Loki: Son of Laufey

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The House of Odin is Full of Designs 

As the ever-present foil to Thor, this Loki I've been working on is the counterpart to my previous design of the God of Thunder.
The Master of Mischief illustration had only slight revisions before being approved by Marvel and is now available as a shirt at MightFine's site here!

Much like the precursor, I did my fair share of Runic translations and Easter Egg inserting for the detail-inclined. The symbols around the scepter translate phonetically to English from a line in the Poetic Edda:

"Bale and hatred I bring to the gods,

And their mead with venom I mix."

The words are from the Lokasenna part of the Norse text and consist of insults Loki throws at an assembly of other gods and goddesses. Read more about it here, and if you want to make your own Rune scripts, check out this neat translator.

Instagram = Instantly ancient!

There are also some movie version tidbits included in the design such as the Casket of Ancient Winters (overall shape), the Tesseract (top and center!), and Loki's cold connection to realm of Jotunheim (icicles). A more elusive element in the design are the two serpents at the bottom which are from the prop book "Myths and Legends from Around the World" that Eric Selvig looks at very briefly in the film (see right).
There is an more hidden gem but you have to very sharp to find them. I'd wager fairly obscure-- First person that identifies this movie connection (either in Thor or The Avengers) and posts it on my Facebook page gets a free Loki sketch!

  

In researching, I had a great time re-watching what I thought was a great Kenneth Branaugh film. There's an interesting comparison of the mythological folklore vs. movie versions of the story here. Geeks from the monastery to modern day have kept Norse Myth alive! And by reading all this, so have you~

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Marvel Premier Sketchcards

Marvel style

Here are some pics from the art desk of nked and finished sketchcards for Upper Deck's "Marvel Premier" set.

50 character cards + an assortment of fold-out panoramic cards added to quite the task-- felt much like that Deadpool up there toward the end of it. The packs apparently retail for $200 and some of the individual cards are up on the e-bays now. I have just two of these blanks and will be up for a couple commissions soon.

Some of the AP (Artist Proof) cards will go up for sale with links via my Facebook Page this week-- Keep up and 'like' if a Spider-Man, Hulk, Jubilee, Colossus, or Nightcawler might tickle your fancy!

The assortment ready to be watercolored

Heroes with the Blues

(Mysterious 8-bit pixelization applied to unapproved cards)

::Thwip thwip::
the approved scans below:

Thor of Asgard

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Mighty Mighty

A new Marvel design coming down the pipeline as a shirt. Developments and release dates to follow!

[EDIT: The official shirt released today: Find it here at WeLoveFine.com]
[EDIT II: The Loki counterpart to this design process post and shirt released here!]

Thor-ough Research
This one went through a research phase before starting. I knew I wanted to work in traditional Norse and Scandinavian art styles so I took a trip to the library. The Cerritos Library had a reference section with some really amazing books on Vikings and the Poetic Edda, an old Norse mythological poem.

I used this nifty site that can turn letters into runes, so the text incorporated into the linework is phonetically translatable to the alphabet.

The left side recounts the tale of the Midgard Snake, Jormungandr and the right side concerns the formation of the World Tree Yggradsil and the connection of the Nine Realms. Hence there are purposely 9 main spheres in the design.

Nested icons within the Serpent include (clockwise from the head) the Bifrost/Rainbow Bridge, Hiemdall, Odin, one of his Ravens, a Viking ship, the Destroyer armor, Loki, and Odin's horse Slepnir.

Around the hammer Mjolnir are the famous words in runes:

"Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, 

shall possess the power of Thor."

Here are some process pictures of a very limited edition screenprint I made for Long Beach Comic Expo last weekend. It was the fast one-day show but a great turnout. Great to meet a whole bunch of people as well see some familiar faces around this convention season. Much like the Realms, I only made 9 of these to release into the world. Fly my pretties~

Drying time

[Read More] for process pics :

Namor Nouveau

Undersea Tee

This Marvel design for MightFine available here.
The character's costume choice for this one is more like his recent versions in the X-Men books. It was just more fun to draw than only those green underoos--

I did a bit of catching up with the classic title and now really dig Dodson's work. Pulling my nose out of the indie books, there's some great work out there. 

In drawing the first Marvel mutant, I wanted to incorporate both (his sailor father's) nautical motifs and Atlantean influences. Oceanic fun~

The Nouveau Magneto

The Nouveau Master of Magnetism

Marvel licensed shirt design for MightyFine (welovefine.com)-- get attracted to it here!

Tee Time

(Marilyn ain't got nuthin' on this Monroe..!)

[6/18 updated T-shirt design info!]

Storm Front

Hot off the news presses and available in apparel form HERE through fantastic MighyFine tees-- it's everyone favorite weather goddess!!

The X-Men were the comic characters I grew up with as a young lad, so to add some Nouveau flair to one of these iconic characters was mighty fun! Her design is meant to incorporate some African influence to merge with the art movement of 1900s Europe and pay some homage to her Wakandan royalty.

By the power of the wind! ...wear this shirt to stay warm ;]

Belated Crescent


Also on my late newsfront is that the "Arabian Crescent" design for Threadless was chosen for print and is up for sale up their site. The winnings from it have provided a warm and steady stream of tees through these temperate Californian months~

(This shirt is perfect camouflage in wheat fields)

It's been supremely encouraging to join a part of their ranks and there'll certainly be more apparel design related news to spread in the coming weeks.

Thanks again to all who voted--!