THE BOY & DR. POGO by Neil Tavares

Ok, so I know absolutely nothing about these guys. I just know that they are both smart from what I can tell. As well as the kid seems to have some blood on his hands from one way or another. Mind you, I really like Dr. Pogo, he was a lot of fun to hash out here. Seeing the style of the book, I decided to switch up the style a little bit and have something a bit more gritty, and blocky. I really like the turn out. Hope you all do too. Cheers all.

-Neil

SPACEBOY by Gerard de la Costa

When Selena came up with the idea of assigning each of us a member of the Umbrella Academy to put our spin on, I couldn't have been happier with Spaceboy because that's the one I would've picked for myself (truthfully, I'd have been giggling like a little schoolgirl drawing any of them - the character designs are just too much fun!).

A human head grafted onto a gigantic gorilla's body fighting alien robots: a typical Tuesday for Spaceboy.

-Gerard

RUMOR by Meaghan Carter

I was really trying to nail the gesture of Rumor 'zipping' her lips closed, or at least trying to say 'my lips are sealed'; something I thought would be cute for the character. I've been staring at this for so long that I have no idea if it was successful haha. Went for simple, playful expression.

-meaghan!

KRAKEN by Michael Walsh

Selena picked Kraken for me which is actually 100% the character I would have picked from The Umbrella Academy anyways. The first time I read Umbrella Academy it really swept me away. It was some kind of lovechild between Grant Morrison, Mike Mignola, H.P. Lovecraft and the X-men, I couldn't get enough. If you guys enjoy any of the above-mentioned things you should definitely check out the series.

I am super, crazy busy this week so I decided to go pretty simple here. Messed around with some negative space and some dry brushing as well.

-Michael

HORROR by Ken House

My character this week is Umbrella Academy's Horror (00. 06). Horror's ribcage may or may not be a portal for extra-dimensional creatures. It's a bit of a mystery as he doesn't spend a lot of time in the spotlight or get much exposition, but thanks to the various things that pop out of his chest, he stars in movies that play when we sleep.

-Ken

WHITE VIOLIN by David Cutler

This week is going to be a little different here at Spitballin', kids. It's Selena's pick, and instead of us all doing the same character as per usual, we'll each be doing a different member of Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba's Umbrella Academy. (Seven of us and seven of them, it works out pretty good.) I get to kick things off with Number 7, White Violin. One of my absolute favorite designs from the series, I decided to get spoileriffic and commemorate her first big moment in the book when she gets all final formy and starts killing peeps all over the place.

Umbrella Academy week is gonna be a fun one, and a nice change of pace!

-David

STARFIRE by Meaghan Carter

It looks like I'm batting clean up this week. Starfire is one of those characters that make me feel embarrassed when my parents come over and I've left my comics out. I can't pretend to like her costume. However- I love the comet fire hair, and I do love her character. She's a strong girl with a big heart. And that's what makes it hard to stay mad at her.

-meaghan!

STARFIRE by Neil Tavares

To be honest, I have never really known much about Starfire. I know she shoots stuffm green stuff... I also think she has super strength as well. Meh, I know people like to draw her all hot and stuff... and the cartoon has a number of fans who like... uhmm... let's say... less tasteful representations of the character.

Even so she looks neat, and I had fun drawing her.

-Neil

STARFIRE by Gerard de la Costa

Anyone who's familiar with my art knows I likes to draw the ladies (Adam Hughes, Dave Stevens, Frank Cho are just some of the "good girl" artists that have influenced me) and since this was my week to pick, I tried to go for the unexpected choice.

I have no words of insight regarding my selection process; I really know nothing about Starfire and chose purely on aesthetics. She just seems like a fun character to draw (red hair, orange skin, purple suit: what's not to love?) and I really just wanted to see everyone's take.

I hope you're all enjoying the whole Spitballin' experience as much as I am.

-Gerard

STARFIRE by David Cutler

I have to confess, though part of me always wanted to like her, Starfire isn't exactly among my favorite characters. For starters, her hair turns into fire--that has to smell terrible. More than that, something about her (that something being everything) makes me think of a sort of monster you'd have nightmares about after staying up all night watching too much porn.

Initially I spent too much time trying to downplay those aspects of the character. But when I gave up and embraced it, I came to appreciate her bizarre fetishy uniqueness a bit more. Tons of characters are equally as pandery, they just make more of an effort to hide it. But not Starfire--there're no pretenses here. I guess in the end, some super-heroines are Wonder Woman, and some are metal-haired, spray-tanned pornstars from outer space.

-David

STARFIRE by Michael Walsh

Starfire has the honor of being the first woman ever Spitballed' by us, five men and two women. I'm actually not really too familiar with the Starfire character save for seeing her hopping about the DC universe and kissin' on Nightwing. However, I really do like her design and after Wikipedia-ing her... thought an image of her zipping through space might work for her character. Hope those Starfire enthusiasts out there don't mind my adaptation... I'm still not sure if she can even breathe in space. Check out my solo BLOG for the lineart.

-Michael

STARFIRE by Ken House

It's Starfire week! Starfire's costume may seem immodest to earthlings but on planet Tamaran, everyone dresses that way. Vajazzling is very big there. Perhaps this turn in fashion took shape in part because Tamaranean eyes don't have pupils and therefore no one can tell where you're looking.

Starfire is also our first female character, so I'm especially looking forward to seeing the rest of the entries this week.

-Ken

HELLBOY by Gerard de la Costa

I'm the kind of artist that likes to leave things to the last minute (translation: lazy) and you'll come to find out that most of my postings will be just under the wire. In all fairness, my tardiness this week wasn't so much laziness as it was lack of inspiration. Trying to find that right pose that will do Hellboy justice was not as easy as I thought it would be and I struggled with it for a few days; I'm not sure if I'm happy with the final outcome but here it is, warts and all.

Fyi, most of my posts will be in pencils, sometimes inked. Maybe. I promised myself that I'd work on more marker renderings to compensate for my Photoshopophobia... we'll see.


-Gerard

HELLBOY by Adam Metcalfe

Here's an awesome guest post from Adam Metcalfe--he does a lot of colouring work for us, specifically Selena, Michael, Gerard and myself, so we're especially glad to show off his work on Spitballin'. You should check out Adam's blog and deviantart, too!

-David

Don't have a fancy write-up :P

-Adam

HELLBOY by Michael Walsh

Well, this week was my character so I thought I should put a little more time into my piece then I have previously. I decided to do this one page comic that is just a little anecdote about Hellboy.

I know everyone is saying this but the Hellboy comic book is unbelievable. It is always the best book on the stands and one of my biggest influences. I didn't know everyone in the group shared my love for the character, but really how could they not. I could write essays about how good this comic is. This has been the best week of Spitballin' yet, I'm proud to be a part of this group.

-Michael

HELLBOY by Neil Tavares

Hello all, So here is my version of old H.B. I have to say that when I first saw Mignola's work, I could not stand it. I thought it was waaaay to simple. Now, he is the greatest inspiration to all of my work. There is barely a project that I start where I don't start it by looking at my Art of Hellboy book. Mignola is a bloody genius, and H.B. stands to be my favorite comic book character of all time. Think about it, not even Batman has anything on the Big Red Ape, He just keeps coming! Thanks for your time, Cheers.

-Neil

HELLBOY by Meaghan Carter

Hey guys! I don't know if I can say anything much different than what everyone else has. The fact is: Hellboy is awesome. Just no getting around it. My favorite story is 'the wolves of st. august'. And I had a lot of fun pouring over my books to get some ideas.

- meaghan!

HELLBOY by Ken House

Hellboy!

I'm a big fan of Mignola and there's something about the design that's really fun to draw. It's shaping up to be a good week.

-Ken

HELLBOY by David Cutler

Big props to Michael for what I think is clearly the best Spitball pick so far--Hellboy might even be the first character we've done where all seven of us regular-types are big fans of the source material and count the creator as influential. Came along at a great time for me as well, as I'd been purposely trying to get some of the cartooniness out of my work recently and mostly hating the results. Luckily, HB's clean, iconic design was the perfect thing to ease me back into my default style and remind myself I'd prefer to be a cartoonist than a draftsman. Mike Mignola saves another life.

-David

CAPTAIN AMERICA by Gerard de la Costa

Just got back from a Mediterranean vacation late yesterday, opened the blog and saw that Captain America was the choice of the week. Damn! I couldn't pass that up given that he's one of my favourite heroes of all time (the red, white and blue, wings on the cowl, and that boomerang shield: what's not to love???). But somewhere down the line we're going to have to give "our home and native land" the props she deserves and do up a Canadian hero!

So despite battling jet lag and blowing the deadline here's my take on the good captain.

-Gerard

CAPTAIN AMERICA by Neil Tavares

So In light of recent events, I figured I would do a bit of a redesign on the old Capn'. Maybe have him leading the charge in a more modern military attire as opposed to the classical costume. Hope you all like.

-Neil

CAPTAIN AMERICA by Meaghan Carter

I'll admit I had a lot of trouble coming up with a good composition for Cap'n A here. It wasn't until I found a costume design from the movie (EDIT: David says design is actually from the ultimates haha. I guess I only assumed as much because the picture was in an article about the movie) that I really liked, that I started getting a better feel for the characters. I sort of had this idea of them dropping him in to the battle like a bomb. Taking this week to play around with spotting blacks again.

-Meaghan

CAPTAIN AMERICA by Michael Walsh

Great pick for this week by Neil. I'm a giant fan of Ed Brubakers Cap stuff and find the character extremely fun to draw. Had a lot of fun with this weeks pic and can't wait to see everyones rendition.  I went for a "Rally the troops" WW2 era cap. Next week is my pick and I have something extra special planned for my piece of artwork so definitely stay tuned.

- Michael

CAPTAIN AMERICA by David Cutler

Captain America and the Invaders. Sometimes I feel like Cap should have been Marvel's only costumed superhero fighting in World War II to have the impact he's meant to, and other times I feel like the Invaders are pretty cool, too. You certainly can't argue with Union Jack's costume, but how old is Prince Namor supposed to be, anyway?

And yeah, Wolverine's hanging out in the background there, because Canada was there, too, dammit.

Cap was an awesome pick for this week from Neil--I'm always pro Kirby characters!

-David

CAPTAIN AMERICA by Ken House

It's Cap and in honor of the film, he's packing heat! No, actually I started this as a drawing of Ultimate WW2 Cap and, once again seduced by a classic costume, I opted not to change the pose for the sake of gun drawing practice and slackerdom. This is a picture of a Steve Rogers who is making tough compromises.

Also, I went for a Kirby/Steranko vibe with the pose. It turned out dorky but that's alright.

-Ken