If you know me well, you'll know that Paolo Rivera is one of my favorite comic book artists. I'd say overall artist, too, but I don't want to have to defend my claim because I'm simply too lazy to. No, I probably can justify my statement. Let's just move on.
Paolo Rivera has been posting on his blog, once a week, reference photos from his comics work. His posts are called "Wacky Reference Wednesdays." It's a good title. Working in comics, and art in general, kind of forces you to learn how to draw everything. Especially in comics, where speed, versatility, and integrity come into play with every assignment. You can say that about anything, really. The point is, this kind of post is going to be a regular thing on this blog. I'm making new work all the time, so there's really no shortage of reference photos. Here's to the first edition of... Refwednesday. It's a lame title. I know.
The first image in this post is actually a revised pose after I realized a technical problem in the sketches stage for the "Ronin" illustration:
You can't see the dude's face! This became a problem a big problem as I stared at the "Ronin" sketch more and more. The weapon actually divided the image plane in half, and that's a pretty big drawing no-no. You'll see in the original artwork, that the new arrangement is a little more visually stimulating.
Here's some of the poses that didn't work out:
And then there's some other details:
If you haven't seen 13 Assassins yet, you probably should.
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