Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Superman Holds Up a Collapsing Building

I created an homage cover based on Pablo M. Collar's original interior panel artwork.   I began with Tengr to kick things off, sourcing art from My Adventures with Superman #1 (August 2024).  I then expanded the image vertically and added more destructive details by hand, blending in other layers for special effects like dust clouds and falling debris. Finally, I created a variant cover layout to complete the production look and feel of an actual Superman Unchained #6 comic book.







 

Monday, July 22, 2024

John Constantine Taking in the Local Pub

My image of John Constantine taking a break in the local London pub was inspired by artist Moritat's panel image I saw in Hellblazer #2 (2016).


Moritat's inspiring image


Sunday, July 21, 2024

Smoke and the Shadows in the Cemetery of Lost Souls (John Constantine)

As the sun began its slow descent towards the horizon, casting a warm, blue-tinged glow over the crumbling headstones within the Abney Park Cemetery, John Constantine stood tall, his eyes fixed on the statued gravestone before him. The angel, its features chiseled from marble, held a bow and arrow in its outstretched hand, its gaze seeming to pierce the soul of the man standing before it.

The air was heavy with the scent of damp earth and decaying leaves, and the distant chirping of crickets provided a mournful accompaniment to the silence. A light foggy mist had begun to rise from the ground, shrouding the gravestones in a veil of mystery. The fog was so fine that it seemed to glow with soft, ethereal light as if the very essence of the dead was rising to greet the living.

As Constantine puffed on his cigarette, the flame casting a brief, golden glow on his weathered face, he noticed that the mist was illuminated by shafts of light that seemed to pierce through the fog like rays from the heavens. The light was so intense that it cast eerie shadows on the ground, making it seem as if the dead themselves were rising to claim the living.

"What's the story, angel?" Constantine muttered to himself, his voice low and gravelly.  As he spoke, the wind picked up, rustling the leaves of the nearby trees and sending a faint whispering through the air. Constantine's eyes never left the angel's face, his mind racing with the possibilities. He knew that in this place, where the veil between the worlds was thin, the whispers of the dead could be heard on the wind. And he had a feeling that this angel was trying to tell him something that would change his life forever.

[Workflow: Used Tengr to generate a variation of a source Llovet image featuring John. Then used Google image searches to find all the other components to use as further elements. Composed these pieces of John, re-used cigarette+smoke+glow from one of my other images, refaced the grave marker behind John, added more trees, applied curves + HSL recoloring effects, fog pixel layers, ray lighting layer, bunches of masking work.  All final edits, and source image clean-ups were done within Affinity Photo.]

Image list:
  1. final image of John smoking a cigarette in a graveyard
  2. Gravestone Halloween image i used
  3. Graveyard with trees
  4. green rays that I overlaid with foggy/mist layer
Smoke and the Shadows in the Cemetery of Lost Souls 
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Saturday, July 20, 2024

(John Constantine) The Wandering Son of England Returns Home

[another imagined John Constantine comic book cover for DC Comics which I started after seeing a painting by Behshad Arjomandi.  This one-shot storyline proposed to be written by Paul Jenkins, with interior art by Giuseppe Camuncoli.]

In the heart of London, where shadows dance with secrets and the rain whispers of forgotten sins, there strides a man unlike any other. John Constantine, the enigmatic and troubled occult detective, returns to his homeland with a heavy heart and a burdened soul. As he strolls down the slick cobblestone streets, the iconic silhouette of Big Ben looms in the distance, its clock face a stark reminder of the relentless march of time. Dark clouds gather overhead, crackling with the promise of a storm brewing both in the skies and within Constantine himself.

Lightning flashes, illuminating the grimy alleyways and hidden corners of the city, casting eerie shadows that seem to reach out for him. But John Constantine is no stranger to the darkness; he is its master and its prisoner, a man caught between worlds, forever wandering the thin line between salvation and damnation. As he navigates the treacherous waters of London's supernatural underbelly, Constantine must confront his past, his demons, and the ghosts that haunt him. For in this city of ancient magic and modern malaise, the wandering son of England returns home, ready to face whatever horrors lie in wait. Join us on a journey through the twisted streets of London, where danger lurks in every shadow and salvation is but a fleeting dream. This is the saga of John Constantine, the man who walks with one foot in the light and one foot in the dark, a reluctant hero in a world that has long forgotten the meaning of the word.

[Workflow: A series of Tengr image prompts to get many elements in the same dark-colored painting format.   Composed these pieces of John, the street, trees, and background buildings into base image, then applied recoloring effects, rain layers, lightning with clouds, water splashes, and then the final layers of comic book branding.  All final edits, and source image clean-ups were done within Affinity Photo.]

Image list:
  1. final TrUzApalOOza cardstock variant cover 
  2. raw version of the painting (reduced resolution), my original version is too wide for the standard comic book layout so I had to crop out some of the right-hand street scenery
  3. and a glance at my Affinity Photo layering panels with Fx filter
  4. reference inspiration painting by Behshad Arjomandi
  5. the original background image I worked out within Tengr
  6. my base John image to merge into the scene, started within Tengr
Imagined DC Comic book cover
raw painted image before converted to a comic book cover


my basic background London before compositing

image that inspired me by Behshad Arjomandi
John Constantine (isolated image)

Affinity Layers Panel







Friday, July 19, 2024

Catwoman Thieving (Jewels for the Taking)

A few Nightcafe images I created of Catwoman collecting some jewelry, which I then cleaned up within Affinity for final posting.








Thursday, July 18, 2024

John Constantine (The Trench Coat Magician)

A few Nightcafe and Tengr images I created of John Constantine which I then cleaned up within Affinity for final posting.







Wednesday, July 17, 2024

John Constantine's Eyes of Fire

My image of John Constantine absorbing a demonic entity was inspired by artist Davidé Fabbri's panel image I saw in Hellblazer #17 (2018).


Davidé Fabbri inspiration



Tuesday, July 16, 2024

Monday, July 15, 2024

John Constantine Plus Cigarette Plus Pentagram Equals Demonic Summoning

John Constantine takes a much-needed smoke break while fiddling with a pentagram in a dark London pub, nothing good can come from this.   My version was inspired by Elena Casagrande's image I saw on Instagram.


Sunday, July 14, 2024

Emma Frost teaching some New Mutants about trigonometry

Emma Frost teaching some New Mutants about trigonometry. The image started in NightCafe then AI errors were cleaned up by hand.



Saturday, July 13, 2024

Sci-Fi Saturday Mornings on the classic Zenith 25" TV Console

The good ole days when my early Saturday mornings were spent watching Sci-Fi movies on my parent's Zenith System 3 25" CRT TV Wood Cabinet Console (1984)


[Workflow: built the movie image first, including adding graffiti, found my parent's old TV set on eBay, then merged them together, created TV distortion, liberal dispersion live layer use, added my classic channel 62 on the TV dial, and then added the dreaded reflection from the windows messing with my TV viewing]