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I don't have much, this time around, I was running into the deadline
with nothing, when I got an email about a new commission. This guy
has had one commission from me already and I like the way he thinks.
A few years ago, I had all but given up on commissions, because I'd
become tired of doing one Wonder Woman bondage pic after another. It
grew tedious, after awhile. Lately, however, the commissions I've received had been more interesting for me. I did one guy's City of Heroes characters, which was fairly fun. But the most fun for me was Kevin's Crime Syndicate of America versus the U-Foes, based on an old George Perez Teen Titans cover with one of those classic team face-off layouts. It was the first cover, and so far only one, where I've used my new printer to print the lettering directly onto the art board.
 I always enjoy getting a chance to tackle characters I've never drawn before and will almost always jump at the chance to do the classic Crime Syndicate. The U-Foes were never even on my radar, as Hulk villains, I just had no real interest in them. It made for an interesting combination, and the characters slotted nicely into the places of the Titans and the DNAgents analogs they were facing off against. I also completed it in record time, for me, 4, maybe 5 hours, all-told. That's when you know you're having fun, when everything's going well, you just keep working and get it done. I usually take several breaks from a large piece, to stretch my arms and such. I worked non-stop on this and when I was done, I wanted to keep going. I wish everything worked like that. So, Kevin emails me the other day with an idea to use the layout of a Spider-Man cover with the Sinister Six (Spider-Man Special #6) for the Spiderwoman commission. It'll be Spiderwoman and six villains, to be her Sinister Six, sort of. I decided to play around with the costume designs for my column, as a bit of a warm-up exercise, with these characters. The villains are Shocker, the Fly, Tarantula, Hobgoblin, Swarm and Puma. Hobgoblin is the only one I didn't make any changes to, his look is perfect, already. I did my own twist on the glider, though.
 Starting on the left, with Shocker, I beefed up his gear a little, making the shock-blasters so they fully enclose his hands. The end cap opens to allow use of the hands and I went for a full helmet, because head injuries suck and would seem to be a workplace hazard for super-villains. Next up, the Fly. This is one of those villains you just can't like. It's hard to like a fly, after all. I kept as much of his costume as I could, just stretching the arrow tops of the boots and gloves, and reworked the chest-piece and made the mask cover his entire face. I always liked Tarantula, the red and black color scheme is very striking. I only had one problem with him, those goofy toe-points, I didn't change much on his costume, just redesigned the gloves, and gave him two "fangs" on each foot. I'm determined, at some point to build a 3-d model of my version of Hobgoblin's glider. With Swarm, all I did was lose the white gloves. He's a walking swarm of mutant bees, why's he wearing gloves, anyway? I hope they have him show up in the Avengers cartoon, at some point. I think he should walk like a zombie, with jerky movements and gestures. And last is Puma. I think I read the issue where he first appeared, though it was so long ago, it's hard to say. All I did with him was shorten his pants a little. Bike shorts are okay, but capri pants on men . . . it's just not on. I haven't started the commission, yet, this was just a warm-up, for me, and it worked nicely into a column. That's all for now . . .
See more of my stuff at . . .
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