{"id":59,"date":"2013-06-22T15:44:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-22T15:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/?p=59"},"modified":"2013-06-22T16:02:05","modified_gmt":"2013-06-22T16:02:05","slug":"process-superman-illustration-for-akron-comicon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/?p=59","title":{"rendered":"Process: Superman Illustration for Akron Comicon"},"content":{"rendered":"

The theme for November 9th’s Akron Comicon<\/a> will be 75 Years of Superman. For that occasion I’ve created this color illustration.<\/p>\n

\"Superman\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here’s the genesis of the piece:<\/p>\n

\"Supermanpencil\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At this year’s Phoenix Comicon I overheard two artists talking about the difficulty of depicting Superman. The problem is that he has a sky blue costume and is constantly flying against a blue sky background. This idea for this illustration immediately revealed itself to me. I’d use that element as a strength, rather than a weakness.<\/p>\n

I began this drawing as I’ve described these other process drawings, rough sketch, flip the paper over to do a tighter pencil on a lightbox, then flip it back over to ink.<\/p>\n

\"Supermanink\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I gave everything a contour line except for his costume to really make it blend into the background. Note the missing eyes, like a painted religious icon where a conqueror gouged out the eyes.<\/p>\n

\"Supermancolorseps\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On a separate sheet of typing paper I lightboxed a line drawing to indicate areas of color to make the color-flatting process easier in photoshop. This saves me from having to click-click-click an outline around every shape.<\/p>\n

\"Superman\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The end result presents Superman as an aspirational sky god. The “painted on” eyes hint at similar flourishes in Hindu statuary. The absence of the costume suggests a universality, but maybe also an emptiness to the character.<\/p>\n

I keep trying to stifle my fannish impulse. I strive to be an iconoclast, not a pious delineator of illuminated manuscripts.<\/p>\n

I can’t stop myself. I love comics, and superhero comics most of all.<\/p>\n

As with previous process posts, I’m selling the original artwork on my Etsy page. Click here to purchase:\u00a0www.etsy.com\/listing\/154719261\/superman-drawing-by-tom-scioli?<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Supermanproduction\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The fictional character Superman is tm and copyright DC Comics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The theme for November 9th’s Akron Comicon will be 75 Years of Superman. For that occasion I’ve created this color illustration. Here’s the genesis of the piece: At this year’s Phoenix Comicon I overheard two artists talking about the difficulty of depicting Superman. The problem is that he has a sky blue costume and is … Continue reading Process: Superman Illustration for Akron Comicon<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,14,16,13,10],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-akron-comicon","tag-man-of-steel","tag-process","tag-superman","tag-tom-scioli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions\/61"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.tomscioli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}