LTC Book Club - Graphic Novels: The Dark Knight Rises
This card was for a Graphic Novel swap.  I have always been a fan of graphic novels as well as just a general all around fan of comics.  So when this one came up, I had to pick from one of my favorite graphic novels of all time - The Dark Knight Rises.  I have been such a fan of Frank Miller's work since I was a teenager and the iconic image from the first issue of this series was so cool.  There wasn't much to the carve itself however trying to get the lightening correct was a bit of a challenge.  Originally I was just going to stamp the bolt with a separate stamo but the white just didn't come out right on the darker blue card stock and i wanted a brighter white.  So in the end i just used a white colored pencil to draw in the lightening.  I had a template to try and get it just right to how it looked on the cover.  

Game of Thrones: Tyrion Lannister
This card is from the Game of Thrones tracker I joined.  Both my wife and I are huge fans of the T.V. series and she has read the books as well so it was fun to host a tracker honoring the second season of this fantasy drama.  I love the character of Tyrion Lannister so I immediately gravitated to him as my image.  Unfortunately, we are all our own worst critics and I don't think this one came out as well as I had hoped.  I know if i was to do this again, it would have come out much better than it did.  I was trying something different with the card stock and going with a more old ancient weathered look.  The coloring I did with Prismacolor markers.  The only thing i did enjoy with this card was the way it was presented.  I had found some small brown envelopes and also found a lion wax seal online.  I ended up enclosing the card in the envelopes with this seal on the back and i also carved the Lannister family sigil on the front of the envelope.  So overall it was a fun piece.  I just wish the carve turned out a little bit better.  

Layers: General Ursus
This was for a Layers swap that I joined.  Obviously there are so many designs and themes to choose from.  With layering, it's always about getting the right combination of layers and aligning them correctly.  I had seen this image on a poster and had always been a fan of the Planet of the Apes so i decided to have a crack at reprinting this one.  This image really didn't come out the way i had envisioned.  The layers were just ok.  I could have probably done a better job with some of my lines and thinning them out a bit especially around the face on all three layers.  And the alignment of the stamps was a tad tricky and i could have done a better job making sure they fit more precisely but in the end it still turned out to be a cool striking image if you are a fan of the films.

Tim Burton Characters: Martian from Mars Attacks
This was for the Tim Burton LTC swap I was in.  There were just so many cool characters to choose from and I had a hard time deciding.  I was not as happy with this one as I had hoped.  Overall it came out decent but looking back I wished I had chosen a different Burton character.  I guess i have always had a love hate relationship with Mars Attacks.  There are many other Tim Burton films I find much more appealing and enjoy.  So this is probably why I feel less strongly about this carve.  However, the carve wasn't too difficult.  I added some colored pencils to the alien face and added some clear embossing for his helmet.  

 DC Universe Villians: The Joker/Bane
This was for the DC Universe Villians tracker.  I just couldn't decide when picking a villian since there are so many great ones to pick from so i decided to do two.  The Joker is so iconic and once i saw this cool line drawing of him, i had to take it on.  But the Bane character in the comics was also so intriguing so i thoght i would throw in another card for the swap.  I thought this was a simple quick carve to crank out.  I decided with The Joker at the last minute to add a splash of red color around his mouth.  This was done with a simple watercolor wash. 

 The Bane card was inked with a Cobalt   Blue and then i added some flesh color with colored pencils to give it some depth.  The back of the Joker card i used a real playing card image for the background.  I rounded the corners to make the overall card appear to be an actual playing card.  On the back of Bane's card, i gave some historical bio of his character and where his first appearance in comics was. 

DC Universe Heroes: Oliver Queen/Green Arrow
This card was for the DC Universe Heroes tracker.  DC Comics have been around for years and as a kid i always enjoyed some of the cool characters from some of these books.  One of my favorites was Green Arrow.  I always thought his green costume and ability to shoot arrows was interesting.  I liked his King Arthur kind of Robin Hood look.  I found this image from one of the covers to his comic.  I loved the looking straight at you feel to this image.  This was a simple carve but then i used markers to do all the shading and coloring to this image.  I really enjoyed how his face turned out and the eyes.  This is a favorite carve of mine.