Portfolio Showcase: Scary Self-Portrait (for Halloween)

Hey everyone (I really wonder how many people see this, actually...). Thanks to everyone for the good wishes about my wife's illness. We have a lot of support, and hearing from everyone definitely helps keep our spirits up.

I also want to remind everyone that the deal I mentioned in my previous post for the t-shirts is still active. I'd really like to fill a bunch of orders, because, frankly, the medical bills are beginning to pile up, so we could really use the extra money around here. I hope that doesn't sound too much like begging, so let's just say it's more of a plea. Thanks for understanding.

Since it's Halloween, I thought I'd post something that is appropriate to the occasion. Then I realized I'd used up all of my scary illustrations a couple of years ago! So, in lieu of that, I decided to put something up that I've been told is a little scary. The original self portrait I had on my website (it's still in the portraits section)was a painting I did while in school at SVA. I always thought it turned out pretty well, so I thought it was a good piece to have on my website. However, when I began teaching several years ago, my students, who were kids (as opposed to college students) began to go to my website to see my work. Their parents did too, sometimes before the classes began each semester. Many of them would come into the first day of class and tell me they were worried that I might be mean, as the picture on my website was so scary. I was actually surprised to hear this, although I really shouldn't have been. Back when I was in school, I fancied myself to be kind of artsy, so I went for a piece that was a bit moody. So, really it was intentional that it looked that way, but it had been so many years, and I'd gotten so used to seeing it, that it didn't really occur to me that it wasn't the most... shall we say, welcoming portrait to have as my opening page!

So I finally updated it with a new self-portrait and relegated the original to the aforementioned portraits section. Here's the original. I'll let you make your own judgment about whether it's "scary" or not:



Happy Halloween!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Herding Cats

A few years back, I was approached by a potential client who wanted me to create an image based on a phrase, for a book on business terminology. While the job ultimately didn't happen, I was fairly happy with my interpretation. I'm never 100% satisfied with my work (and hope never to be, to allow for growth as an artist), but I think this worked reasonably well. The phrase was "herding cats," as in, it's tough to get everyone's thoughts going in the same direction on an assignment. Hence, it's as difficult as herding cats. Or something like that. Anyway, here it is:



I'm missing San Diego's Comic-Con this weekend, but I'm happy to be home with my family for a change. So, I'll be enjoying this weekend. Hope you all do as well!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Another Car (Going Waaaay Back)

Things have been pretty crazy here, so I need to keep this brief. This piece is yet another car, a BMW M1. I was reminded of it because while this car looks pretty modern, it was actually a 1979 production model, and BMW is doing an updated version of it. I read that in a car magazine, and the new car is pretty cool. Anyway, that's not why this goes way back. The reason is that the photo I referenced is one I took at a car show around 1982 or so. I'll let you all in on a little secret: the following illustration, while updated in 2002, was actually drawn while I was in high school, nearly 15 or so years before that! I think I originally drew it while a senior, which would put it circa 1985-86! When I was redoing my illustration portfolio in '02, I decided that the drawing was still strong enough, and with a few small tweaks, professional enough to use. I still like it anyway, so here it is:



The original piece is around 3 feet long, and was a real bear to scan! I hope you like it.

Have a nice weekend!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Baseball in Pastels

This one is a pretty old one. When I was attending the School Of Visual Arts back in the early '90s, one of my assignments was to create a collage from pictures found in magazine ads, then recreate the entire collage in pastel. This is from my foundation year, which was 1990, and as you can see, I leaned toward photorealism, even then. This particular piece is a detail from a larger work. The original pastel is about 24" x 36," with this detail being around about 12" square. The ball itself is around 8" wide, so it's fairly large.



I don't think I've worked in pastel since then, but I have a lot of pieces I did in my illustration classes, and I really enjoyed the medium. I might have to try my hand at it again someday, although the mess from the pastel dust always drove me crazy...! Oh well.

I hope you have a nice weekend. I'll be back next week with more art, and hopefully, my HeroesCon report.

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Animation Creation

I was trying to think of something a little different to show. I've played around a bit with some very basic animations in Photoshop and Image Ready in the past, but I don't think I've ever posted them, so here's one I thought would be fun to show.

This is the first one I ever did, with the help of my good friend Howard Porter. Howard walked me through the step-by-step of creating an animated gif, which I then used to do, well, a step-by-step... of how to draw Roboy Red. I posted the original tutorial a while back. Here's the result of this experiment(click the link below the screenshot to see the animation):



http://www.richfaber.com/Howyagonna_Roboy_animation.gif

Obviously, I'm no pro at this, but it is something I plan to do more of, and as I do them, I'll post them here.

I hope you all (both...?) have a very happy and healthy Independence Day.

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Feeling Super

Ok, I'm back onto the Portfolio Showcase kick, so here's something I did a few years ago for a client. They were looking for something "Super" looking, if you catch my drift. I'm sure you will, once you see the images. Anyway, I had to put the character in a few poses, and here's the initial shot:



I've included the final inks here, and with the flying pose below, I also wanted to show a variation on the outstretched arm. The client asked for the arm to be raised a bit from the pencils, so that's what I did. Here's the final inked version:



... and here's the original pencil rough:



Finally, I was asked to create some variations on the facial expression from the original pose. Here's what I came up with:



I really enjoyed this job. I always love being able to work on character designs, and am actively seeking to do more at all times. If anything new comes up, I'll be sure to post it as well.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend, and happy Father's Day to all those Dads out there!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Bugged!

Back in 1997, I was hired to ink my very first Marvel Comic, called "Bug." for those who might not be familiar, Bug was a Micronauts character, and while Marvel no longer had the Micronauts license at the time, they still retained the rights to any characters that weren't toys, and were specifically created for the Micronauts series, published some years before by Marvel. It's a long convoluted story, of which I'm sure you can do a search on to learn the history, but the bottom line is that Marvel got to keep the rights to Bug. Lucky for me! Not only was it a fun comic to work on (one which very few people even know exist. I think I might have more comped copies of it than were actually sold!), but it also marked my first work with my now longtime buddy, Todd Dezago. It was a heck of a lot of fun to work on, and I really enjoyed inking my other pal, Derec Aucoin,who is now called Derec Donovan (another long story). The drawing below is NOT from that issue, but rather, a fan-requested sketch. If anyone is interested, I'll actually have copies of Bug, as well as some original art from the book, for sale at Heroes Con next month in Charlotte.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the drawing:



Speaking of conventions, while I won't be set up at a table, I will be tooling around at Wizard World Philadelphia this weekend, so if you see me walking the floor, feel free to stop me to say hello. Unless I'm in the men's room. Then you should wait. ;-)

On that charming note, have a nice weekend!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Ice Sculpture Design

Just a quick one today. I missed Friday, due to my wife's birthday, but I wanted to be sure to post something for the week.

Three years ago, my grandfather turned 90, and my family had a big surprise party for him. My mom wanted to do an ice sculpture for the party, based on an old photo of him, so she asked me to come up with a design. Here's the sketch we sent the sculptor:



This sketch is based on a photo of my grandfather in front of a 1933 Ford, and because of the nature of ice sculpture, I had to pare down the details, in order to make it easy on the sculptor to work out the construction. This sketch is also actually the basis for another illustration I plan to do sometime. If I can find the pictures of the ice sculpture itself, I'll try to post that too. Enjoy the rest of this long (at least here in the U.S.) weekend!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: MinoriTeam

Back in late 2006, my pal Mike Manley was working on a cartoon called MinoriTeam, for Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup. It was a politically incorrect take on superheroes, and the character designs were based on Jack Kirby's Marvel Comics style. As production progressed, it became clear that there was more work than Mike was able to do, and he recommended me to work with him on the show. It was my first time working on a cartoon, and it was a terrific experience. Although the content was definitely not for the kiddies, it was work that I'm still proud of. My job was to take the pencil drawings of characters and other assets, and not only ink them, but redo them a bit to get them "on model." This meant that any design that didn't look like Kirby had drawn it, had to be redrawn to capture that Kirby flavor. I can't tell you how much fun this was, and it was an incredible time of training for me. My output had to be fast and prolific. I did about 80 illustrations each week! The drawings were then scanned and sent in to be animated using Adobe's Flash program. I've since done a bunch of other jobs in this way, although in those cases, I generated the drawings from start to finish, but none has been seen by so many people. Anyway, enough talking. Here are some of the illustrations I worked on (I should be clear, and tell you that I didn't generate the original drawings, but I did redraw a lot of them. These are some favorites):


This character was the toady of the main bad guy (sorry, I don't remember a lot of the characters' names)


A nice group shot of the bad guys.



The above two are obviously a Frankenstein's monster/Hulk type. He was also a bad guy. Love the Hawaiian shirt! I love the look of this character, and truthfully, I didn't do much to the pencils, as I thought they were really well done as they were.


A stuffed killer panda. I don't know either...




The above three images should give you a basic idea of my process. On the left are the pencils I was provided, and on the right are my inks/finishes. A lot of the changes are somewhat subtle, but I think you'll get the overall idea.

Well, that's it for now. Have a nice weekend! I'll be back next week with more neat stuff, and maybe even an announcement!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Union Station Illustration

Several years ago a friend of mine named Ande Parks, then fairly well-known as a comic book inker, began a second career as a writer. At the same time, I, being fairly well-known as a comic book inker, began a second career as an Illustrator. Ande was the first friend I'd made in comics, outside of my buddies from the School of Visual Arts who had become comics pros, and he and I talked frequently. When Ande started writing his outline for a new graphic novel, he shared it with me, and I had the pleasure of realizing that this talented guy was going to be an incredible writer. While he was busy writing, I was busy drawing, and had begun to develop what is now my photo-realistic pencil style. The graphic novel outline eventually became the book called "Union Station," which is about a massacre that occurred at Kansas City's Union Station during a prisoner transfer of Pretty Boy Floyd in 1933. The tale is historical fiction but gives some insight into the beginnings of the F.B.I. as well as a terrific story of love, betrayal, and gangsters and lawmen. When Ande had gotten a few pages drawn by a penciler he knew, he was going to submit the script and pages to some publishers to shop it around. He and I discussed the idea of me doing a pencil illustration as a cover piece for the proposal, and here is what I came up with:



Although it was intended to possibly be used as the frontispiece to the graphic novel, the idea was nixed by the book designer, so it never saw print. However, it's still one of my favorite pieces, and I plan to do at least one more companion piece to it someday. Hopefully, that'll be something for a future Portfolio Showcase.

As for "Union Station," it's a wonderful graphic novel, with beautiful art by Eduardo Barreto. If you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and pick it up. It's something I don't think you'll regret.

I'll be back next week with more. Have a nice weekend!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Rex Steele

Since it's the eve of Free Comic Book Day (don't forget to go to your participating local comic book shop!), I decided to showcase a comics pinup I did a few years ago. My friend Bill Presing works as an artist for Pixar Animation. He's a really talented guy, and has this incredibly cool adventurer character called Rex Steele, Nazi Smasher. As the name implies, Rex doesn't tolerate fascist, racist hooligans, and his comic adventures prove this. a few years ago, Bill asked me to contribute a pinup to his Rex graphic novel, and here's the piece I came up with:



As is typical, I couldn't resist throwing a car into the mix! I drew and inked this traditionally on 11" x 17" board, scanned the art, and added the gray tones in Photoshop. I hope you like it, and I hope I'll see you in Delaware for Free Comic Book Day!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Power Couple

This will be a quick one today. Due to an injury to my son (he's okay. It's a separated shoulder, but with a few weeks in a brace/harness, he'll be fine), I wasn't able to post the Free Comic Book Day info this week, but I'll be updating that info next week.

Anyway, another Friday, another event (this time it's a car show; Cars at Carlisle), so briefly, I did this piece as a gift for my cousin's wedding:



I like the way it came out, and she and her husband liked it too. It also works as a character design for my website, so that doesn't hurt either!

I'll be back next week with more art and information.

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Orpheus Club Caricature

Ha! I'll bet you thought that my being in New York today would preclude me from keeping my Friday appointment here. Well, through the magic of a new feature on Blogger called "Blogger in Draft," I can create a new post, store it, and have it uploaded to my blog whenever I'd like.

So, here I am with a brand new Portfolio Showcase!

First I need to say that caricatures are difficult. I give all due respect to those who do it for a living, including my friends Stephen Silver, Ted Tucker, and Keelan Parham. I don't know him, but Tom Richmond, of Mad Magazine fame, is also a master. These guys REALLY know what they're doing. I'm a novice. that being said, I was hired a few years ago by Philadelphia's Orpheus Club, a prestigious and historical singing organization, to create a caricature of one of their members, as a tribute. This piece went through several revisions to get it right. the client wanted something along the lines of an Al Hirschfeld (speaking of MASTERS)design. I did my best, and I think I was able to capture the style a bit, as well as the essence of the subject, a man named Syd. I'll let others be the judge, but here is the illustration:



This isn't the actual final version, but I like this one just a little better than what was displayed. by the way, I'm told the image was displayed on a huge banner flanked by two enormous Maxfield Parrish pieces! A friend of mine has pictures, which I still haven't seen, but if he ever gets them to me, I'll be sure to post them. Parrish is a favorite of mine, so that was a real honor!

I'll be back next week with more. Have a nice weekend!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Baseball Nostalgia - Gehrig and Mantle

My apologies for not posting the comic book work I promised last week. I'm waiting for some files from someone, and that's delayed my ability to post the work. However, I'll definitely be posting some new work, in advance of the New York Comic-Con next week. More on that on Monday.

For today's Portfolio Showcase, I wanted to highlight some work I did a few years ago that's close to my heart. I'm a big baseball fan, and my roots are deep. I'm a third generation Yankees fan (no apologies, folks, I'm from New York), and back in 2002, I was looking to submit some work to a Yankees-related trade magazine. I did a number of samples, both to get myself back into the illustration game after ten years of doing comics exclusively, and with the greater goal of getting work.

The first piece is a favorite because Lou Gehrig is a personal hero of mine, and has been since I read a biography of him as a young boy. By all accounts, he was a good person, and having to battle a tragic disease which sapped him of his legendary vitality, strength, and athleticism makes his story all the more compelling. His disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis was so devastating that it ended his career prematurely, and his life even more prematurely. Never did a man go out in as dignified manner as Gehrig though, with his famous speech at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939. Here's my tribute to Lou Gehrig:



Mickey Mantle was also a hero to many, including my Dad, who has a roomful of memorabilia devoted to The Mick. When trying to decide who my second subject for an illustration would be, there really was no doubt. I'd have to do one of Mickey, both for his iconic swing, as it makes for such a dynamic study, as well as for the fact that I knew my Dad would love to have a copy of the piece for his office wall. This is the illustration:



If you like these, and want to see more similar work, you can go to my website, www.richfaber.com and click on the "Baseball Illustrations" button (or you can just click the previous link here).

Thanks for taking the time to look, and I hope you have a nice weekend. I'll be back next week with more art and news.

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Sketchy creatures

Another week already, wow! I'll have some new work to post next week, as I've completed the newest Roboy Red story, and I'm also working on another comic book right now. More on that in a future post, but while I'm on the subject, I realized I post a lot of comic book work, as well as finished illustrations, but I don't think I've posted any of my sketches. Sketching is an important part of the process for me, and while I certainly don't do it as much as I'd like, I do have a lot of sketch work that most people never see. To that end, below are a few "creatures" I've sketched. My favorite is the Frankenstein monster:



I also enjoy sketching my cat. He's usually sleeping, so he makes for an easy subject:





Below is the preliminary sketch I did of a polar bear, trying to get the feel right for the Golden Compass job.



Next week, look for some new comics stuff, and then I'll be back Friday with a new Portfolio Showcase. Have a great weekend!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase: Logo-motive Train

Wow, a week already! Ok, so I'm on schedule, at least this week! Here's Friday's Portfolio Showcase:



This piece was a logo illustration I drew for a local client. It was used as a logo for a new housing development. I'm not sure what the connection was to trains, but I'm guessing the site was probably railroad-related in some way. Anyway, it's one I hadn't posted here before, so I thought it might be nice to show it. If you're wondering, the train was drawn in pen and ink, with a little brushwork here and there. Although I drew this around 5" x 7", it was used primarily on letterhead, about an inch or so high! That's small!

Speaking of logos, here's a little bonus for today: I had to create a logo for the t-shirt one of the characters is wearing in our new Roboy Red story. The little girl in the story is something of a drama queen, so I came up with this:



I'm thinking of having some t-shirts made with the logo, so if you're out there thinking, boy, I (or my wife, girlfriend, etc) might like to have this, please let me know in the comments. I'm trying to decide if it's feasible to do it. And just so you'll know what it might look like on a shirt (if you looked like a comic book character, that is!) here it is in context, on the girl's shirt:



Pencils by John Gallagher, inks and colors by me. I'll be posting some actual pages from the story soon.

Have a nice weekend!

Best,
Rich

Portfolio Showcase - Storyboards

So, it's been nearly a month again...

In an attempt to begin posting on a semi-regular basis, regardless of whether I have new work to show or not, I've decided that I'm going to use the time between illustration jobs to show some of my earlier work. I'd like to make this a regular feature, so for now, Fridays will be "Portfolio Showcase" day. Each week, I'll post a piece of work I've done in the past, in order to highlight some of the work you might not have seen before.

To that end, here are some storyboards I drew a few years ago:




These were for a pharmaceutical client, and are heavily edited to take out the product info, which I believe might have been proprietary.

In any event, the boards were drawn in support of a sales meeting for the pharma reps, in which they learned how to properly market and promote the product. The guy on the jet ski is the narrator, and as he shoots in and out of the frames, he's talking about the product. The idea was that this particular product would allow all sorts of outdoor activities that were previously difficult for people with the specific symptoms of the ailment that this product helps alleviate (how's that for vague...? ;-) )

I have some other new work I'll post sometime soon, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this episode of "Portfolio Showcase!"

More to come, next week!

Best,
Rich