Sunday, February 17, 2008

Joking around


I've been thinking about the Joker a lot lately, must be something to do with the upcoming Batman movie. So I did something that I very rarely do: I drew a picture.

I remember reading a while back about how Jim Lee approached a sketch he did, painting the paper black and then working in white out on top of the black. It sounded like an interesting process so that's what I tried to do. I laid down a large black area, then blocked out the white of the face/hair and contour of the shoulders with pentel white out. Then I took a brush and tried to add features and rendering in black over the white, so the finished drawing is three layers (in some areas five or six as I kept whiting out and trying to correct my many mistakes)and weighs about a pound.

Maybe I should have tried to pencil it first.

The moral to the story is I'm no Jim Lee. But here's my attempt, warts and all, for the world to make fun of. No false modesty here, there's a reason I spent so many years inking and not pencilling. I could always say it sucks because Tom Nguyen has my good brushes in a box in the trunk of his car but that would just be making excuses.

You know who would draw a really kick ass Joker? Doug Mahnke!

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Keith, Seriously that is a kick-ass drawing!!! FYI - I miss seeing you around on the con-circuit.

David.

Anonymous said...

Keith, wow man! That is absolutely wicked! Thanks for showing us.

SallyP said...

That is an amazing Joker. I really like the starkness of the heavy blacks.

And yes, Doug Mahnke would indeed do a very nice Joker. But so do you.

keith champagne said...

Holy guacomole, Dave Vinson!! What a great surprise name to see pop up, it's been way too long! Are you still at Mile High, Dave? Hope life is well.

Chris, I (finally) read your script over the weekend. It was really good. I'll try to type up and shoot you my notes this week, but nice job!

Thanks, Sally!

Ryan Schrodt said...

Very cool, Keith! That is a really awesome approach to the sketch and, like Sally said, the heavy blacks are a perfect fit for a Joker drawing. I totally dig it.

Brad Brown said...

Looks great to me. I haven't seen much of your orignal art, so that's always a treat. Speaking of wanting stuff...we never did finish the "Broken Master" storyline here at the blog.

Jamal Igle said...

It comes down to shameless plugging, how low.... Tangent:Superman's Reign starting in Marc...wow it is easy. Seriously though that's a really cool peice of work, Keith!

Anonymous said...

Ah cool! Thanks a lot man, appreciate that! :D

PAT said...

Thats really awesome! for some reason I love how you did the bow tie, kind of an almost wonky/spiral
I want to see more!
NOW!

keith champagne said...

hey keith that is really a great joker.the apple doesent fall far from the tree.love you.