Sandman 01

In the realm of entertainment, there are a lot of characters called Sandman, or referred to as some sort of sand person...I started drawing one, and then more and more started popping up....so I did 4 total.  This was back in 2009 for a gallery show I had at Nickelodeon.

Squaremania: Green Lantern

It's Green Lantern...squared!  Evil Doers turn into fraidy clucking chickens at the sight of  Lil' square Green Lantern.

I did this illustration based on the Hal Jordan Green Lantern (at least his costume from the comics...I don't think Hal Jordan was ever this shape).  I was going to give him a six pack but Ryan Reynolds proved (by sporting them in the Green Lantern movie trailer) that it looked rather silly.

And anyway - Green Lantern was never about the muscles, but rather flying around, being an intergalactic superhero and fighting all things yellow.

Squaremania - lil' Batman

A couple of years ago I went to the Vinyl Toy Network (which has since been renamed Designer Con) which was a convention for some really cool art and toys.

I was getting things ready for an art gallery I was doing (summer of 2009 at Nickelodeon Animation in Burbank) and decided that one portion of my gallery would be popular characters in my style, that a series of vinyl toys could be based on.  Out of that I did a lot of characters from Marvel, DC to Freddy Krueger and IG88 (a robot bounty hunter from Star Wars).  They were all a sort of bobble headed kid versions.

For that same gallery I was exploring square animals which eventually turned into Squaremania.  And I had always wanted to do some human characters as well, but just ran out of time for the gallery...and since I had such a good response to the animals, I kept going in that direction.

Over the christmas break I did a couple of rough sketches and decided that it would be fun to do a series of Squaremania versions of my favorite superheroes.

First up is Batman:

I'm going to add a different background to better suit the character...but since I just finished painting him, I thought I'd put him up on the blog.

Batman also fit's this weeks Illustration Friday topic of "resolutions" - as we all know, when his parents were murdered he resolved to dress up and run around in tights to avenge their death.

Squaremania: Batman

Way back when I originally started drawing animals in the squaremania style - I had wanted to do some human characters as well.  I was preparing a gallery show and ran out of time...so the only things that existed, at that time, were the animals.  At the time I was working on a napoleon drawing - but it never went anywhere...

Anyway - I was looking at a toy magazine today at the bookstore and saw a bunch of DC comic heroes and decided they'd be a good fit for Squaremania - so I'm starting with Batman...and I'll see about getting to the other characters...

The Sandman: from DC's Vertigo

Now, I'm pretty sure this guy's name isn't The Sandman - so maybe I should have named it differently...maybe he doesn't even deserve to be involved in the Sandman group...his name, I believe, is Morpheus. But he's the main character in a comic called The Sandman - so that counts. Close enough, anyway.

This one is a little bit different than the other ones, because I've decided to develop the hands a little bit more. Previously I left the fingers off completely (or, in the case of the godzilla, I drew little stubby claws), but I feel like the line of characters is evolving. Who knows, maybe one of them will stand up soon...but probably not - I did these drawings specifically with them in a sitting pose because I wanted it to look like a doll or stuffed toy that's propped up. I wanted it to have life and dimension, but the also needed to have that stillness and familiarity that would lead to the view to see them as incredibly cute.



All that's left is the Sandman from the spiderman comics...