Unique Tales: golden age Taskforce

Been keeping myself busy, partly with a special project for Adam Withers and Comfort Love, creators of the self-published The Uniques superhero comic. If you follow them you'll likely know this already, but for those not in the know they're starting a new series called Unique Tales with short stories written and illustrated by other artists that expands on the history and setting of The Uniques. I've been working out character designs for several WWII era superheroes, the Taskforce, which has been exciting since I love this line of work and greatly admire Adam and Comfort. There will be some adjustments made, as you can see with Countryman, but these are the initial designs.

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Countryman
the original design

the modified design________________________________________
Virtue
This design was too decorated for Adam and Comfort's liking,
however the uniform will be used for more ceremonial scenes.
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Mercury
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Liberty________________________________________
Guardian Angel
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Ghost

tufted titmouse w.c. painting

It was my mother's birthday yesterday, so as a gift I did this small watercolor painting of a tufted titmouse for her. I haven't done much with watercolors for a while now so it felt good to do something like this, which was simple and could do within an evening.

Mom and myself with her painting

Communist portraits commission

Here's Luise K.'s commission, a Christmas gift for the guy rendered on the right end of the row. It was a little tricky trying to stylize his portrait to resemble the other three, who are, from left to right: Marx, Engel, and Lenin. Drawing all those details felt more like topography than facial features.

Christmas play sets

Here I am standing by the backdrop painting, hung behind the choir seats.

Each year my hometown church of Perry Baptist traditionally puts on two Christmas play programs: one with children, the other with adults. This year I was asked to assist with set designs for the children's play "Miracle on Main Street" by painting a backdrop, requesting that it be a town square with a visible church. Rarely do I work large scale like this, so even after spending nearly two weeks working on it, it only managed to be mostly complete before the deadline came. Had I a better notion of how much work would go into such an endeavor, I would have started earlier. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. Still, the painting was satisfactory for the play and afterward I put on the finishing touches, as it may have a use in future Christmas plays.