in the mini-series with two circular eyes and some lines across his face plate, I sorta liked the nebulous energy idea and gave his face a Kirby Crackle, instead.

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STEP ONE:  I used a blue lead 0.5mm mechanical pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" cardstock for the pencils.

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STEP TWO:  The inking was done with a fine point Sharpie Non-Bleed pen and a PITT Brush tip pen to fill in the black areas and add some line variation.

* * *

STEP THREE:  I scanned the image into PhotoShop and colorized it with a MULTIPLY Layer, keeping the color scheme somewhat consistent to the previous Celestials entries I did for the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: REDUX EDITION.

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This was done with pen-and-ink on 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" cardstock and colored in PhotoShop.

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