Creating a Graphic Novel : Art – Food – Photography

A sexy Tigra piece of original art by featured artist Di Amorim. Currently on sale on eBay but that’s not too much time left if you want to get a bid in. Remember to bid high and bid often! Not sure what the fascination with women and cats are . . think Catwoman, Black Cat etc.

Tigra :

Was passed this invited by featured writer David Doub. Unfortunately I can’t make it but if you’ve in the area be sure to check it out!

I recently showcased Frankie Washington’s sketch card on Thor set. Today’s showcase is Frank Kadar‘s artwork on the upcoming (23-Mar-11) Marvel Dangerous Divas set from Rittenhouse Archives. Each are unique and one coloured sketch card is available per box.

Would love to hear your thoughts on which card from Frank you liked best.

Previous featured artist Sara Richard is also providing some artwork for this set. Look out for some of her stuff.

Last year it was Summer Glau but in 2011, I had the opportunity to meet Laura Vandervoort of V (Lisa) and Smallville (Supergirl) fame during a recent convention. I haven’t really started Season 2 of V yet but it’s next on my list.

On another note I’ve been making my way through 80+ issues of The Walking Dead (Kirkman). It’s probably the most engaging and frightening series that I’ve read in a while. The fear is more the how far humanity can collapse under a huge external threat which in this case are flesh eating zombies.

As a follow up to previous post with Chris, I thought it’d be cool to put his Hellboy showcase as a iPhone lock screen wallpaper. Enjoy!

Featured artist Di Amorim has some eBay Auctions currently running. I’m showcasing some of the highlights of his work (click on the picture to be taken to the auction), with the Supergirl sketch being especially sexy! Remember this is original artwork so there’s only one chance to own it. Bid high and bid often!

Supergirl :

Red Monica :

Men in Black (MIB) :

With a planned release date of 15 March 2011, Upper Deck is releasing the card set to tie with the upcoming Thor movie (6 May release). Featured artist Frankie Washington has kindly provided a scoop of what the set contains as well as provided a showcase of his incredible work. You might be lucky enough to pick up one of his artwork! (My favourite card is below.)

Set information :

• Each box will have 24 packs of seven cards.
• Base card set of 90 cards

Costume cards 1 in 12 packs
Confirmed pieces include a shirt and cape from Thor (Chris Hemsworth), pants worn by Natalie Portman as Jane Foster and some of Anthony Hopkins’ “leathers” as Odin.

Film cell cards 1 in 24 packs.

Sketch cards 1 in 48 packs.
Sketch cards will be based on Thor comics rather than movie.

Autograph cards 1 per Case.
No list of signers have been announced as of yet, but in the past Upper Deck has done a solid job 0f landing a name or two of top talent such as Don Cheadle and Mickey Rourke for Iron Man 2. Potentials include Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman or Anthony Hopkins but nothing confirmed yet.

More sketch cards by Frankie Washington!
Would love to hear your thoughts on which ones you liked.

On another note, Sigmatestudio now has a Facebook page! It’ll showcase some preview art before it hits the main site. Please feel free to “like” this page.

I featured a very cool Hellboy by Ohio based Chris Staggs yesterday. In this post is a showcase of some of this sketch work (incredible!), an amazing Zombie cover and a Batman montage!

Sketches :


Zombie Cover :


Batman Montage :

Thanks for letting me ask you a few questions. So tell me a little about yourself.

I love art, all types, comics especially but animation also, fine art and sculpting too. Like a lot of artists I have a good amount of art books, it’s actually burdensome at times lugging them around all the places I’ve lived but they are a good source of inspiration. I also have two of the best cats ever that keep me on my toes while I’m working.

Besides art what do you do for fun?

For fun I don’t need to do much, I’m pretty laid back and I’m easily amused. I see a lot of movies with my girlfriend, going out to eat, playing fetch with the cats, going to the zoo during the winter and during the summer I go to Zoombeezie a lot with my lady. I love anything out doors really so if it’s nature related I’m up for it. The last and greatest of all things fun for me is watching MMA/UFC, It’s a sickness really, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Once you get sucked in there’s no escape, two words “Showtime kick”, amazing!

MMA is great although I have to admit I’m a little bit of sucker for the theater that is “professional wrestling”. Anyway, I always like to throw this question in. How would you describe your artwork?

I would describe my artwork as visual Bacon (I love Bacon). It’s a little bit salty, kind of meaty but mostly greasy. I would hope that it’s fun to look at, eventually I want it to be clever and in my head at least it’s very rhythmic, I’m still working on this last one.

Are you self taught?

I am absolutely not self taught, I’ve graduated the Joe Kubert School and most recently the Academy Of Art University in San Francisco. I studied comics at the Kubert school and traditional illustration at the Academy.

The Kubert school is definitely well recognised. Is there any artist that inspire you?

I have a bunch of artist’s that I like, I don’t know if many come through in my work but I really like, JC Leyendecker, Mignola, Mucha, Wendling, Benoit Springer, Toppi, Dennis Bodart, Fechin, Sebastion Kruger, Marcelo Vignali, Carlos Meglia, the Creature box guys, the Blag Frog Studios guy, and Tan Eng Huat, I could go on forever but those are a few artist’s that I like.

So how’s your work progressing? Is there any of published work out there?

I have a few published so far, two full issues of Deadpool Team UP and one ten page story in Deadpool Team Up 900. I also did a short sequence of storyboards in an animated Monkey King movie. That’s it so far, I’m a newbie.

To have published something for one of the big 2 is incredible! What is your process for pencilling?

My process is pretty simple, for comics I read the script, make a few small doodles of panels as I read. Next I’ll reread the script and do my layouts digitally on a Cintique. Then I’ll print them out in blue on to the final Bristol board and do the finished lines over top of my printed layouts. If I’m inking myself the first two steps are the same and the last step is a combination of tightening up some areas of the drawing and then inking them or if I’m comfortable I’ll go straight to the inking phase.

Thanks for your time and answering the questions. Wish you all the best in the future.

For more of Chris’s work check out the below links :

• DeviantArt
• Portfolio
• Blog

For commission information please email Chris directly at chrisrstaggs [at] gmail.com

A sneak preview for upcoming featured artist Chris Staggs. The full interview will be posted up soon so keep watching this space. In the mean time though, a very blue Hellboy!

I had previously showcased some of Randy Kintz’s eBay work, however I always had a soft spot for Zatanna. (Click on the below picture to be taken directly to the eBay auction. Remember to bid high and bid often if you like it!)

Zatanna :