I Heart Space Girls!

Long ago, back when I worked at an animation studio here in T.O., I heard that the company owned the animation rights to Barbarella! I sketched up a bunch of character ideas and tried to pitch myself as a develpment artist on the project...but alas, twas not meant to be. It was one of those projects stuck in a development black hole. Lots of art was thrown its way but nothing ever returned!

From those development drawings was born my first published comic book work, Solar Stella! I started drawing a mini-comic in my spare time using Barbarella as the jumping off point. Solar Stella was a pin-up gal lost in the farthest reaches of space. Her adventures were just meant to be good old fashioned fun with lots of cheesecake drawings. The book came out in 2000 and I'd fully intended to follow up with more Stella stories but, as it turned out, I started getting higher paying work. Stella would have to wait. And wait...and wait...
I still love the space girls and I still plan on doing more with Stella. These girls are meant to be a three piece ensemble. For some reason I had an idea to draw a trio of Space Girls with identically positioned legs. The girls are Barbarella, Dragonfly (from the movie CQ*) and eventually Solar Stella.

j.

A little Cabaret!

This is not a caricature. I recently had my caricature done by the brilliant Joe Bluhm and the equally brilliant (and adorable) Sam Gorrie. And they showed me that a caricature not only captures likeness but is also hilariously funny (if you have a sense of humour about yourself). So when I set out to do a drawing of the the talented songstress of Toronto Cabaret, Sharron Matthews, I stayed away from caricature! I'll leave caricaturing to the pros (see links to Sam and Joe). In the end I kinda think Sharron could easily be a character in an Archie comic the way I've drawn her here. The biggest problem I had with my drawing was in the colouring. I'm not 100% happy with the turquoise even though it's one of my favourite colours and one that Sharron has worn on a few occassions. But it's the best colour with her skin tone and purple background.

So just for my own pleasure I coloured up a monochromatic version. The purple makes Sharron look like a blues singer or something. I imagine she's belting out a tune originally sung by Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald. In reality she's probably singing "Jessie's Girl".

j.

L'il Hawkman!

What do I want for Christmas this year? (Is it too soon to talk about Christmas? My mom wouldn't say so...she usually does all her shopping in October!) I want the new line of Mattel's DC SUPER FRIENDS! They are just the cutest little toys and I want 'em all.
The first wave has Batman, Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman and Lex Luthor. I'm really hoping the toys sell well so that we'll get more Justice Leaguers like Wonder Woman, Plastic Man and Hawkman! In my dreams they'd also do Metamorpho and the original Doom Patrol...but those are only dreams...*sigh*.

I can't wait till these cute little toys are in stores!

Incidentally, I've been working on some cool stuff lately but can't spill it just yet. Soon, though.

ever yours,
j.