MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE

I know I've been a little quiet on here lately, but I have been keeping busy. I have some paintings I've finished up, some paintings in-progress, and lots of sketches and inks I need to finish. I've also been replaying MUA and wanted to do a little something to honor some of my favorite characters to play as in the game. I didn't expect to like playing as Mr.Fantastic or Daredevil, but they both have some great moves. Out of these characters, Spider-man and Human Torch are probably my top two, Wolverine can really be clutch if you're having trouble, and Cap and Thor are just iconic. Maybe I'll pick up some more favorites now that I'm on my second time through.

invasion - watx

hey everybody, sorry for the long delay. Part of it was taking a little break after GCCC and part of it was my job changing gears again. Anyway, this contest deadline forced me to finish an image (I've got some more on the way soon).


1 Million to Save Wolverine and the X-Men on Facebook is holding another art contest (deadline is tomorrow) and this is my entry. There are polls occasionally to see who will invade next, but I don't think the Sentinel will ever win a popularity contest. Still, he makes perfect sense for an invasion. Plus you have to love the combination of a character being terrifying and completely goofy looking.

deadpool

I just got back from my printer and now I'm even more excited for the GEM CITY COMIC CON! Don't forget to come see us Sunday (and remember to use this coupon).

You can check out all of the prints I'll be selling this year here. Lee will have some classic DC heroes and his first TPB, Rock of Pages!

I've never drawn Deadpool before, but what better reason to try him out than to celebrate my second year at GCCC? One of the great things about Deadpool is that he can get away with just about anything since he's crazy...

I'll (hopefully) see you Sunday!

fantastic four and comic con two

So this is the second year my brother and i will be at the GEM CITY COMIC CON! If you're from the southern Ohio area you should definitely come check it out. Admission is pretty cheap and you can even use this coupon.

So most of my latest posts are the prints I'll be selling this year. you can check out all the prints here... plus I have one more to reveal before the Con. Lee will have some classic DC heroes and his first TPB, Rock of Pages! We are bringing it this year and we'd love to see you there.

In honor of Johnny "Human Torch" Storm dying this year, I reworked my version of the F4. I like the futuristic look of the new team uniforms, so I tried to incorporate some of that into their classic blue.

Hope to see you Sunday Sunday Sunday!

avengers: thor

so i had never read any thor until j. michael straczynski had a crack at him. i loved it. so much so that my wife (or fiancee at the time) bought me cuff links with thor on them. it's crazy how much changed while thor was out of commission, but i really like how he was (understandably) angry with iron man for what tony had done, and when freakin bucky shows up as captain america, thor is more than a little skeptical.

i tried to blend a few different versions of thor's costumes, classic, new, ultimate, and i even referenced the new cartoon for his helmet. i gave him the beard because not many superheroes can get away with one.

thanks for looking!

avengers: iron man

he hasn't really been a favorite in comics for a while, but he's still a hugely iconic character. iron man's first movie was great and janae even really liked it. i think that says a lot for a comic book movie when someone who doesn't really like comics or action movies still enjoys it. the second iron man movie wasn't as great, but you can tell it was just getting pulled in too many directions. i still liked iron man 2, but here's hoping his next two showings (avengers and iron man 3) will be better

thanks for looking!

avengers: captain america

have i ever mentioned my favoritism for cap? it really has nothing to do with his comics or really anything about his official continuity. it's all because i bought an action figure of him as a kid and just loved to play with that thing. all i knew about his backstory was what i learned from the 90s spider-man cartoon.  still, he was one of my favorite toys growing up so i still feel a bond whenever i see him now.

and i am very much looking forward to his new movie. at first i wasn't sure about chris evans playing cap, but the more i see, the more i'm sold.

thanks for looking!

spider-man loves mary jane

well who doesn't love ms. watson? it's been a while since i've drawn spidey on anything more than just a post-it note, so i wanted to give him another go... this time taking his girlfriend (ex-wife?) for a swing. janae told me that mj should always wear purple or green because she's a red head and she should probably never wear a black shirt with khakis (no matter how classic it might be).

thanks for looking!

- nate  x

x-men group poster

so a while back (longer back than i'd like to admit) i drew up all of those individual x-men images hoping to one day compile them in to a group image. for some reason, i could never get it to look quite right. every once in a while, i'd reposition, resize and reconfigure, but it didn't work. so i finally decided to make the changes i needed to make, redrawing arms, changing poses, to make it actually work in a group image. while i was at it, i went ahead and made their costumes a little more mainstream and current... still with a little nate x twist here and there.

hope you all like it!

- nate  x

Along Came a Spider...

So I've been hard at work getting the rest of my pin ups finished for the con. This is one of the three I've been working on this past week. I don't know why I always seem to work on a handfull of projects at once instead of just finishing one and then moving on...

Anyway, I figured Spidey would look best next to Venom from my last post


-x

We are Venom

To me, Eddie Brock will always be Venom and Venom will always be awesome.

Ghost Rider v2.0

No, not the sequel to the Nicolas Cage movie...

I thought I'd spruce him up a little as I'm thinking of making him one of my prints for sale at the Gem City Comic Con. The Con is April 11, so mark your calendars. It's only $6 to get in or $5 if you have a student ID so you really don't have an excuse not to come.

My big bro got a table this year and he's letting me sit at it with him to try and get the X name out there. We will both have prints for sale and he's working on getting a few comics ready as well. You can check his stuff out at his page rockin' website.

Gem City Comic Con April 11. Be there or be... somewhere else.

X-MEN: professor xavier

Well... kind of. I went with a psychic projection rather than his phsyical self so he could kind of just watch over the team instead of stand (sit?) with them.

He's the last member for my line up so all I have to do now is the final composition. I think I might do a couple touch ups to some characters, but I should be posting it soon.

X-MEN: shadowcat, white queen, havok

So these guys might not always be essential, but Shadowcat (Kitty) has always been pretty popular and White Queen (Emma) has been pretty important lately. Havok is just a personal favorite of mine.

I think of Kitty as being a bit younger and less experienced so I went with a little more of a basic costume. It also kind of reflects her Astonishing costume.. which was probably her best. She's changed a lot over the years, but still maintains her youth and optimism for the most part.Emma gets to break a few rules with her costume... I'm not talking about what you're probably thinking about right now. I let her be even more monochromatic than Iceman who is covered in ice, even down to having the only white belt. I debated over her X being red or white, but I wanted to keep some sort of conformity throughout the uniforms.Havok typically has a simple costume so I tried to keep my version that way. He has a little trouble controlling his power (must run in the family) so his full body suit helps contain it. I also like his big gauntlet that help focus the power because it adds some unique shapes to his character. I think part of why I like Havok is because he and Cyclops are kind of like me and my big brother... but I don't constantly compare myself with my big bro. Havok could be so much cooler if he would just step out of Cyclops's shadow instead of complaining about it. I don't know if you'll notice, but I tried to have as much family resemblence between Cyclops, Cable and Havok as I could... maybe a little more so with Cyke and Cable.

That leaves just one more character for my X-Men. Can you guess who it is?

X-MEN: cable and bishop

These guys hail from two different alternate futures in the X-Men timeline... timelines? Neither future looks very positive for humans or mutants. Cable's is more of a constant war and Bishop's is filled with mutant concentration camps. Both guys are huge gun-toting soldier types and both think it's their own responsibility to save the future.

Cable started off a lot more militant, but has become less so over the years. He's still not a guy you want to mess with, but now he might use a staff against you instead of the biggest gun you've ever imagined. His original look was unfortunately designed by Rob Liefeld and featured giant shoulder pads and approximately 75 belts (each riddled with pockets and pouches) wrapped around various parts of his body. Over time this has been simplified and streamlined and he has grown to adopt more traditional X-Team colors. I drew him somewhere between his current costume and an older classic.Bishop is famous for a few things other than the 'being from the future' thing. One is the M brand over his eye, two is the red bandana around his neck, three is a mullet. I opted out of the last one. Bishop's a cool enough character when he's fighting evil humans or robots or aliens or mutants, but now he seems to be fighting good mutants... specifically Cable. This doesn't sit well with me. Sure, it makes the mutant baby hope for the future thing interesting, but I'm with Cable all the way, so Bishop isn't currently anywhere near my favorites list.

Rounding out my X-Men will be some other cool characters.

X-MEN: gambit, rogue, psylocke

Back in the day, X-Men had two teams, Gold and Blue. Most of the members were from the first two classes, but the Blue team had some newer members.

Gambit is awesome. It's hard not to like this guy... unless it's the Gambit from the Wolverine movie. In the comics, Gambit has pretty much only had one costume. Cartoons have tried variations and I took some inspiration from all of them. You basically just have to make sure he has his signature coat and is wearing black and magenta. He always talks like he's super confident, even refering to himself in third person, but seems unsure of his place on the team.Rogue is a cool character if you give her flight and strength. The whole 'I can't touch anybody or be close to anybody' thing only goes so far... and isn't always helpful in a fight. I much prefer the tough southern belle dramatic one. It adds another layer. She typically wears green and yellow and had a short coat in the 90s that... maybe doesn't make much sense, but it adds something. I also like the hood she sports now, but maybe I just like the 90s too much. I gave her the newer style hair, but I'm not sure I'll ever understand the white streak.Psylocke is a character that I actually don't know a whole lot about. I know she's a telepath and a great fighter. Apparently she was just a British telepath but then someone took her mind and put it into a ninja with purple hair. I don't know, but it makes her look cooler I guess. I tried to add some sort of Japanese influence to her look instead of just giving her a leotard.

Who's up next? Maybe I can interest you in a few time travelers...

X-MEN: storm, colossus, nightcrawler

That's right, when the team decided to have some international members, they got Storm from Africa, Colossus from Russia, Nightcrawler from Germany, Banshee from ... nevermind. I never liked Banshee and Thunderbird died before anybody like him, so we'll leave it at Storm, Colossus, and Nightcrawler.

Storm always seems to wear black or white or both, but I prefer white because I grew up with her 90s costume. I thought about adding her headband...thing... but decided to just let her hair flow freely. I tossed in her cape..thing.. and some jewelry to get some sense of tribal goddess in her design.Colossus likes to wear red and yellow. He also likes to not wear pants. I was fine with the colors, but thought he should have pants. Sure, it's fine to see his metal legs when he's fighting or something, but it's just weird when he's in costume but not armored up.
Nightcrawler and I have some issues. You see, I like Beast, who is a blue furry guy who is very acrobatic. Then along comes Nightcrawler who is also blue, furry and acrobatic... but instead of being as smart as Beast, this guy can teleport. To make myself feel better, and make the two characters a little less similiar, I went with a dark blue-gray for Nightcrawler kind of like they did in Ultimate X-men. This way, he's different enough and I can appreciate him for who he is instead of be indignant because he's stealing my favorite character's thunder and adding teleportation to it.

Who's up next for the X-Men? How about a few members made popular in the 90s?

X-MEN: cyclops, phoenix, beast, angel, iceman

As promised here are the first five redesigned by yours truly. With all of these characters, I tried to create new costumes by looking back at what the characters have worn and taking key elements or colors and combining those with my side-panel team costume idea.

Cyclops got a little more detail this time. Quite a bit more, actually. I like his gold trim on his current (Astonishing) costume but I've always liked his stupid belts from his 90s costume. I guess it's a good time to mention that none of the X-Men really need belts. However, I like the idea that their red X circles are communicators and locators, so I went with belts for everyone.Phoenix looks pretty close to how she did in my last drawing. I gave her more of her Phoenix sash/belt and also whited out her eyes. I figure she'd kind of be like Storm how she has eye color when she's normal but they go white when she's powering up.

Beast also got some more detail. He's a big guy and tends to get stuck wearing the big X to identify their team. It happened with their black leather uniforms and with his Astonishing uniform.Angel's costume doesn't typically vary too much. It's been red and it's been blue. For a while he had a really different costume, but he seems to be back in blue. I took away the headpiece so his longer hair could flow. I like the idea of him looking really angelic, kind of like Ultimate X-men, but hopefully not as bad, so here he gets chiseled features and pretty hair.
Iceman should be covered in ice/made of ice, but I don't think he should lose his costume's visibility. I also don't think he should have giant boots. Sure, that's my costume of choice for him when I'm playing Marvel Legends, but not when I'm drawing him.

My next installment of X-Men will be their next installment of classmates... minus a few losers (I'm lookin' at you, Banshee and Thunderbird).

X-MEN: wolverine

You may recall my earlier X-Men post featuring my dream line-up for the team. Well, that image of four X-Men was really meant to be the start of a much larger image featuring many more x-mens. I've been slowly working on all the character sketches and inks and finally colors. Now I'm ready to show them as I finish polishing them up and eventually after all members are revealed, I'll show the big group shot I've been working towards.

First up is Wolverine. He's a little different than the last time I posted him. I had some changes I wanted to make to his costume and face and to the way I colored him. I still love me some Wolverine.

Up next is the original team... just not in those original costumes. Sorry to those who like Iceman in boots...

the mighty avengers

Much like my other Marvel posts, this one came about because I either haven't drawn the heroes before or it has been a long time and my style has changed. Of these characters, I think I'd only drawn Captain America and maybe Iron Man and Hawkeye. I've just recently gotten in to Thor (who is awesome) and I'm not really a fan of Vision, AntMan or Wasp, but added them to help round out the team. I didn't want the Avengers to be a boys club, but I didn't want to add Wasp without AntMan.
It's funny how many odd things come up in different members of the Avengers. IronMan and Thor both have circular details on their costumes... Hawkeye and Cap both have buccaneer style boots... Cap and Thor both have wings on their heads... Vision and IronMan have similar shapes on their faces...
I don't understand it, but you've got to love these guys.

- x