More Stanza stuff

I've been working on some personal stuff, which I will be sharing on here in a little while, but now I'm getting back to some of the stuff I was working on before, including finishing of these Stanza drawings.

©2011 James Mathurin

Dwayne McDuffie is gone

This is so strange for me. The man who has been an inspiration to me since my early teens has died. If you are not into comics or cartoons, you may not know him, but this man was amazing. Dwayne McDuffie wrote so many things that touched me and many others. You can google him to find out his history, and go to Amazon to find books or DVDs of his work, and you'll be glad you did. If you watch or have children who watch the hugely popular Ben 10: Alien Force, or Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, which he was executive producer of, I can guarantee you've seen his work. I just want to talk about my personal experiences with him.

I never got to meet my hero in person. However, thanks to the Internet, I did get to converse with him. In 2001, he did an email interview for my degree dissertation. On his online message boards, I was one of the people who discussed comics, science, politics and religion with him. A couple of years ago, a friend asked him to sign something for me as a birthday present - Dwayne signed a copy of his graphic novel Icon: A Hero's Return, and a massive Justice League poster, a title he was working on at the time, where his Milestone characters were receiving a new lease of life in the DC Universe, with a personal message telling me how important fans like me had been to Milestone. And he sent it for free, even insisting on paying the postage.

People who know me, especially my fiancée, will tell you how much I can talk about Dwayne, his work, the personal and professional struggles he's been through. It's because he is my hero. Two of my proudest moments were when Dwayne asked if he could steal a phrase I coined to describe how 'gangsta rap' described urban life, as opposed to how artists like himself portrayed it ("the ghetto as a playground"), and when he said he liked a drawing I did of one of his characters (below). Those memories will now be that little bit more treasured.

Rest in peace, Dwayne, and condolences to your wife and family.

And thank you.

©2011 James Mathurin

Shlomo update

More work on the Shlomo sketches I was doing. Had a few ideas building on these, hope you like them.

©2011 James Mathurin

Drogba update

Coming along nicely - I've now finished the black and white stages of this drawing, and I'm told I captured Drogba's arrogance, which is exactly what I was going for. Please let me know what you think!

©2011 James Mathurin

Stanza update

So, I was too ill to work today, but it gave me the chance to work on a few things, so here are the final drawing stages of those pictures of Stanza I posted yesterday. Colour versions to come soon.

©2011 James Mathurin

Shlomo

More music related stuff! My sister and I were lucky enough to see a fantastic show earlier in the week, by the Beatboxer Shlomo. If you get the chance to see his Mouthtronica show you should, and if you don't, at least check out his website, with lots of goodies, podcasts, etc.

Oh, also, he's got a cool charity download thing going on on his site, so give it a look.

©2011 James Mathurin

Stanza

Stanza is a rapper from Georgia, whose music I got introduced to via the Top Twenty Countdown on VVC Radio, hosted by my buddy Mastrmynd. There are plenty of free downloads on his site, and if you like good music, you should check it out. Anyway, I'm a fan, and I thought I'd do a few sketches.

©2011 James Mathurin

Drogba

This is a picture I wasn't going to finish for a while, and this is only the pencilling stage, but I promised a certain young man that I would put it up here, so here it is. Thing is, I'm not even a Chelsea fan, but you have to admit, Drogba is still one of the most dynamic players in the game, so you can make some good pictures of him.

©2011 James Mathurin