Captain America (Endgame)

Finally, after so much time, here's my Endgame fan art! And knowing me and my obsession with Captain America, it's not hard to guess why I chose him! The reference for this drawing comes from Hot Toy stills I found on the Internet. I'm very happy with the final result, especially because I used some new features, such as rim light and thick outline.

This movie was everything I had hoped for, but it also left me a little bit worried. Although the superhero movies fatigue was "predicted" by some movie critics about 3 or even more years ago, new movies and TV shows and MCU "phases" keep popping up, but with the last Avengers it feels like one significant era has finished. I know there are too many stories from the comics to tell, but I'm sorry that some of them will never be told or they were slightly adapted in some of the previous movies. But it's OK, they're called adaptations for a reason and you can't expect to see all your favourite storylines from the source material. I'll live, somehow.

As for the next phase of the MCU, I'm looking forward to Black Widow, Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch and Thor, as well as further sequels of Guardians Of The Galaxy, Captain Marvel and Black Panther, but I'm also interested in Eternals and would love to see The Fantastic 4 one day. And when it comes to "new" characters, among many interesting names, I really hope to see Nova (Richard Rider) and Namor.

NO SPOILERS

I know many of you saw Endgame last weekend, but still... try not to spoil it just a little bit longer. 😉

Odd One #14

Avengers: Eternity Battle

My own Infinity War challenge

Two weeks before the premiere of Avengers: Infinity War, I started my own little challenge, a kind of a test for me and my abilities. I called it "6 Pieces For 6 Gems" and I planned to create six pieces of artwork, any kind that I usually do - digital or traditional artwork, comic strips, DIY projects etc., but always a different technique - one piece for each Infinity Gem! They don't have to be connected to the colour or the meaning of the gems, there just need to be six finished drawings/projects by the end of the second week. Here are all six pieces of artwork.

 Here are some tools of my trade I included in this challenge:

And this is the list of all six projects:

* DIY pencil holder - inspired by the Infinity Gauntlet

* Traditional/watercolour - Thanos

* DIY badge - Avengers logo

* DIY polymer clay item - Infinity Gauntlet

* Comic strip @odd.one.comic

* Digital - Captain America/Nomad

#Piece1ForGem1

My first item for my own Infinity War challenge is an Infinity Gauntlet inspired pencil holder and I hoped it would be the easiest project, but nooo. 🤔 When you look at the final product, it might seem the lamest project ever, but please keep in mind that I spent one afternoon in thrift shops and dollar stores and an evening playing the hit and miss game. 🙄 If you think it's too simple or - I don't know - ugly, be glad you haven't seen the first, crappier version. 😁

In the end I made a version with gold foil, coloured paper, flat glass marbles and magnets. So, there it is - a golden can with six Infinity Stones (or Gems) you can arrange any way you like (I'm not sure which order they'll use in the MCU). Feel free to swipe left to see the whole progress. And another thing - if you think about it, it's actually a 2in1 project! The Gems can also be used as fridge magnets. Wooo! So, what do you think - did the first item blow your mind? 😉

#Piece2ForGem2

My second entry for this challenge is a watercolour pencil drawing of Thanos. Honestly, I didn't know how it would turn out, although I gave my all to follow and apply some advice from tutorials I found on YouTube.

So, it's not very good, but also not that bad... I hope. I'll definitely need some more practice. 🤔 As you can see, I filmed the whole process, so when it's up on my YouTube channel, you can check it out and maybe give me some advice about what I should or shouldn't have done.

#Piece3ForGem3

My next DIY project for this challenge are six badges with Avengers logo. The background colours represent six Infinity Stones, while the logo itself is white. I used wooden tokens, safety pins, a hot glue gun, decoupage glue, coloured paper and foam rubber.

I was particularly happy I got to finish these before the premiere, because I planned to wear them, share them with my friends and maybe even give them away at the local movie premiere, like I did with those Star Wars badges last year.

#Piece4ForGem4

My fourth project for my own Infinity War challenge is an episode of my Odd One comic, which I've been posting on my IG account @odd.one.comic. It was the last project before I went to the local premiere, so my last two items were finished after the movie.

#Piece5ForGem5

The fifth piece of artwork is a DIY project, a polymer clay item, and as promised, it's a 7cm miniature of the Infinity Gauntlet (or at least my version of it). I wasn't able to find the right colour of clay (I was looking for the gold one), so I mixed some colours that I had from my previous projects. I haven't sculpted anything new for a long time, so some pieces were very dry or hard and this was the perfect opportunity to test the Sculpey liquid knock-off I bought some time ago. It's supposed to soften the clay and it worked out perfectly. 👌

As usual in similar projects, the base of the Gauntlet was aluminium foil, a pretty useful technique if you don't want to waste too much polymer clay. When it was finished, I coated it with gloss varnish and used self-adhesive plastic decorative crystals for Infinity Stones to make the whole thing look more "realistic".

#Piece6ForGem6

The sixth piece of artwork is a digital drawing of Captain America in his new costume from Infinity War, and as usual, it was done in Inkscape. So, it took me more than two weeks after all, but I'm glad I got to finish the challenge and complete all planned projects. 👍

As for the film itself, you probably know by now that I saw it before finishing this challenge. I'm not going to spoil anything - unlike an unbelievably big number of various social network users 😡 - but if you're a fellow Marvelite, you shouldn't be disappointed at all. It was amazing, The Infinity War sent me on an emotional ride and I'll need a few days to wrap my head around everything I experienced. I also hope I'll see it again soon. ❤

Black Panther

My Black Panther fan art is finally here! It's all done in Inkscape and I tried drawing some kind of perspective again (which was expected anyway, I guess). I hope I succeeded, but I'll let you be the judge. I used a reference, more precisely it was a photo of a toy or an action figure I found on the internet.

Kao i uvijek dosad, nacrtam i objavim aktualne likove tjednima nakon što je film došao u kino ili nakon što su napustili sezonu neke serije. Zašto bi onda s Black Panther bilo drukčije, zar ne? Istina, još uvijek se može naći pokoji fan art na društvenim mrežama, ali najaktualniji crteži su se pojavljivali protekla dva tjedna. Nadam se da sam uspio "uhvatiti zadnji vlak", ali ako i ne, trebao bih biti zadovoljan što crtam nešto što sam doista i htio.

Inspiraciju za pozu sam našao u fotografiji igračke za film Captain America: Civil War. Zato je odijelo više iz tog filma nego iz ovogodišnjeg Black Panther. Dolje možete vidjeti pojednostavljen proces nastanka crteža, kao sto sam to nekad prije objavljivao - sketch, lineart, flat colours, full illustration. Ali, najiskrenije, veći dio tog konačnog crteža se svede na nagađanja i pronalaženje najboljeg rješenja koje će vizualno najuvjerljivije izgledati. Pozadinu radije izbjegavam crtati i uvijek izaberem neko jednostavnije rješenje.

Npr., zadnji korak - shadows i highlights - je zapravo metoda pokušaja i pogrešaka. Počnem s nekakvom logikom, odredim zamišljen izvor svjetla, ali na kraju popunjavam neke dijelove onako kako mi se najviše svidi, čak ni kad nešto nema smisla. Zato mi ponekad bude smiješno kad me netko (npr. u grupi za Inkscape, gdje povremeno objavljujem svoje radove) pohvali za tu "igru svjetla i sjene", jer kao što rekoh, iza toga se nalazi puka sreća. Ali, ajde-de, očito nekad i nešto dobro ispadne.

Za kraj evo jedan prigodan vic, koji nisam ja osmislio, već sam nedavno pročitao na Twitteru:

"Have you seen the film?"

"Of course! Wakanda question is that?" 😂

Not So Super #1

Merry Christmas, Thanos!

Instagram
Facebook page

Infinity Gauntlet and Marvel's villains

Infinity Gauntlet

Znam da niste očekivali ovaj crtež u vezi s Marvelom, ali na onaj obećani ćete morati još malo pričekati. Ovaj put sam izabrao jedan od crteža iz Inktober izazova i obojao ga digitalno. U pitanju je Infinity Gauntlet, koji je zapravo okosnica svih Marvel Cinematic Universe (dalje: MCU) filmova. Radi se o rukavici koja, ako se skupi svih šest Infinity Gems, vlasniku daje gotovo neograničene moći. Ukratko (bazirajući se samo na aktualne filmove, koji ne prate vjerno svoje stripovske originale), u pitanju su dragulji koji su "razbacani" po MCU filmovima, da se tako izrazim. Za pet već znamo, šesti će biti otkriven u jednom od filmova iz 2017. (pretpostavlja se u Thor: Ragnarok).

Dakle, ovo su svi Infinity Stones (ili Gems) u dosadašnjim filmovima, prema kronološkom redu kojim su bili otkriveni:

Space Stone (Tesseract) iz Captain America: The First Avengeri (2011) i The Avengers (2012) - manipulacija prostorom i dimenzijama, teleportacija, stvaranje "crvotočina".

Power Stone (Orb) iz Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) - kontrola svih moći u svemiru.

Mind Stone (Loki's staff) iz The Avengers (2012) i The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - manipulacija psihičkim moćima, telepatija i telekineza.

Reality Stone (Aether) iz Thor: The Dark World (2013) - mijenja prirodne zakone svemira.

Time Stone (Eye of Agamotto) iz Doctor Strange (2016) - manipulacija vremenom

Soul Stone (još se nije pojavio u filmovima) - manipulacija dušama živih i mrtvih.

Svi Infinity Stones, kao i Infinity Gauntlet će se pojaviti u The Avengers: Infinity War 2018. godine, koji, iako je je trebao biti u dva dijela, čini se da će ipak biti samostalan film, ali o tome nekom drugom prilikom. Tamo će se pojaviti jedan od glavnih negativaca, Thanos, kojeg smo u manjoj mjeri već vidjeli u The Avengers (2012), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) i The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), većinom u scenama iza odjavne špice.

"Problem" s Marvelovim zlikovcima

Budući da sam zagriženi Marvelite, možda ne mogu biti objektivan, ali nije mi ipak jasna ta tvrdnja koja se cijelo vrijeme ponavlja, naime da MCU filmovi nemaju nekog pravog zlikovca. Navodno, niti jedan nije napravio nešto više osim srušio nekoliko zgrada i sl., dao tek naslutiti kakva mu je moć, a onda su ga heroji zaustavili. Po meni, to i je bit ovakvih filmova. To što publika želi gledati potpuno uništenje, govori više o samoj publici, a ne o filmašima. U stripovima priča može trajati tjednima, razvijati se, zavaravati naše junake dugo, dok ne dođe do konačnog obračuna, kad su već izmučeni i izmoreni, ali u zadnjem trenutku nađu zadnji atom snage kojim jedva poraze neprijatelja. Kad se sjetim, npr. cijela priča o Kree invaziji, gdje su izvanzemaljci zamijenili heroje poput Kapetana Amerike je mogla trajati dugo, iz stripa u strip, iz tjedna u tjedan, ali kako sve to zgusnuti u dva sata filma? Iskreno, ni ja nisam znao što bih mislio o Ultronu u drugom dijelu Avengersa, ali nakon što sam ponovo pogledao film, shvatio sam što se njime htjelo postići i popravilo se moje prvotno mlako mišljenje o njemu. Jedno od rješenja su zapravo serije, u kojima se lagano može stvarati željena situacija poput onih u stripovima, pa su vjerojatno serije poput Daredevila na Netflixu toliko uspješne, ali mi smo vrlo razmažena publika. Kao prvo, želimo vidjeti gotovo preslikane stripove na filmskom platnu, a kao drugo, nema nam do eksplozija, uništenja i razaranja. Npr. Agents of SHIELD ili Agent Carter su se više trebali pozabaviti dramom u redovima manje poznatih Marvelovih likova, na kraju su Cartericu otkazali, a i SHIELD-ovci se drže za niti iz sezone u sezonu. Ne tvrdim da je drama loša, već je uvijek mora slijediti i akcija, a u nekim filmovima, kao i serijama, očito nisu znali naći savršen omjer.

Hoće li Thanos napokon uspjeti u onome u čemu su dosad Malekith, The Chitauri, Yellowjacket, Ronan the Accuser, Red Skull, Whiplash, Aldrich Killian, Crossbones, Ultron i Loki očito pogriješili? Kao što rekoh, ne prema mojem mišljenju, već prema mišljenju uvijek gladne publike... K tome, uopće nisam spomenuo negativce iz X-Men franšize, poput Apocalypse, koji je kao Marvelov zlikovac (iako izvan MCU) također podbacio ove godine, ali o tome bi se očito moglo raspravljati satima. Ja samo znam da uživam u tim filmovima i ne tražim dlaku baš u svakom jajetu, već prihvaćam da su neke stvari napravljene dobro ili čak odlično, a neke.. pa i ne baš tako dobro - i to je u redu.

Quicksilver vs Quicksilver

Quicksilver vs Quicksilver! X-Men vs Avengers! Fox vs Marvel/Disney! Peters vs Taylor-Johnson! Two movie versions of the same Marvel character. Which one is your favourite?

Nisam spominjao nikakav rok za svoje radove, ali to ne znači da ih nemam, barem one zamišljene. Recimo da se radi o crtežu po tjednu, ali ako dobro brojite, danas je utorak i tek sad objavljujem prošlotjedni projekt. Ali to je život, prave obveze su bitnije od hobija i za njih ima vremena tek kad se riješi sve ostalo.

Evo, napokon nešto od Marvela, što je vjerojatno i očekivano od mene. Radi se o dvije filmske verzije strip-junaka Quicksilvera (speedstera kao odgovor na DC-ovog Flasha), mutanta (koji to nije) i jednog od blizanaca (koji to nije). Kako misliš "nije", pitate se? Duga je to priča i ovom prilikom ne mislim (previše) potrošiti vremena na to. Recimo samo da je lijevo Foxova verzija iz franšize X-Men, a desno Disneyeva iz franšize Avengers. Radi se o filmskim pravima koje Marvel ima (ili nema) - Fox ga smije koristiti kao mutanta, Magnetovog sina iz X-Men stripova, a Marvel/Disney kao jednog od mlađih Osvetnika iz Avengers stripova. Meni je draža verzija iz Avengersa, jer je bliža originalu, iako to nije uvijek uvjet niti najbolje rješenje s nekim likovima. No, bez obzira na sve, iskoristio sam priliku da nacrtam obje verzije, pa voilà! :-)

Kao i dosad, ispod vam predstavljam neke etape procesa kroz koje je prošao ovaj crtež. Naravno da je to mnogo kompliciranije, ali podijelio sam na olovku, lineart i osnovne boje. Nakon toga još slijedi sjenčanje i razni efekti kako bi se došlo do konačne verzije.

Nadam se da vam se svidjelo, kao što sam se ja zabavljao crtajući. A sad na novi projekt, nema previše čekanja i odmaranja.

Grdi