March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #9

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

Well, I made it under the wire with one more submission to the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  It's the last one for 2023, with this time being a Matryoshka Doll of M.O.D.O.K. and Friends/Fiends with Jack Kirby being the Kirby Krackle-Powered heart at the center of it all.  Oh, shoot, I just realized I forgot to go back and ink/color his trademark cigar.  Oh, well, smoking isn't good for you anyways.

I still didn't get to half the ideas I had for "March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023," so I guess I'll be rolling them over for next year, for which I'll only get to half of those, as well.  M.O.D.O.K. is one of my favorite, weirdo Kirby Kreations, so I look forward to this every year.  Here's to looking ahead to next year!

Also, whaddya know--this is my 500th post on this Blog!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital, blue-line pencils done on a 2,000px x 1,800px canvas @300dpi in Clip Studio Paint.  I did the outlines of the Matryoshka dolls first, and then penciled them in afterwards.  Originally, I had the A.I.M. guy tipped over, but I wasn't able to place him sideways without too much being covered up and it just looking weird.  So, he just became part of the standing line up.  Oh, well.

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STEP TWO:  And these are the digital inks.  I tried to keep it all simple and more of a dead line weight to keep everything sort of cartoony for the drawings.  

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STEP THREE:  And here's the colors added.  I did a separate layer for each of the characters/dolls so I could move them around if need be for the line-up.  It seemed to work out well as part of the work flow for this drawing.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #9

 March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's yet another bit of M.O.D.O.K.-based spam for the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  This time it is a parody of the Charles Atlas ads that ran continually in the comic books of my youth.  Alas, I had to jettison the ad copy and focus on just the comic strip part of the ad for the sake of time.  I am hoping to get one more submission in by tomorrow morning.  We shall see!

For those many of you who are no doubt too young to have seen it, this here is a copy of the original ad from which I was working:

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital, blue-line pencils done on a 2,000px x 2,280px canvas @300dpi in Clip Studio Paint.  

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STEP TWO:  I did up the digital inks, then a grayscale coloring for M.O.D.O.K. on the side panel.  The grayscale layer was imported into Photoshop and run through a half-tone filter, and then brought back into Clip Studio Paint on an Overlay Filter (I do wish Clip Studio Paint had a better Filter system for pictures, ala Photoshop.  Oh, well...).  I also used the Retro Supply Co.'s paper texture to give it that old newsprint look.  

On to the next (and last) submission!

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint with an assist from Photoshop.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #8

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's more M.O.D.O.K.-based spam for the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  This time it is a Medieval Manuscript telling the tale of a Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing MindBlasting a certain villain.  Poor Arnim Zola...

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital, blue-line pencils done on a 2,000px x 2,750px canvas @300dpi in Clip Studio Paint.  

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  With this one, I changed the Layer Color to dark brown, then imported a picture of an old manuscript paper texture and used some RetroSupply Co. brushes to give the look of flaked ink and dirty patches  

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #7

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's yet another M.O.D.O.K. submission for the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  I believe I really am just spamming them at this point...  Anyhoo, this time I am offending the memory of Maurice Sendak with my shenanigans.  Oh, M.O.D.O.K., when he isn't eating Chicken Soup with Rice, he's busy with his Wild Rumpus.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital, blue-line pencils done on a 2,000px x 2,200px canvas @300dpi in Clip Studio Paint.  

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  Here is the finished color plate.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #6

 March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's yet another M.O.D.O.K. submission for the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  This one is a parody of the Sea-Monkey advertisement which was in just about ever comic book I read growing up (yes, I'm that old).  Needless to say, the original ad's drawing in no way resembled the actual brine shrimp you received.  I never ordered it myself from the comics, but did see some brine shrimp eggs in a store and got them for the kids a long time ago as part of a science experiment for them to grow.  They were every bit as disappointing as I expected (the Sea-Monkeys, not the kids.  Well, most of the time...).  But, it was good to know I didn't miss much not being able to order them as a dumb kid; instead I bought them as a dumb adult!  

That said, I guess one could say the advertising worked 30 years later when I bought them.  Well played!

Here's the original ad.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital, blue-line pencils done on a 2,000px x 2,750px canvas @300dpi in Clip Studio Paint.  I had a couple vague ideas for the text, but most of it was GREEKED to me!  (Never mind, typesetting joke form my ad layout days.)  Most of what I wrote was on the fly as I was getting everything together.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  And like the Kirby pastiche below, the final coloring was also done with an assist from Photoshop.  After the simple colors were done, I applied the Retro Supply Co.'s paper effects to give it a more newsprint look.  I then ran it through the Color Halftone filter in Photoshop.  I imported the Filtered color layer back into Clip Studio Paint, dropped the opacity to 25% over the copied, non-filtered color layer, and changed it to a Soft Light Layer setting.  That way it gave the look of the old comics without it going too far.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint with an assist from Photoshop.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #5

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

(Click to Embiggen!)

HAPPY PI DAY!

It's yet another submission for the long suffering March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  This time it's in celebration of Pi Day -- March 14th (3.14).  And yes, that’s really Pi to the first… I dunno, how many ever many digits fit in the balloon while still being vaguely legible.  So, I guess you could say this post is actually educational (you’d be wrong, of course, but you could say it).

I copied Pi to the first 10,000 digits into a text file and it would make Clip Studio Paint choke for a little bit when trying to import and place it, so that was fun.

Now, in honor of Pi Day, I'm off to have a big ol' slice of cake.  Er, I mean Pie.  Wait, why not both?

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STEP ONE:  Since the pencils will look almost like the inks, here is the doodled idea that lead to this cartoon.  It was a 10 second sketch done on a corner of an index card.  In actuality, it is about 2" x 2", give-or-take.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  And, finally, here are the colors.  I decided to keep the colors simple as it was 1) a cartoon version 2) the wall of text/numbers behind M.O.D.O.K. was enough noise in the background to warrant keeping everything simple in front.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #4

March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's another M.O.D.O.K. submission for the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  This one is a Kirby pastiche based on the somewhat off-model M.O.D.O.K. cover to 1976 "Marvel Double Feature" #18, reprinting M.O.D.O.K.'s first appearance in "Tales of Suspense" #94, "If This Be M.O.D.O.K.".

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital blue-line pencils done in Clip Studio Paint on a 2,000px x 2,750px canvas @ 300dpi.  I added the little doohickey hanging off the headband for no reason at all other than it amused me.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  The final coloring, done with an assist from Photoshop.  After the simple colors were done, I applied the Retro Supply Co.'s paper effects to give it a more newsprint look.  I also have their Color Lab to do the color screen separations just like they used to back in the olden days before digital color--y'know, when I grew up--but it is so much easier to just run a Color Halftone filter over it in Photoshop.  I imported the Filtered color layer back into Clip Studio Paint, dropped the opacity to 25% over the copied, non-filtered color layer, and changed it to a Soft Light Layer setting.  That way it gave the look of the old comics without it going too far.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint with an assist from Photoshop.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #3

  March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

It's another M.O.D.O.K. piece for the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  This one sort of started out as a doodle based on a vague image in my head and then kept going.

Onward to the next one!

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STEP ONE:  Well, this time there's only one step that took me an embarrassing amount of time to finish. It originally started as a doodle in Rebelle 6, but it is a program more suited for doing more naturalistic looking digital paintings and such.  It got me about 75% of the way to what I wanted, but I am used to using Clip Studio Paint's curved line tool and other such tools to give a more mechanical feel to M.O.D.O.K. being a robot that I was looking for.  So, I imported it into Clip Studio Paint and basically did the whole drawing all over again over top the one done in Rebelle 6.  Sigh...

For the background image, I had replaced the battery in my daughter's laptop and took a picture of the motherboard and such.  I duplicated and flipped a section of the image, and the placed the layer as a "Hard Mix" layer, which gave it a more textured look.

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Done in Rebelle 6 and Clip Studio Paint

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #2

 March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

Hey, it's another submission to my chums over at the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog!  This time, it's a paean to those classics of Literature, the Golden Books.

Onward to the next one!

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STEP ONE:  'Cuz I ain't too bright, I somehow accidentally managed to merge the pencil layer with the Pen-and-Ink Layer and not realize it until it would take the maximum amount of time to fix it (normally, I have my documents set up to prevent that very thing--the one time I deviate from that, this is what happens.  Sigh...).  So, here are the digital inks on an 1,850px x 2,200px canvas @300dpi.

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STEP TWO:  Here are the colors in all their glory.

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STEP THREE:  Once the colors were all done, it was time to break out some digital chicanery.  I have some paper textures and texture brushes from Retro Supply Co. that give the look of beaten and weathered media.  I also put a yellowed Color Layer over top to harmonize everything and give it a slightly aged look.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint and Rebelle 6 with an assist.

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March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023 #1

 March M.O.D.O.K. Madness 2023
(Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing)

Hey, it's time again for everyone's favorite March-based bit of Madness featuring that wacky, super-cephalic Jack Kirby creation:
MARCH M.O.D.O.K. MADNESS!

Here's the first of what I hope will be many, many submissions to the March M.O.D.O.K. Madness Blog.  Go over and pay them a visit to see some of the other artists who also enjoy the exploits of everyone's favorite Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing!

Originally, I had another panel on the bottom when him looking very, very tired and saying "Alright, I'm up.  I'm up...", but thought it seemed a little too on the nose, so just decided to leave it off and have M.O.D.O.K. just getting out of bed.  But, you may ask yourself, why leave off the last panel if it is too on the nose and add in the Date and Time on the top panels?  Isn't that also sort of obvious?  Um...  No comment.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the very quickly scribbled digital pencils done on a 2,000px x 1,800px canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And here are digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  And here are the added colors.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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