The Phantom test sketches

KIRBY X KIRBY

I thought it would be fun to draw video game character in the style of comics god Jack Kirby. And indeed it was!

HULK IN SPACE

EVEN IN SPACE, HULK CANNOT FIND PEACE! LEAVE HULK ALONE!

India ink with brush and pen on Bristol board 

The Compleat Frankenstein

The full Frankenstein image. A real joy to work in this Dore meets Wrightson idiom

The Creature

Frankenstein's monster indulging in a little light reading. Brush with acrylic black ink on cartridge paper

ODIN!

what a pisser

weird ol' logos

Doctor Who's weird art

 

WARNING

 

Going Rogue!

 Rogue Trooper! A singular 2000AD character with a singular design. Hope I've done him justice here.

You're under arrest!

 Or to put it another way...

It's COLD outside...

Portrait of Mr Freeze, done in acrylic ink and colouring pencil. Currently the property of one of my favourite comics writers, John Arcudi. 

Princes of the Universe!

Promo art for the Highlander IDW book that came out a few years ago. Another pulp character I'd love to have a proper crack at some day (though as the missus is fond of saying, I should just make up my mind. It's not that easy, Debs! GOD)

Superman Revenge Squad!

 

Updated, with full colour! Can YOU name them all?? (If you can't, I'm about to put all their names in the tags below)

Have a DARING Christmas!

 

And a new year filled with JUSTICE!

Monster Mash! In colour!!

After five long years, I finally got round to colouring this damn thing! When I revisited it today, it had been about a third coloured in, and done in the most slapdash way. So, I ditched all that other work and started again pretty much from scratch. I HOPE YOU ENJOY THESE MONSTERS

Light Reading

Commissioned piece for the Dundee Comics Space and their project FRANKENSTEIN LIVES! Great fun to try out some different techniques here, from a Wrightson-esque creature to Dore inspired background figures. Very satisfying.

Strange Visitor!

Revenge!!

Bizarro taking a selfie of THE ENTIRE SUPERMAN REVENGE SQUAD (and Nick O’Teen)

Kamandi!

Kamandi! What a concept! 

“Techno-Active”!

Batman and Superman take on a monstrous Darkseid at the Source Wall. I just found out today that the Wall was never depicted by Kirby himself, and instead is an extrapolation of Kirby’s “ultimate barrier” devised by Chris Claremont and Walt Simonson for X-Men/Teen Titans. 

Inks by me, brilliant colours by Jordan Boyd!

Mr Freeze!

Staying with the cold theme (it’s fairly chilly in Dundee at the moment... and they say there’s going to be snow on Tuesday and Wednesday. In April!) - here’s a Mr Freeze/Batman commission. I really went to town on Victor’s armour here, while also drawing a really muscular eighties-style Batman. 

Captain Cold

A Captain Cold commission from last year. I was given the option of drawing the TV Flash/Legends of Tomorrow version, or the silver age Leonard. Naturally, I chose the silly option 

Remind me to colour this at some point...!

A sneak peek...

...of something I’m not allowed to talk about right now. It’s going to be big and fun though - and I can’t wait for you to see it 

Pentel brush pen and ink wash on Bristol board.

More Dark Knight

Another Batman, drawn just a couple of weeks ago and flying solo this time. Exploring using shadows and tone to define shapes, rather than contour lines, a la art heroes Al Williamson and David Lloyd. It works pretty well, but requires a lot of patience 

Tooled up

An extremely well-equipped Batman from a few years ago... pencils by me, inks by a (pre-stardom) Chris Samnee. We make a good team!

Abslom Daak...

... CYBER KILLER

Drawn with pentel brush pen on sketchbook paper, colours and zipatone added in photoshop

ORION

Orion of the New Gods in a pensive mood - drawn with ballpoint pen and coloured in photoshop (with some original New Gods covered cropped and dropped into the background)

APES TRYOUT

These were the pages I worked up to tryout for my run on Boom! Studios’ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes book. I was going through a Paul Smith/Barry Windsor Smith phase at the time. These were fun to do, and “trying out” for a book made me feel like an old school comics pro. 

INKTOBER REVOLUTION

Hey there! I've decided to do Inktober this year, and as my chosen specialist subject, I've picked the 31 FOES OF SPIDER-MAN. Spidey has a great rogues gallery, easily up there with Batman's, I'd say, so I think this is going to be fun. Lot of weird dudes coming up.

 I'm up to Day Five, and here's who I've done so far:

Not Bounty Hunter... Yes?

DEATH'S HEAD! A long-time Marvel UK fave, breakout character from Transformers and recurrent foil for TV's own Doctor Who. Surely he's about due his day in the sun? I just realised... this big metal bastard is definitely going to be in Guardians of the Galaxy III isn't he?

Revenge Squad Go!

Pretty much every Superman villain I could fit onto an A3 sheet. From left to right:

Maxima (somewhat redesigned - I thought she'd look better as a bruiser)
Composite Superman
Brainiac (in his ship)
Luthor
Doomsday
Nick O'Teen
Zod
Mr Mxyzptlk
Imperiex
Cyborg Superman
Ursa
Silver Banshee
Bizarro
Conduit
Non

If someone wants to colour this, let me know in the comments below (or email me at danmcdaid@yahoo.co.uk)!

HULK OUT!!

A recent commission piece - and the moment where I realised that the Hulk is probably my favourite character 

SKETCHBOOK! THE REVENGE

Just shipped out a bunch more of these beauties: 24 pages, high quality printing, a mix of black and white sketches. Was told this sketchbook was "quite good", so how's that for a recommendation?

You can get em right here: http://danmcdaid.bigcartel.com

FRANK WELLS

... is TITAN 

Damn, I loved drawing that coat 

PICK A CARD

A panel from issue two of King's Quest. This is me getting to grips with Mandrake the Magician

SKETCHBOOK II

Hey loves! My new sketchbook is out!

Here's the front

Here's the back

And here's where you can buy it! http://danmcdaid.bigcartel.com/

D

WHAT IS BEST IN LIFE?

Here's a recent Conan commission, a redraw of a much earlier, unfinished piece co-starring the tenth Doctor. I'd like to draw Conan professionally some day, he's become a favourite of mine over the last five years or so. Something to do with approaching forty...? I took a different approach with this one, spotting all the blacks first and using those blacks to define the shapes for me. It gives the finished piece a rich, organic look... And uses a LOT of ink.

VALIANT!

HAIL MING!

In Living COLOUR

A smattering of some recent colour sketches I did using some old watercolour pencils I found in my studio space. These were a ton of fun to do, and a nice departure from my ink stuff (my "real" job). I used the watercolour pencils for the colour bits, then added some black ink and gouache white to help with the values. Nice.