Early Super Cute Artwork

As I was saying in my last post, when I contacted Austin & David about working with them on their webcomic, they had me send over some art samples. I sent them the following to show them not only my art, but that I could tell a story using pictures. (And also that I fucking LOVE the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.)

This is style is quite a bit different than the style I use on Super Cute, but at the time, I had no idea what kind of story they were going for. I hadn't been given the gig as artist yet, but they seemed interested. Later, they told me that they'd like to base the strip on the characters that Liz Suburbia drew for them, as seen below.

I love Liz's drawing, but I had never drawn in a cartoony style. There would definitely be a learning curve. Below, you will find some of my earliest attempts at drawing the characters who would eventually become Bronson & Leonard.

The upper left drawing of Leonard and Bronson would be the closest I would ever come to drawing the characters as depicted by Liz Suburbia. Sorry, Liz! (NOTE: I was told later by Austin & David that the drawing of sad Bronson in the bottom right corner is what landed me the artist gig.)

Once on Hideous Energy, David mentioned himself yelling at a Furby, which I depicted Bronson (minus a nose, by the way) doing here.

Since Liz's original drawing had most of Bronson's body hidden behind the table, the guys and I kicked around the idea of giving Bronson exposed arms and legs. We decided to go with the Christmas Tree-look instead.

As a promotion piece for the webcomic, Austin requested that I draw the characters in the same poses as the Blues Brothers in the reference photo he sent me (top). My first attempt (middle) shows Bronson with furless arms. Later they had me redraw it to give Bronson fur-covered arms (bottom).

Random Character drawings.

 

What would eventually become my versions of Bronson & Leonard.

Sorry for unleashing all of that crappy art on you, but it's kind of fun to see the process of changing art styles. Also, it makes me feel better about some of the current strips I'm working on.

See you next time!

--Brent

Don't forget to check out brand new Super Cute strips every Wednesday over at supercutecomic.com and follow Super Cute and all of the creators on Twitter!

Super Cute - @SuperCuteComic
Austin Wilson - @austinRwilson
David Hopkins - @dc_hopkins
Liz Suburbia - @ElSub (Check out Liz Suburbia's webcomic, Sacred Heart at lizsuburbia.com)
Me -  @BrentHibbard

Hideous Energy - @HideousEnergy

Super Cute Origins

As some of you may know, I'm the artist for a webcomic called "Super Cute". The comic is written and lettered by Austin Wilson and David Hopkins from the Hideous Energy podcast. Since this is my art blog, I figured I'd use it to discuss various things from the webcomic, as that's what I'm best know for. This being the first of many Super Cute related blog posts, we might as well start with how Super Cute came to be.

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I've been a listener of Hideous Energy since it began. Austin and David are hilarious and have a great understanding of comics and how they're made.On one episode, they mentioned that they were interested in making a webcomic and asked any artists who might be listening to contact them. I gave it a week or two before I contacted them and sent them art samples. They seemed to like my stuff and offered me the artist position. To say I was excited would be an understatement. If I had immediate access to bottle rockets when I found out I got the gig, rest assured, there would've been some serious mayhem.

After conversing with Austin & David via email several times, they mentioned that they wanted to base the comic on characters that Liz Suburbia drew for their podcast. The drawing was originally Liz's take on how Austin & David looked while recording the podcast. Here's the drawing itself:

Looks awesome, right? These would be some mighty big shoes to fill, but I was definitely up for the challenge (even though I've yet to come close to meeting the high standard of quality art that she's put out). I sent Austin and David some sketches of what would eventually become Leonard and Bronson (which I'll show you in my next blog). With some minor tweaking on my part, we were off to the races. I was sent 7 or 8 scripts to illustrate while Austin & David built a website and came up with a name for our webcomic. The name "Super Cute" was chosen, which came from an episode of Hideous Energy where Austin meant to say something was "super pimp", but "super cute" came out of his mouth instead. It was very funny and seemed ironically fitting for a webcomic about muppet-esque characters who cuss a lot.

That's all for now. Like I mentioned above, my next blog will feature some of the early sketches I did for Bronson & Leonard. (Brace yourself because it's pretty awful.)

In the meantime, check out Liz Suburbia's awesome webcomic, Sacred Heart at lizsuburbia.com and buy some of her work!

Don't forget to check out brand new Super Cute strips every Wednesday over at supercutecomic.com and follow Super Cute and all of the creators on Twitter!

Super Cute - @SuperCuteComic
Austin Wilson - @austinRwilson
David Hopkins - @dc_hopkins
Liz Suburbia - @ElSub
Me -  @BrentHibbard


--Brent