Turtle Heart

This year for Christmas, I bought my wife an iPad Mini and made her this custom wallpaper background for it. (She loves turtles.)

Below is the original colored version with a brown shell, but I later changed it because I thought the green one looked better.

 

--Brent

Green Lantern

I'm notoriously bad at working with color. I almost loathe it, but I know that in order to progress as an artist, coloring will need to become a part of my skill set.

After thinking it over for a while, I decided to do a black & white image with a single color (baby steps!), and what better character to start with than a character who has a color in his name: Green Lantern!

This is pretty rare, but this drawing turned out nearly exactly how I pictured it in my head. As you can see, there's no black outlines on the character, which allowed me to explore the negative space more than traditional line art allows. Also, this was my first experience using Prisma Color pens and I think it turned out fairly well.

I really enjoyed working on this and plan on doing more. Stay tuned!
--Brent

The Complete Superhero Alphabet

 Here is the Superhero Alphabet in it's entirety. Feel free to Tweet or Share these. Hopefully this'll make learning the alphabet way more fun for kids! Special thanks to my lovely wife (@BrandyHibbard) for coloring most of these for me.

Also, if you're not aware, I do a weekly webcomic with Austin Wilson & David Hopkins of the Hideous Energy podcast called "Super Cute". Go check it out at SuperCuteComic.com and follow me on Twitter: @BrentHibbard.

Thanks again everyone! And now for a short break...
--Brent

Z is for Zatanna

Here we are, the final letter.

Zatanna is one of DC Comics' most prominent magicians. She was a long time Justice League member and enjoys wearing fishnet stockings, both of which I approve of. Zatanna was probably the most difficult character for me to draw. I went through about 5 different poses and drew her face about 10 times. And her hair and top hat kicked my ass. I'd never drawn Zatanna before, but I think it came out alright.  I ended up coloring this one while my wife was working on some of the other letters.

Well, that's all of the superhero alphabet. For those of you who have been checking in daily, I thank you. Tomorrow, I'll post all of the letters together so that they're all in one spot.

Thanks again, everyone!
--Brent

Y is for Yellowjacket

  Yellowjacket is another superhero that began as a different character. Originally I had Yoda from Star Wars  in his place (see below), but changed it at the last minute to keep the entire alphabet in the realm of superheroes.

Hank Pym, aka Yellowjacket, has gone by several superhero names, including Ant-Man, Giant Man, and a male version of the Wasp. I prefer some of the other costumes, but hey, I needed someone with a name that began with "Y".

Oh, and I colored this one, by the way.

That's all for today. Come back tomorrow for our final letter!
--Brent

X is for X-Men

Some quick notes about today's letter:

-This is the second team of characters to make an appearance (the Fantastic Four was the first). In hindsight, I probably should have used the Justice League for the letter J. Crap.
-You'll notice that Wolverine, arguably the most popular X-Man, is absent from this group of characters. That's because he was featured on the previous letter W and drawing his mask once was already a pain in the ass.
-I think the X-Men look a little weird here. I was trying to combine my superhero and cartoon styles (because again, this was for an infant), but it ended up making them look goofy. Hopefully it looks good to children, though.
-I really struggled with cramming these characters in here, and I think you can tell. The pencils looked a little better, but not much. I had originally planned to add more characters than this, but I had to cut them because I was running out of time.
-It was difficult to find color reference for my wife on their costumes, as there have been many variations on them (from what I understand, they will change again in October of 2012). She did a pretty good job, though.

That's all for this week. If you've just recently started checking out this blog, scroll through brenthibbardart.blogspot.com to check out some of art that you may have missed!

See you Monday!
--Brent

W is for Wolverine & Wonder Woman

This is another cross-company pairing, with Wolverine belonging to Marvel & Wonder Woman owned by DC Comics.

I've drawn Wolverine before and every time I struggle with his mask. Maybe one day I'll figure it out.  My wife and I originally had the dark gray on his costume colored blue, but we couldn't get it to look right. I haven't drawn Wonder Woman very many times, but she turned out okay. I have her wearing her New 52 costume, which I like. The darker red along with the silver looks iconic to me. All in all, I really enjoyed drawing both of these characters

That's all for now. See you tomorrow!
--Brent

V is for the Vision

The Vision is an android built by one of the Avengers greatest enemies, Ultron. The Vision later defeated Ultron's programming and eventually became an Avenger himself. Not long after joining, he married one of his female teammates. That's right: A robot married a human. That's fucking progressive, Marvel Comics.

Evidently the Vision has multiple color schemes, which I noticed when I told my wife that she colored him incorrectly and she showed me a reference photo that she found online. After arguing for 175 years, I switched the colors around real quick and we moved on without divorcing each other.

Meet me back here tomorrow for "W"!
--Brent

U is for Union Jack

Union Jack is not very well know by most people and I'm probably not doing his popularity any favors with this one. This is one of the last characters that I drew for this project, so I rushed through the art process on him. There are a number of things wrong with this illustration of him but rather than point all of them out, I'm just going to move on with my life and possibly become an alcoholic.

See you at the bar.
--Brent

T is for Thor

This is my first shot at drawing the god of thunder, it turned out fairly decent. Decent enough that one of my friends asked me to draw a Thor picture for them, so I suppose that's good. Again, my wife kicked ass on colors. Look at that lightning bolt!

Gotta run. See you tomorrow for "U"!
--Brent

S is for Superman & Spider-Man

"S" was by far the easiest letter to come up with a superhero for. Spider-Man & Superman are the most popular heroes for Marvel and DC Comics, respectively, thus, this was a no-brainer. Either one would have worked by themselves, but I'd feel weird excluding the other.

I absolutely love drawing Spider-Man and hope to do it professionally one day. I haven't drawn Superman very many times, but I think he looks okay here (special thanks to Emery Peck-- @onecheekwonder on Twitter-- for the advice on Supes!). Superman is in his New 52 costume, which most people dislike, but I dig it.

Oh, and making the shades of blue on each heroes costume different was entirely my wife's choice and I think it looks wonderful. Good job, babe!

All in all, this is probably my favorite of the character letters.

Let's meet back here on Monday for "T"!
--Brent

R is for Raphael

Surely by now you realize that I love the Ninja Turtles, so there's not a whole lot to get into here. Raphael has always been my favorite turtle. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was because he was so sarcastic in the 80's cartoon or maybe it was because he was a major badass in the first live-action TMNT movie, but either way, I would like to own a pair of sais (Raph's weapon of choice). If you or a loved one own a pair, please mail them to me.

That is all.
--Brent

Q is for the Question

The Question is another character I had never drawn before, but I really had fun illustrating him. He wears a mask that obscures his facial features so that was tricky, but nowhere near as difficult as drawing his hat. (Hats are a pain in the ass for me to draw for some reason.) Recently in the comics, the Question has been portrayed as a female, but since DC's reboot, I'm not sure which gender this character is supposed to be, so I went with the classic version. I had originally intended for the giant question mark behind him to look like smoke, but time constraints prevented that from happening.


That's all for now. See you tomorrow for "R"!
--Brent

P is for Power Girl

Power Girl is Superman's cousin from a parallel universe. Also, she has a hole in her costume to show off her cleavage. You may think this is inappropriate for a toddler to look at while learning his alphabet, but the alternate character I had listed for this letter was the Punisher, who has a skull on his chest AND KILLS PEOPLE. Since most babies are breastfed, I'd assume that they've experienced breasts already anyway.

Power Girl's costume had been updated in the comics by the time I drew this, but I liked this Amanda Conner design outfit better, especially the gloves. (I guess I never really noticed how well some of these costumes were designed until I drew them myself.) Power Girl has shorter hair than most other superheroines, but I'm not sure I pulled it off very well. (NOTE TO SELF: Get better at drawing hair!) I did the colors on this one myself, which I think turned out pretty well, even if they are flat.

That's all for today. Meet me back here tomorrow for "Q"!
--Brent

O is for O.M.A.C.

(Colors by me)

"O.M.A.C. - The world's most popular superhero!" These are words that you will never hear anyone say.

Who is O.M.A.C.? Even most diehard comic fans aren't entirely sure. He was created by the legendary Jack "King" Kirby in 1974 and has been reinvented several times, most recently in the DC Comics New 52 series "O.M.A.C." I thought the series sounded dumb at first, but after I read it, I enjoyed it quite a bit, which is why O.M.A.C. made this list. He's essentially DC's version of the Hulk, only more technology based.

O.M.A.C. wasn't my first choice for this letter. Initially I drew Optimus Prime (see below), as he was the most popular character I could think of, but at the last minute I changed it because he didn't originally come from comics. Thus our blue pal with the mohawk replaced him!

See you guys tomorrow for "P"!
--Brent

N is for Nova

Nova is another character that most people probably aren't too familiar with, but with him currently being featured in the new Ultimate Spider-Man animated series and making an appearance in Marvel's big summer comic book event series "Avengers VS. X-Men", his profile is sure to rise. Plus, there's a chance that he could spin out of Marvel's 2014 film, "Guardians of the Galaxy", though that's pure speculation on my part.

 Some quick notes:
 -My wife hated coloring the trail behind Nova, but she did a good job.
-An alternate character choice for this letter was Nightwing (Dick Grayson, an adult version of Robin, Batman's first sidekick), but I thought Nova would be more colorful for a child.
-By the time this art was finished, Nova's costume was redesigned in the comics, but I wasn't too bummed out since this represents his classic look (plus he looks the same in the cartoon).

That's all for this week. See you Monday for "O"!
--Brent

M is for Michelangelo

There are three things in life that I am sure of:

1.You must pay taxes.
2.You will eventually die.
3.Michelangelo is a party dude.

Seriously, imagine going to a kegger with this guy. Not only is he a giant turtle, but he has nunchucks! It would absolutely be the greatest night of your life, despite the fact that he beat the shit out of 2 of your friends and pissed in your refrigerator.

Michelangelo: The Jersey Shore before there was a Jersey Shore.

See you tomorrow!
--Brent

L is for Leonardo

It's no secret that I'm an enormous fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so naturally Leonardo was my first choice for the letter "L". I had originally wanted to have each of the turtles paired up with another superhero (as seen on "D" with Donatello and Daredevil), but sadly, due to time constraints, the other three turtles are flying solo. It's a shame, too, because I really wanted to add Luke Cage to this letter.

The child that I did this project for is named Liam and I really wanted the letter "L" to be special, and really, it doesn't get any better than Leonardo who represents focus, honor, and determination. Also: HE HAS FUCKING SWORDS!!! (A quick shout-out to my wife for the awesome coloring on Leo's sword!)

See you guys tomorrow for the letter "M"! Hmm, I wonder who that could be...
--Brent

K is for Ka-Zar

"Who the hell is Ka-Zar" or "I think you misspelled 'Tarzan'" might be a couple of things running through your mind right now, but rest assured, Ka-Zar is a real comic book character. He's essentially Marvel's version of Tarzan, but the main differences are that he has a smokin' hot wife, a pet sabre-toothed tiger (Zabu, pictured above), and lives in a secret part of Antarctica called the Savage Land where dinosaurs still roam.

Suck it, Tarzan.

I really had to rack my brain to come up with a character for this letter. I checked online databases for comic book heroes, and Ka-Zar was actually the most popular, which shows you how important the 11th letter is when it comes to naming characters.

Oh, and it wasn't until after my wife colored this that I realized that Ka-Zar appears naked and also possibly like he might be humping Zabu. Sorry, child-that-I-drew-this-for!

See you tomorrow!
--Brent

J is for Jonah Hex

The most difficult part of the alphabet for me to come up with characters for was the trifecta of J, K, & L. I was eventually able to come up with one I liked for L, but J & K required more effort and ultimately resulted in me using fairly obscure characters. Today's entry, Jonah Hex, has at least starred in a feature film (2010's Jonah Hex). If that still doesn't ring any bells for you, don't worry because no one saw it. NO ONE.

Anyway, I actually had a lot of fun illustrating Mr. Hex. I've never drawn Jonah before, so it was a nice surprise. Normally I'd imagine that drawing cowboys would get boring, but there's something about the combination of his scarred face and wild-west attire that kept me interested. That cowboy hat took me a while to figure out, though.

That's all for today. See you guys tomorrow for a super obscure "K"!
--Brent

I is for Iron Man

 First of all, I'd like to bestow a Medal of Honor--and possibly a Nobel Peace Prize--to the artists who have drawn Iron Man in the past. This one was a BITCH to illustrate. His helmet has a very specific look to it and I found it difficult to put on the page. Once I had his helmet how I liked it, I had to draw his torso, which was an entirely different pain in my ass. I ended up using various references from the comics and films to come up with this version of his armor. The main reason for that is because Tony Stark changes armors so often, that whatever I drew would end up being outdated in a few months anyway, so why not take bits and pieces from here and there? Hopefully this looks iconic enough that people will still identify him as Iron Man (and if not, his name is right next to him).

I think my wife got annoyed with me when she colored this one because there wasn't one specific reference for what was supposed to be red and what was supposed to be gold, but we made it through without getting a divorce, so that's good.

I'll meet you guys back here on Monday for "J"!
--Brent

H is for Hulk

Out of all of the characters that I drew for this project, this is probably my least favorite. I just could not get his facial features to look right. I feel like the only reason he looks like the Hulk is because he's green (I also colored this one, by the way). I've drawn somewhat decent pictures of the Hulk in the past, but it just wasn't happening this time.

*sigh* You can't win them all...

--Brent