Larry, we have to close the beaches!

Cyborgian Carcharias. The great robotic shark!

who would build robo-sharks, and for what purpose?
how did HOPE get into this predicament, and HOW is she gonna get out of it?

i really don't want to say too much about it, just 'cause it'll be too much of a spoiler....

;)

the robot sharks are influenced by hajime sorayama, whose 'sexy robots' became part of pop culture, and whose work i admire from way back when we were all using actual airbrushes

stay tuned....



oh, one thing to note is that HOPE's 'outfit' is a direct homage to honey rider in dr. no, down to the exact same knife on her belt - somehow, in my mind, this makes total sense...

La Pacifica

background work for the first page splash! Again, the architecture in La Pacifica, as well as OMNICORP technology is heavily anime-inspired, which looks great when rendered with the 'silver-age' color palette and spiced up a little with the classic 'ben-day' dot pattern.

i'm kinda proud of the line-work here, which is all free-hand, not using a straight-edge or anything, and not cleaned up in photoshop - gives it a nice, organic feel!

btw, i'm ALMOST done with the big 'reveal'-panel featuring hope's 'frazetta-pose', which will happen later in the story, i'm just posting this work focusing on outside environments in the meantime because of some necessary re-design concerning the holographic representation of OMNICORP's board of directors. It's much more ambitious now (go figure!)

;)

m

background

here is the background for the panel in progress - it's somewhat inspired by anime, which i feel is totally appropriate for all the tech-y elements in the hope universe, the look of which creates a nice contrast to the characters with their unmistakable franco-belgian heritage.

interesting to see the BG in its unobstructed glory - it will be mostly covered up in the particular panel i'm working on, but even though this creates more work right now, designing and drawing and coloring the whole panel - if you think about this workflow more like you would in animation, this 'shot' is being prepared like in a multiplane set-up, and thus it allows you to use all the elements separately, and possibly in a slightly different way, in other panels requiring the same (or a similar) location...