adamwarren
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DISTRESSED DAMSELS: Complete WORK STAGES on the final EMPOWERED "conventionless con sketch" for 2023!
🕑 Added 2023-12-29 14:00:11 +0000 UTCBehold, my final Empowered DiD commission of 2023, rendered in the two-color, 11" x 14" format I once used for con sketches back in the (pre-pandemic) day. In reverse order from the image gallery above, let's roll through the Work Stages, starting with an initial pair of thumbnail-sized roughs:
Next up, a full-sized rough at 11" x 14"; note that my separate scans for the top and bottom of the piece didn't quite line up, but I didn't quite care enough to rescan the rough.
I'm quite rusty at drawing figures this large nowadays, which probably explains why I drew Emp's head way too g-d small; tough to keep your unruled, "eyeballed" figure proportions strictly correct when you're drawing at a larger scale, I've always found. (Ruling out said figure proportions might've obvsly helped, but I was just "wingin' it," folks.)
Drawing Ninjette's rope-hanging pose from imagination proved challenging, so I dug up a relevant piece of photoreference and based a revised rough on the image:
Yeah, that's better. On to the underdrawing's light pencils on Bristol board, jacked up in Photoshop for clarity:
Yeahp, head still too small, booba too big (though that was arguably the point of the illo's joke); oh, well.
Next up, the inks, mostly rendered via Ultra-Fine Sharpies (and not Extra-Fine Sharpies, which I found to my dismay are a different thing entirely):
And here are the final colors:
Ehh, I might try tweaking Emp's head (and booba) size in Photoshop before this post goes live.
UPDATE: I did indeed make such an attempt at Photoshop tweaking, but I can't claim that the results represent all that much of an improvement:
Screw it, I'm sick of tinkering with this piece. Onward!
Note that Emp's straitjacket was taken from a design originally created for a scene in the perpetually upcoming Empowered vol.12:
However, I didn't bother to go back and actually look at this exact straitjacket design from Emp v.12, hence the slight design differences appearing in this commission.
NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: The Monthly Exclusive Bonus Post for the $10 and $20 tiers will be coming up this weekend (featuring a bunch of CSP sketches based on $20-tier art requests), possibly along with a "Next Year on This Here Patreon" text piece if I get a chance.
Comments
Strypgia
The size of Emp's head really doesn't look that off that you'd notice. If you hadn't pointed it out, I doubt I'd have noticed at all. Your proportions aren't as off to an outside observer as you fear.
Adam Warren
More shocking still is that a tapedrone—which I created 24 years ago in DP:RFTF but of course did not popularize—only appears in a single panel of the entire series!
JoJack86
Absolutely love this. Thanks for sharing, Adam! Its a shame it took so long for straightjackets to be incorporated into Emp's peril lineup.
Aidenke
Absolutely fantastic bit of fun here, as the reference to that great DeathTrapMonger sequence is a great contextual laugh. Emp survived the first run, but 'Jette is here to help her escape while DtM is busy with more traps! Plus, Emp may well have a "...that's what I said!" moment here too! XD
Vlaphor
I think the head looks fine both versions, but it's always generally a good idea to increase booba...
ben aka nekomilk
Woah, looks fantastic! I didn't really notice anything odd about Emp's head and booba size, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough?
