Commissions: Mohawk Storm

If you've been fucking paying attention, you know when my favorite time of the X-Men is...AUSTRALIA! But the run up to that is a very close second...The Morlock Tunnels.

Man, I have always preferred the "on the run X" stories over the "hey this ginormous mansion we rebuilt last week is sweet" ones.

So I was psyched when my friend Tyler asked me to draw his favorite, Mohawk Storm. And I knew immediately what I wanted to do.

Kinda.

And this is why TNT is gonna get two.

OK, I'm not gonna lie. There is a feel to this that I really like. And it's not super tight because I always intended to add oil bars next. And there's no mohawk because I'm gonna do that last(you'll see).

Now you can see what I meant. After three color tests(basically, I'd print up copies of the pencil to try different approaches on with color and inks) I felt I knew where I was taking this. And I was both right and wrong. Overall, what I'm happiest with is (hopefully) a sense of claustrophobia and vertigo with the razor blade lines into the oil bars and ink. And I went in with a white paint pen for the mohawk, eyes, switchblade, and jacket highlights.

But something was bugging me...and it seems I had another idea fighting to get out.

So on THE DAY BEFORE NYCC, I went and dove into it.

I "needed" to do an ebony pencil(with helpful art tape assist) location Mohawk Storm drawing. And thankfully I got it on the first attempt. And the white paint pen gives Storm her boss 'hawk.

But now I have another fucking idea...

Mixing black and navy blue oil bars, I fill in the negative space of the night sky. And then helpful white paint pen swings back around for the lightning bolts. And a happy accident is when the white paint accidentally runs down into the now exploding street lamp. That's the sort of thing that makes the fact that there are now blue oil bar fingerprints all over my apartment(and this keyboard, goddamn it).

And special thanks to the Roots as my personal soundtrack while working on these(Clock With No Hands was on 15 times).