comic artist Archives

Superheroine Strength: Marcio Takara’s Female Design Course

Marcio Takara: Female Character Design for Comics online course at Domestika

From Inspiration to Creation: Insights from Marcio Takara’s Female Design Class

I’m always looking for ways to better myself and my art. While on Facebook this week, I kept getting an ad for a figure class on Domestika taught by one of my favorite comic artists, Marcio Takara. I’ve been a fan of his for years, first discovering his artwork on Deviant Art and Tumbler. He’s drawn for both DC Comics and Marvel Comics. I really like his approach to drawing the female super-heroine form. Both feminine and strong at the same time.

I decided yes; I want to take this online course by Marcio Takara. The class name is Female Character Design for Comics. What’s very cool is that Marcio will actually look at and evaluate your character designs. The comic art course is broken up into several sections, these include tutorial videos by Marcio Takara and character design assignments. We share our designs in a group forum.

I haven’t finished the online course yet, but here are a few of my initial female character designs. A hard-knocks street-level hero, a martial artist/psychic character, and an alien or underwater warrior. I’m both having fun and learning in this class.

Penelope Chamber – Characters Inks

Penelope-Chamber-Inks — Penelope Chamber ink drawing by Ralph Contreras

Penelope Chamber – Characters Inks

A few months ago I participated in the second annual 30 Characters Challenge. We create 30 Characters in 30 days. It’s a very fun challenge. I had planned on penciling and inking all my character designs. As the months went by I only inked 3 designs. So I’ve decided to go back periodically to these character designs and ink them.

Here’s Penelope Chamber Characters Inks!
I used a 102 nib pen with black india ink. I’ve been enjoying inking with nib pens. I still need a lot of practice inking, but I feel like the nib pen is right for me. So far I don’t have much of a history for this character. Just that she’s some sort of adventurer. – Shazam

This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.

Captain Marvel illustration by artist Jon Hughes

Captain Marvel illustration by artist Jon Hughes

Check out this illustration of Captain Marvel I got at EPCON 2010 by comic book artist Jon Hughes. This fantastic piece is full color, marker, and ink on an 11″x14″ Bristol board. -SHAZAM!

This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.

30 Characters Challenge 2010 – #10 Solarus

30 Characters Challenge 2010 – #10 Solarus (John McCarran)

History coming soon……..

This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.

Free Comic Book Day Albuquerque 2010

For the past nine years, the comic industry and comic book shops have joined together on Free Comic Book Day. What the shops and comic companies do is give away free comics, AWESOME! It’s a great way to introduce new readers to the exciting world of comic books. This year I drove down to Albuquerque, NM to hit up a couple of the shops participating.

The first comic shop I went to was Astro Zombies. It’s a very cool comic shop located across from the University of New Mexico. They had comic book artist Aaron Campbell signing comics for free. Campbell is the comic artist for Dynamite Entertainment, Green Hornet Year One, and Sherlock Holmes. It was cool to learn from Cambell that he actually lives in Albuquerque too.

Next, I went down to Lobo Anime & Comics. A great local shop with the largest selection of new comics I’ve seen in a while. By the time I got there they had given away most of this year’s free comics, but I was lucky to score some regular great comics titles for free. SHAZAM!

Lobos was fun because there were a few guys in cosplay costumes. Some Anime characters and a few comic books. I got a photo with a dude in a fun Wolverine costume. 7000 BC a local organization of independent comic book creators from New Mexico was there too. Signing and selling their cool zine-type indy comics.

It was fun to see both these shops filled with people talking and enjoying comics. When I owned my comic shop “Modern Age Comics” and participated in the first Free Comic Book Day, I wasn’t sure this event would last. Seeing the industry, comic shops, creators, and fans enjoying this super cool event, I know Free Comic Book Day is here to stay.

This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.