Marla Bea Benefit Comic Book Auction: Wonder Woman & Power Girl
This piece was penciled by Ray Caspio, and I was the inker and colorist. We made this piece for the Marla Bea Benefit Comic Book Auction that begins on Monday, October 12, 2009. All proceeds from the auction will benefit the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics. I lost a very good and dear friend several years ago to breast cancer, so this is a cause that I feel very strongly about and is very close to me. I was very happy and proud to be able to participate in this auction, and I hope that our piece will raise a lot of money to contribute in the fight against breast cancer. Please consider bidding in the auction to support this worthy cause.
Wonder Woman & Power Girl for Marla Bea Benefit8.75″ x 12″ on Bristol Board
Ray Caspio: Pencils
Kevenn T. Smith: Inks, Prismacolor Color Pencils, and Prismacolor Markers
Wonder Woman and Power Girl ©DC Comics 2011
Singular Sensation: The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman
This Singular Sensation entry spotlights the illustration of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman that I did for the header for this site. These are two of my favorite Oz characters to do, and I especially enjoy drawing them together and showing the tremendous bond that these two characters have for one another. In most of Baum's books, they both have castles in the Winkie country to the West that are very close to one another.
For the Scarecrow, I do go back to Baum's text with details like one eye being bigger than the other. However, I'm also greatly influenced by the depictions that John R. Neill and Michael Herring did of him as well. I wanted to convey a sense of him being a little off balance, like Ray Bolger was in the MGM musical.
Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodman, presents a special challenge when looking at how Neill and Herring depicted him. Their renditions, quite frankly, defy the laws of physics. They draw the Tin Woodman with nearly two dimensional limbs that are hinged basically with pins onto the sides of his torso. This leaves him incapable of a wide range of movement, but didn't stop them from somehow depicting him holding his ax with two hands. I wanted to base my version a little more in reality, so there was no real way that he would be able to reach across his own body to point toward the Scarecrow if his arm was simply pinned at the shoulder to his torso. For me, the solution was to basically treat him like he was a human-sized action figure and give him ball joints that not only hinged, but swiveled and allowed for rotation.
Neill and Herring depicted him basically wearing a suit of tin with the collar, the side pockets, and the buttons down his torso, so I did as well. They'd also draw him wearing spats on his feet, a bow tie around his neck, and a flower "pinned" on. One thing that I added that's usually forgotten, is when the Tin Woodman gets his heart from the Wizard of Oz in the first book, he is patched up on his chest, and a gold star is placed over where his heart is. This gold star is usually omitted by many artists, but I like to add it, because I think it's a nice detail that adds more character and visual interest to him.
Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, and Photoshop.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Now available on a t-shirt at RedBubble.com!
Singular Sensation: The Hungry Tiger of Oz
This Singular Sensation entry features my illustration of The Hungry Tiger of Oz that appeared smaller and partially obscured on the original "Contact Me" page of this site. The Hungry Tiger was officially introduced in L. Frank Baum's third Oz book, Ozma of Oz. However, many people believe (and I'm one of them) that he was also the same tiger that appeared in a chapter near the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, where Dorothy and her friends are on their way to the Quadling Country in the south of Oz to see Glinda about getting Dorothy home. In the chapter, the Cowardly Lion defeats a giant spider-like monster who is terrorizing animals in a forest, and he ends up becoming their king.
In Ozma of Oz, we meet the tiger, who is the Cowardly Lion's trusty companion by this time, and we learn why he's called the Hungry Tiger. Apprently, he has an insatiable appetite for fat babies. The thought of a corpulent little infant makes his mouth water, but he's never able to devour one because his conscious always prevents him. Throughout the Oz series, the Hungry Tiger is a member of Ozma's court, and also serves alongside the Cowardly Lion as an imposing figure reclining near Princess Ozma's throne.
For this illustration, the Hungry Tiger has often been depicted wearing a pink bow around his tail, but I thought that a teal green bow would pop better against the orange fur of the tiger. Baum also wrote that the Hungry Tiger had purple stripes in his first appearance, but I'm not a fan of purple stripes on a tiger, and he's usually not depicted having them either - by John O'Neill the most prolific Oz illustrator, or Michael Herring, who illustrated the covers for the Del Rey paperback editions that I grew up on. For his face, I used some elements of my dogs Lucy and Humphrey for inspiration, especially when it comes to the tip of his tongue sticking out.
Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, and Photoshop.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Now available along with The Cowardly Lion on a t-shirt at RedBubble.com!
Singular Sensation: The Cowardly Lion
This Singular Sensation entry focuses on the Cowardly Lion illustration that I did for the original "contact Me: page of this site. I wanted to present him bigger here than he appears on that page. Everyone knows the Cowardly Lion, but most people are used to thinking of the Cowardly Lion in terms of a person dressed up in a costume, like Burt Lahr in the MGM movie. However, in the books, the Cowardly Lion is a real lion who talks, like all of the animals in Oz do.
I think that when the lion is presented as an actual large lion who acts cowardly, as opposed to a person in a costume, the visuals get to be more interesting and contradictory to the behavior. For this interpretation of the Cowardly Lion, I wanted to make him more personal. I made his eyes bigger than an actual lion's eyes, while keeping the rest of the lion's anatomical proportions intact. Another thing about the eyes, were that I based them on my dog, Humphrey. He's like my own personal Cowardly Lion, who is all bark, but when someone actually stands up to him (like a cat), he runs away crying.
The bows are things that John R. Neill drew on the Cowardly Lion when he originally illustrated the Oz books. I think they're great touches that serve to visually reinforce the contrasts going on with the cowardliness and the powerful frame of a lion. Michael Herring usually painted the bows light blue in the covers that he did for the Del Rey paperback editions of the Oz books, and those were the printings of the books that I grew up with, so I tend to try to give little nods to him and Neill when I illustrate Oz characters.
Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, and Photoshop.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Now available along with The Hungry Tiger on a t-shirt at RedBubble.com!
Earth-2 Huntress: Helena Wayne
This is a commission that I did for my friend and writer, J.H. Moffat who runs the online urban fiction magazine, Drops of Crimson. This piece is of the Earth-2 Huntress, Helena Wayne. Earth-2 was a parallel earth where Batman and Catwoman had their career in the 1940's and ended up marrying and having a daughter, Helena. Catwoman was eventually killed, and Batman died, and Helena carried on their legacy as the Huntress.
The newer version of this illustration is available as prints. Please use the "Contact Me" form at the top-left of this page to request one and inquire further about pricing and sizes.
Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Earth-2 Huntress ©DC Comics 2011
Singular Sensation: Polychrome
The third entry in my Singular Sensation series is of another character that I drew for the wrap-around cover of Oziana #37, Polychrome. This was the third time I had drawn Polychrome, and only the second time I had colored a drawing of her. She is a fairy and the daughter of the rainbow, and coloring her can be quite a complicated process. In the books, she is always described and depicted as wearing a dress in rainbow colors. I didn't want the colors to just be plain vertical stripes. That would be boring. It was a fun challenge to have them blend all together in a diagonal direction. In the books, she's usually always dancing about, so it was very important that there be a sense of energy going on.
Polychrome is a visually fascinating character to me, like Scraps the Patchwork Girl, because of all the colors involved. The great thing about the two characters is seeing how two characters full of different colors can also look so differently. Scraps is a loud and boisterous character in the books, so her colors need to be intense. Polychrome is usually written as a sweet and passive character, so I use tones that are, in comparison, more subdued on her.
Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Now available as a t-shirt on RedBubble.com!
Spider-Man: The Boys Next Door
I'm currently involved in a local production of the play, The Boys Next Door. The play is set in the early 1980's, and one of the characters has a scene where he wears a Spider-Man tie. No one could find a Spider-Man tie in the stores in our area, so I volunteered to make one. I wanted to make it rather simplistic. It couldn't have all the dramatic coloring that comic book characters have nowadays, though I did add some shades and tones to keep it from looking completely flat. The tie that the design went on is red, and has a pattern on it that is suggestive of a spider web.
Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Spider-Man ©Marvel Comics 2011
Singular Sensation: Pig Guard
This second entry in my Singular Sensation series is of a character drawn for the cover of Oziana #37. I simply call him "Pig Guard." I got a request to draw characters that appeared in stories in the issue, but I didn't always have access to the actual stories. In some cases, all I got was copies of artwork being used to illustrate the stories. In this case, all I had was an illustration to go on, but one that really captured my imagination. I am a big fan of the work that The Four Horsemen studio did on updating Mattel's Masters of the Universe property for the 2002 line. The amount of detail they put into each of the character re-designs continues to impress me. When I saw the illustration of this "Pig Guard" character, I thought it would be a really fun idea to give him that same kind of approach. I wanted to put more detail into his look and to introduce a more aggressive and physical element to the entire wrap-around cover piece.
In the cover piece, the Pig Guard was going to be fighting on the same side as Bastinda, the Russian version of the Wicked Witch of the West. I thought it would be a nice homage to the Winkie Soldiers in the MGM musical movie version of The Wizard of Oz if I made the Pig Guard's skin green. However, when I thought about that, I worried that some people would think that I was trying to rip off the Gammorean Guards in the palace of Jabba the Hutt in Return of the Jedi. So that idea was nixed. I still wanted to make the Pig Guard look more otherwordly, instead of a pink, tan, or brown skin tones that one usually found on a pig. That's when I hit upon the idea to make the skin tone a nice "decayed blue." It really worked too! I thought I was being so original, until a friend pointed out that Gannon, the Big Boss in The Legend of Zelda game for Nintendo, was a big blue pig. It's true, there really is nothing entirely new! I haven't played that game in years, but from what I remember of the character, I think I made this Pig Guard look significantly different.
Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Singular Sensation: Scraps the Patchwork Girl of Oz
This is the first entry in a series of posts I plan on doing for this site that will showcase individual pieces of artwork that are used in larger pieces of work. Some of the pieces I work on are created in a collage-like manner. Creating work in that way allows me options in placement and makes doing things like special effects a lot easier. However, sometimes, the entire drawing doesn't always get showcased, or is showcased at a size that doesn't fully show off all the detail put into it.
This first "singular sensation" is to show off the full rendering of the Patchwork Girl illustration that I created for the title of this site. Now, all the different patterns and colors used in composing Scraps can be seen, all the way down to her shoes. Scraps is my favorite character from the Oz books. I felt that her colorful look and personality was the perfect central face for the first image that shows up on this site.
Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Now available as a t-shirt on RedBubble.com!
Garden Walk
This is a piece that I did of my paternal grandmother. I used a different approach to it than I normally do, and I really like the way it turned out. I wanted to be a little less precise with the background, so instead of drawing it in with pencil, and then inking over it, I opted to only use the Prismacolor color pencils on it.
Pencils, Ink, and Prismacolor Color Pencils.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Oziana #37
Oziana is the magazine of The International Wizard of Oz Club. I was very honored when I was asked to provide the cover for issue #37, which is to be the final issue of the magazine. The cover depicts characters featured in the stories contained inside the issue engaged in a magical battle inside the Emerald City.
Pictured in this piece from left to right are: a Boar Guard (from the Russian Oz Series), the Witched Wick (an original character to a story in the issue), Bastinda (the Russian series Wicked Witch of the West), Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter, Bungle the Glass Cat, The Wizard of Oz, Yurgod the Gryphon (from the Russian series), Princess Ozma of Oz, and a Rain Sprite (an original character from a story in the issue)
The issue will be available to order from The International Wizard of Oz Club's website.
Pencils, Ink, Prismacolor Color Pencils, Prismacolor Markers, Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Xena And Gabrielle by Kevenn T. Smith
I did this artcard of Xena and Gabrielle (played by Lucy Lawless and Renee O'Connor) for a friend's present this year.
Pencils, Ink and Prismacolor Color Pencils
©Kevenn T. Smith 2011
Now available as cards, postcards, and small matted prints at RedBubble.com!
He-Man & She-Ra in Color
I sold the He-Man and She-Ra artcards and colored them before I sent them off. I wanted to post them here to be able to compare to the inked versions. This artcard is now available as cards, postcards, and small matted prints at RedBubble.com!
He-Man & Orko:
She-Ra and Swift Wind, also available as cards, postcards, and small matted prints at RedBubble.com:
He-Man, Orko, She-Ra, and Swift Wind ©Mattel 2011
24 Hour Comic Book Day Success
I am happy to report here that my participation in the 24 Hour Comic Book Day event, an international event, locally hosted by Carol and John's Comic Book Shop was a success. I was one of five people who actually completed a 24 page comic book in 24 hours, and that was out of about 17 people who participated at that location. I was the only person who remained for the entire 24 hours, so I feel like I get to wear an extra badge of honor with that one.
I am very proud of the work I did on the comic, and am very happy with the story. The comic will be submitted for consideration for publication in the 24 Hour Comic Book Day anthology published by Scott McCloud, and the comic will also be submitted to be included in the archives of the Ohio State University's Comic Book Library. Should the comic go to actual publication, I will be sure to post more updates on this website about it.
I want to say a very big thank you to the staff and team at Carol and John's Comic Book shop who were wonderfully supportive and encouraging. They brought in pizza for dinner and bagels for breakfast and were simply amazing.
One More For Wonder Woman Day III
Not only did I create my own piece of art for Wonder Woman Day III this year (see below), but Ray Caspio and I collaborated together on another piece like we did last year for Wonder Woman Day II.
This one, based on the ABC TV series starring Lynda Carter, has Private Etta Candy (played by Beatrice Colen) and Yeoman Diana Prince (Lynda Carter, of course), who we wanted to make sure were represented in the auction this year.
This illustration is available as 8 by 10 inch prints for $20 + $8 shipping on regular photo paper or $25 + $8 shipping on metallic photo paper, which I highly recommend for vastly superior quality. Please use the "Contact Me" form at the left to request one and inquire further about other pricing and size options.
Etta Figures it Out?
8.5″ x 11″ on Bristol Board
Ray Caspio: Pencils
Kevenn T. Smith: Inks and Colors (Prismacolor)
Wonder Woman, Diana Prince and Etta Candy ©DC Comics 2011
24 Hour Comics Day Challenge
I will be participating in the 24 Hour Comics Day Challenge at my local comic shop, Carol And John's Comic Book Shop beginning at Noon on Saturday October 18 and ending Noon Sunday October 19. The deal is that you are locked in the store for 24 hours and that's the time you have to write and produce a 24 page comic book. Nothing can be on paper beforehand.
Visitors are allowed at the store until the store closes at 7:00 (so stop by and say hi if you can!) and our progress will be posted on a blog available through Carol and John's. It's a challenge, but I'm up to it!
The Last Two Artcards
I am back from Mid-Ohio-Con, and I had a lot of success there. It was really great to meet some of the comic fans out there and fellow artists. Mid-Ohio-Con was an incredibly amazing experience for me that I learned a lot from. There were two other artcards I was able to finish right before I went to Mid-Ohio-Con that I wanted to post here.
He-Man and Orko:
She-Ra and Swift Wind:
He-Man, Orko, She-Ra, and Swift Wind ©Mattel 2011
Art For Mid-Ohio-Con Part 2
Here are more of the artcards that I will be selling at Mid-Ohio-Con this weekend, along with prints of some of the work in my Illustration Gallery:
Superman:
Wonder Woman:
Donna Troy as Wonder Girl:
Supergirl (I wanted to capture the feeling of the aerial ballet in the Supergirl movie starring Helen Slater.):
Green Lantern:
Batgirl:
Nightwing:
Flamebird (based on International Supermodel and D-Listed.com's Hot Slut of the Year 2007, Phoebe Price):
