zenwave arts

Twarts Abound!

2010-03-10T11:04:00.002-05:00

Here's my late entry for later week's Twart. Time's just been getting away from me lately.

Done with Markers and a dash of Photoshop.

Johnny Recon at the Drive-In!

2010-03-03T09:04:00.001-05:00

Here's my belated Twart. Apologies to Mitch Gerads--fellow Twart member and co-creator of Johnny Recon--for the lateness but I wanted to so this right and unfortunately things kept getting in the way of doing that last week.

I really wanted to capture the idea of aged 50's sci-fi movie poster with the faded colours, sensational titles, etc. I hope I succeeded.

Want Some Punishment?

2010-02-23T23:34:00.003-05:00

Just finished inking this commission for a Punisher fan.

I know Punisher's essentially a very simple character but he's one of the few characters (along with Batman or Wolverine) that I feel totally comfortable drawing. I understand the character and know how to put whatever I have to regarding him down on paper.

Oh, and yeah I know. I fudged that left arm in the inking process so I had to black most of it out. What can you do?

The Shadow Knows...

2010-02-20T23:01:00.002-05:00

This is a commission I just finished for a fan in Scotland.

Despite the fact that I myself am a fan of the Shadow in all his versions, this is probably one of only a handful of times I've drawn him. He's such a well-designed character--which is probably a huge part of why he's endured to this day.

I'm Going to Beetle You To A Pulp!

2010-02-19T15:44:00.003-05:00

Yeah, I know, terrible pun.
Here's this week's Twart: Francesco Francavilla's Black Beetle.

This character evokes the pulp characters of the 30's and 40's and I was really jazzed to come up with a piece that evokes the art of that day. I love those sometimes lurid cover illustrations.

I've been a big fan of the pulps, especially since many of my favourite fiction writers had their start in the pulp magazines: Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett in Black Mask magazine, Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein in Astonishing Tales, and Robert Howard in Weird Tales, and Rad Bradbury and Edgar Rice Burroughs in Argosy magazine.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto...

2010-02-11T08:54:00.002-05:00

This week's Twart is up. When you're there you can check this out along with the other guys' amazing entries.

Let me know what you guys think.

Oops I Twarted Again...

2010-02-07T04:53:00.004-05:00

My entry for this week's Comic Twart is up.

I know using this much Photoshop might be cheating bu--what the hell. I'm out of my league here!
Next week's going to be a doozy.

I Am Not Iron Man...

2010-01-29T13:58:00.007-05:00

Just uploaded a bunch of sketch cards I did for Upper Deck's Iron Man 2 set into the Sketch section.
They were a lot of fun to do, which is the biggest part of the reason why I did them.

Rocketeer Twart

2010-01-27T02:54:00.002-05:00

Flashing my Twart at 3 o'clock in the morning!

He's Not Who You Think...

2010-01-15T08:53:00.004-05:00

Offered without preamble or explanation: Ronin.

Existence 3.0 Preview

2009-10-28T12:33:00.002-05:00

Hey guys. Sorry I've neglected this blog. I've been kind of busy during the past few months.

Existence 2.0 has come and gone and I'm now working on its follow-up series: Existence 3.0. It's a 4-issue mini following up on the existence of the Balladine family and the assassin, Marko. There's a 5-page preview of it up on CBR!

Here's a shot of the cover and a teaser of the first issue.

Look for it at your local comic book shop this November! If they don't have it, order it!

Existence2.0 Issue 1 5-Page preview!

2009-04-28T09:16:00.002-05:00

I just got the OK to post a 5-page preview of Existence 2.0, my upcoming book from Image/Shadowline. I'm happy with the look of this one. Everyone involved did an awesome job.

This is gonna be good! Pre-order your copy now!

Finally a New Post!

2009-04-24T13:02:00.003-05:00

Sorry, it's been about a half a year since I last updated. I've been quite busy since then.
I've drawn some and I'll post them here when I have time. Or, you can stroll over to my Deviantart page at ronsalas.deviantart.com. That's the site that's currently most up-to-date.

Anyway, I've currently been busy working on pages for a miniseries coming out via Image/Shadowline this July. The solicitation for it was just posted online at CBR this week so feel safe about posting about it here.

Here's the cover for the first issue.

"Self-absorbed physicist Sylvester Baladine finds his consciousness transferred into the body of the hitman who just killed him! Things don’t seem too bad until his daughter is kidnapped by the same people who 'killed' him. Now, he's forced to dig up his past and solve his own murder… inadvertently making himself a target once more."

Wolvie Wednesday

2008-10-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

You guys probably can't tell 'cause this is in black & white but my favourite Wolverine costume was always John Byrne's orange and brown design. It just had that sleek and cool quality while giving you the impression that this was a rough and tumble kind of guy. It's sad that they keep going back to a yellow & blue costume design for him. I understand that that colour scheme is more in keeping with the X-men colour pallette but the orange and brown costume is just so much cooler! Idiots.

Titan Tuesday

2008-09-30T23:00:00.000-05:00

Titans Tuesday is in a different style today.

I've always loved the look of Wonder Girl. She has one of the sexiest and best-designed costumes around. It's a bit sad that she has been left floundering due to Crisis and what it had done to her history and origins. I've actually read the who is Wonder Girl and Who is Donna Troy stories in Titans as well as Perez' Donna Troy mini and I still don't know who she is anymore. All I know is that I'm glad that the Perez-designed Troia costume is gone. That was ugly, man.

Masked Monday

2008-09-30T08:09:00.002-05:00

Masked Monday is a bit late. Well, okay, a day's late but how about that economy, huh?

Anyway, this drawing is of the character "Kick-Ass". If you don't know who he is, it's understandable as he is the main character of the creator-owned series of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. It's probably the most bloody and gratuitously violent comic JRjr has ever drawn but somehow it's still not so bad when he draws it. I wonder if Tom Palmer has a share in this 'cause his inks here are a great selling point for me as well.

Super Sunday

2008-09-28T23:10:00.001-05:00

I always thought it was interesting that Superman somehow had the ability to fool everyone into thinking he was just plain old Clark simply by putting on a pair of glasses. Numbers of writers and creators have tried to explain why that worked but none of these explanations were really all that convincing.
I think the best explanation for me was a demonstration of the difference between the two characters. It was the scene in Superman 2 where Christopher Reeve was about to tell Lois that he was Superman. To see him actually go through that change almost makes me believe that it could work after all.

JLA Saturday

2008-09-27T23:28:00.001-05:00

As much as I love reading Marvel comics right now I've always been a DC guy. They're the ones that have the most iconic heroes, and the ones with the greatest legacy. I wanted to dedicate Saturdays to the JLA because it pretty much gives me an opportunity to draw from a huge range of characters as most of the heroes in the DC Universe have been members of the JLA at one time or another.

I'm starting with my favourite superhero, Batman.

Kung Fu Friday

2008-09-26T23:13:00.002-05:00

I'm a bit late. Watching the Obama/McCain debate kinda cut into my free drawing time.

I'm a huge kung fu movie fan so on Fridays I want to showcase my favourite kung fu movie actors. Before this I had already done pictures of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Tony Jaa. Now, I want to showcase one of the best action actors and choreographers today, Donnie Yen. He's probably most famous for starring in Iron Monkey but he's been in dozens of movies. Some were good, some not so good but throughout all of them he's displayed superior athletic ability and technique above almost anybody in the business today.

Thor Thursday

2008-09-25T11:12:00.001-05:00

Thursdays are about the day's namesake, Thor. I've always been a fan of the character since I read Walt Simonson's historic run. The Thor of today is a lot different from how he was back then. He's a lot more stoic--sometimes angry, even. I don't know if I like that so much but the art by Coipel keeps me hooked.

I wanted to dedicate Thursdays to Thor because, while I've been a long-time fan of the character, I've always had a problem drawing the character. It's that damn helmet!

Wolvie Wednesday

2008-09-24T11:17:00.001-05:00

Wednesday's are all about Wolverine 'cause I just like alliteration, what can I say? I'm a big fan of Wolverine as a character although I do miss the days back when he was the little hairy Canadian fireplug. I don't think he has ever been written as well as he was back when Claremont was on Uncanny X-men. It's easy to pick on Wolverine 'cause he's so popular and "cool" that it's sometimes easy to forget the reason why he's so popular in the first place.

Titan Tuesday

2008-09-23T13:10:00.003-05:00

For Titans Tuesday I'm drawing a member of any incarnation of the Teen Titans, New Titans, or just the Titans. Today's guy is Nightwing, ex-Robin, sidekick of Batman. One of the things that's amazing about Nightwing is that Dick Grayson as Nightwing has been around for over two decades but is still mostly known these days as Batman's sidekick. He still has not sufficiently developed an identity of his own--a failure, I think of the various writers of his own title.

Masked Monday

2008-09-22T08:12:00.002-05:00

This Monday's pic is of Dan Schkade's awesome character, The Fowl. He's a sort of a nutty, schizophrenic version of Batman with guns and great page designs.

Super Sunday

2008-09-21T01:19:00.002-05:00

Following Chris Samnee's example I'm going to try a theme drawing-a-day thing. Probably won't last long but it's an attempt, anyway. haha

The final issue of All-Star Superman just came out and it was as awesome as I expected. Morrison really has shown that new things can still be done with the old guy. Quitely's depiction of Superman is probably one of the best I've ever seen. He's heroic without being corny. The kind of guy everyone can admire.

Here's the Sunday Superman.

Marvelous Masterpieces?

2008-09-08T15:33:00.004-05:00

I just got my sketch cards for the Marvel Masterpieces 3 set by Upper Deck approved. I did 250 cards in total so I'll only post a few here. The rest can be found in my gallery. I'll probably feature them in their own gallery section with each card on its own page at some point but for right now they'll be grouped together like this.