Raging Rabbits!!!

A character design im working on based of-course on a RabbitHead. The thing in his hand is an electric CarrotDrill, which i thought was a cool idea. The concept was based around mascots so a few more characters might come up. Might even turn it into a little project of mine, fingers crossed

Thunder Cat Hype

One of the high points of growing up in Ghana was that i watched all the past cartoons as well as the modern ones. Even though i rolled with yu-gi-oh, pokemon, Samurai Jack and all that, it put me onto cartoons like He-man, M.a.s.k., Gummi bears, She-Ra, Silver Hawks, My little Pony...i watched everything i could and of course Thunder Cats, an 80s show, was one of my favourites.

And now there's a revamped version made by Studio 4c, the Japanese studio behind Animatrix and part of Gothan Knight. It's for Cartoon Network 2011

The new designs look good but with anime bursting at the seems i would have preferred a style which wasn't too obvious it anime. Like one fan said,"Lion-O with Naruto's face."

Also some parts of their appearance are very cliché in the fantasy realm, like young lion-O's one-shoulder guard and Panthro's oversized 'viking-ish' look and scar on his eye but i did like his baldness, it added a normalness to the character. So far, Tigra is my fav, with the best redesign in the group, Cheetara isn't bad either. They also did well to keep certain aspects, like weapons, of the old show.

Another redesign on the net done some time ago. I like this better. If he was given more body mass like the Studio 4c version, a freed mane and the claw-sheath(minus the side-pockets) it would have been perfect, in my eyes.

I did a sketch myself basically enhancing areas i like ie Lion-O's mane, and Panthro's original design and adding and adapting some of the new features: Panthro's baldness, scar and spike gloves and guard.

all copyright to respective copyright holders

Black Panther project entry 4 COLOUR TRIALS

I was finally able to put some colour onto the sketches and i think they look quite good.

I basically redesigned his headpiece, added a few adornments like the gold neck rings and ankle bracelets and loincloth. i might darken up the grey undergarment to give it a stronger association to an actual panther.

The sleeveless costume was inspired by The Ultimate Avengers 2 animated movie. Even though I feel its a bit impractical for battle, it looks cool. I could also come up with some reason which could make the sleeveless legitimate, like turning them into skin-tight transparent sleeves to trick the enemy to believe the black panther is vulnerable...... or it could just be a non/light-combat alternative.

With the sleeved costume it reminded me on a ninja's attire. I kept the grey lined sleeves and legs as a tribute to the original costume but it also links back to ancient Benin's body markings.

I really like the helmet/mask. It has a different feel about it when compared to other comic book masks. The Black Panther never needed to hide his face so i designed it with that in mind but I still cannot decide on the ears. I am getting attached to the up-pointing ears because it's Egyptian-ish which works because the panther god of Wakada is the cat god of Ancient Egypt. The ancient Benin neck-ring I turned into a retractable face-guard when raised tends to remind me of Scorpion from Mortal Kombat but it might just be the angle of the drawing and colour choice, I'll tweak it and see how it turns out.

This last drawing is the basic template armour suite for the Black Panther. It is usually used for tougher battles and because he still needs his agility and ablility to manoeuvre I kept it pretty simple.

Black Panther project entry 3 SKETCHES

The sketches I have done are here now but before that a little more of my research. With the headgear of the black panther I went with something more of a helmet, with his face exposed, i liked the look of the Benin bronze head and it influenced what i wanted my black panther to look like. The Marvel comic rendition of Thor also helped me see how to keep black panther a superhero but still let him stay true to his heritage.

I also got some traditional leopard masks, I'm still working on the symbols for the Black Panther, trying to join the new to the old.
These sketches were drawn mixed, but I've tried to separate them a bit so its easier to see the flow of work.

The first pack of sketches are about the head, i started out by looking at batman and finding out how to him as different as possible from him with straying too far from the black panther look.

i continued and changes his mask into more of a helmet headgear better suited for a warrior king. i incorporated the rings from the benin head mentioned earlier, and turned them into a retractable face guard. i also added a mesh for the back of the helmet, this also has roots in the african helmets I showed at the top. Im still unsure about pointing BP's ears up or back.

I started working on the body and gave BP a sleeveless body suit and split it at the bottom to give it a loin cloth effect. I extended the usual lined gloves and boots into an undergarment. I kept the gold chain but i'm still working on the gold belt. i wanted to put some designs or patterns on his shoulders and loin cloth but I'm still on the fence about what it should be.

Apart from the body i worked on his claws, first I bulked his fingers up to make them look like jungle cat claws,this allowed me to add retractable claws. these claws also had smaller removable claws, like in the sketch below. I also thought of putting palm grips to aid in climbing and scaling buildings. i reduced the length of the glove too which has left a small square area which will have gold placed there. I tried a few versions on how the actual claws should look like. I also redesigned slightly a dagger which Kyle Hotz did for Black Panther 2099, more emphasis on the handle than the blade.

I also worked a bit on BP's armor. I changed it covering most of his back, i emphasized the shoulders, worked a little on the feet and added a tail. I also redid the claw-gloves , I made it similar to the original lined gloves but turned the fingers into claws with prominent knuckles. You can also see a bit of work on the panther pendant of his gold chain here.

Marvel Comic Character copyright (c)

Black Panther project entry 2

After reading and researching i sorted out how to make a character iconic or at least stand out.

1. symbol- batman's bat sign, superman krypton s sign

2. face,mask- batman's pointy eared mask, superman's s-curl hair and strong jaw, spiderman's wide eyed mask, wolverine hair

3. colours- batman's primary black, superman red blue and yellow, spierman's red and blue, wolverine's yellow and blue

4. Silhouette-spiderman's oversized head and slender physique, superman's massive chest and flowing red cape.

5. Powers, Weapons, Abilities- wolverine's claws, bullet-proof superman, the batmobile, spiderman's web

6. costume- everyone

I read a massive amount of black panther comics and liked a few of his depictions.

the first was by Lashley. I especially like his variations of black panthers from throughout history, also his his character sketches of the new female black panther are so cool.

Kyle Hotz is awesome with his depiction. I especially like the lines from the inner corner of the panther's eye across the side of his face, it kinda reminded me of tribal marks, the serious look and the grimace lines on the brow and chin just took it for me

With Jefte Palo, I loved the cat-like look he gave to the panther. He also places the panther ears way back (and it points backwards not up) which influenced my version. The masks of the panther's subordinates also gave me more ideas. These three did it for me and their work had everything to do with mine.

all art and characters for mavel comics, copyright (c)

Anansi books

For one of my projects a while ago, i did a story book based on Anansi. I wanted to change how he often looked in other people's books so I came up with a simple system for all my characters. I usually like to use masks so I designed them a humans wearing the masks of the animals they were supposed to be.

Apart from making the storybook, I made an extra book that let kids make masks of their own, based on the characters of the book.

Click on the pictures so see them large.

This is all my stuff, no jacking without permission or recognition of the artist. copyright and all that.

1st Project- Redesign BLACK PANTHER

I've taken a gap year from University and apart from working, I want to start a few self-initiated projects of my own, so this is the first.

Black Panther is Marvel Comic's fully African super hero and after watching the animated comic I wanted to see what i could bring to the character.

These are some pictures below:

I've never been too happy with the black panther costume, Black Panther is supposed to be a king of a african nation never dominated by outside powers, but most of the early costumes were very western. They also seemed too similar to Batman's own costume, like those above

Some of the ones that followed were better. By adding gold, fur, jewelry, decorative thigh bands it gave the idea of africa but but most of these motives felt slapped on and cliche or in some cases didn't fit the whole look of the black panther.

So for my project i'll be doing my research by reading up on black panther and african cultures.

We'll see what i come up with.

You can also read up on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(comics)

all pics are for marvel comics and respective owners

Women & Children First

Something i thought girls & lil kids would find nice. done with illustator and photoshop 

SCREENPRINTED

We had 2 do some screen printing in uni, so i used the pix from the first post, for me the one with the yellow background is slick it kinda worked with 3D glasses too