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StudioCombine — Daredevil
Published: 2013-08-08 23:00:35 +0000 UTC; Views: 2644; Favourites: 70; Downloads: 28
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Continuing my mission to interpret characters I have not drawn before. Next up: Daredevil/Matt Murdock.Daredevil has always been a character on the fringes of my comic consciousness. And yet, there is a depth to him, that has always appealed to the more mature part of my mind. It is the sheer layers of symbolism and irony at work that make him so compelling. A blind man, who makes a living as a lawyer (isn't justice supposed to be blind?). A man who despite being catholic dresses up as a devil by night.
I recently watched the greatly underrated Daredevil movie (Director's Cut), which despite certain flaws, I think characterises Matt Murdock perfectly. The movie highlighted that at the end of the day Matt Murdock is just a normal human being, no super strength and no healing power, just an awesome radar sense and the force of will to bring wrong-doers to justice. However the conflict arises because as Daredevil he is acting outside the law, and is to some extent unleashing his darker tendencies. To what extent can he justify his actions? What is it that keeps this devil in check? I think what is not really in the forefront of all this, is his faith. Faith is very important to me personally, and from my experience, it is something that can act as a moral compass or guiding light when things get very....complicated and dark. It is this aspect of the character that I wanted to show in my drawing.
Technically, what I wanted to work on was anatomy, and how to combine this with lighting and shading. So I wanted to closely follow a reference, which is this one: www.shutterstock.com/pic-78534…
Once I knew where and what the muscles will look like I studied work by David Finch to see how musculature is combined with lighting. Sure, many comic artists do this very well, but it can't be denied that Finch's art really hits the right tone for characters such as Daredevil and Batman, and it was that tone that I was trying to capture. I feel I've done justice to the Man without fear. Next up.........??
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Comments: 22
I love your always unique approach to the subject matter you choose, and your almost Ditkoesque designs.
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That is high praise and very much appreciated. I rarely feel motivated to draw something that doesn't 'say' something beyond the image itself. Hopefully I can keep it up, but more importantly, that there are people that do appreciate it.
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I try to put that extra something into most of the drawings I prepare to show on here, too.
I think when those of us who aspire to get noticed in order to work in the industry are frustrated because we're not getting that work, we forget that, sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, the editors don't know talent. Some of those guys wouldn't know good from bad work if it smacked em in the jaw. There's probably a fair amount of not what one can do, but who one happens to know that occurs in that industry, like many others. Having people compliment and comment on one's artwork isn't the same as the accomplished feeling of being able to earn a living at it. But, in some ways, it's possibly ok to consider it more valuable.
I read this article the other day boyann.deviantart.com/journal/… that another artist pasted in a journal. The author includes some harsh statements concerning getting work in comics, including one that I sort of notice... many people within that business will not make it easy for anyone to get work. They act like they did the most difficult thing getting to where they get. It's probably because, if you're quite good at what you do, you're percieved as a threat to them and work they might get.
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I do agree. often, it's not true artists these guys are looking for but people who have tailored their art to fit into the comic-making machine. There is undoubtedly lots of skill there. But is it art? I feel like i'm guilty of that myself. My 'style' has become rather conformist. i feel the real creativity in this medium (and let's face it, all media) lies on the fringes. The independent stuff and stuff which gets even exposure than that. having said that, I recently read a Spider-man comic, of around 2010, in which I though the art was atrocious.It really is shocking to be disappointed by artwork in a Spider-man comic when there are supposedly hundreds of people clamouring for the chance to draw in any published comic.
Agreeing with you on this point, I do have to say, that I don;t think I am or ever was ever thinking that I deserved a chance....yet. My portfolio is terribly lacking in range, and hardly much sequential work. I know I have yet to demonstrate my skills as a proper sequential artist. My point was more that my own expectations were way too high, and that I was rather naive. Coming on dA has opened my eyes to the kind of stuff that one has to produce to be considered capable of telling a story through pictures.
So I have decided to bite the bullet and one way or other see if can be such an artist. As you know I have dabbled in sequential art before and I have been working on something recently. It is my own project and hopefully I'll be using that to build on my portfolio of sequential work. If i never make it as a comic artist, it's not going to be because I never really tried.
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Non mainstream, non formulaic stuff has gotten pretty rare in all forms of entertainment media, it seems.
One thing dA makes me aware of is that there are a lot of talented people. There are around fifteen or twenty people I watch on here who are either just as good or better fine artists, comics artists or tattoo artists than anyone I've ever seen published or on television.
Yeah, I remember those Tales From The Crypt style pages you posted, man; I think they're very good. And, of course, the jc013 Crow style pages that I inked. I think I remember another science fiction series you were drawing for someone.
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Yeah those projects taught me a lot! By the last few pages of the Tales from the Crypt project I was actually quite proud of what I was doing. But there's still a long way to go for me. I'm kind of thinking now of just developing my own style. Not just of art but of storytelling. If i look at the books I love, they were game-changing books, not just typical stuff from that period. So i have faith that true creativity will win in the end, over formulaic, popular work.
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Many thanks. It was a labour of love at times. I was going to give up on it at one point, but kept the faith. Glad i did.
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many thanks. Good luck with your new venture, by the way.
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Amazing Pencil lines and details.
Very nicely done.
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many thanks. I did try extra hard on this one to keep things as tight as possible, giving it a bit more 'polish' compared to some of my other pieces.
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Awesome man.
This is one superb Daredevil piece. Your work with the lighting/ shading is first class mate.
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many thanks. That was something I wanted to focus on. I always seemed to be guessing where muscles went and how the light would make them look. With this piece I went a bit more specific and even scientific. I guess as a novice that's how you learn.
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Hooray for Science!
Seriously though man it ceratinly looks good, the lighting in particular has worked a treat.
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