Sunday, December 28, 2008

IRON BRIT!


Last week's post made reference to the daytime soap All My Children, which I have watched since I was in high school. (And no, I'm not going to tell you how long ago that was!) Of all the hot guys I have encountered on All My Children (for want of encountering them in reality), by far the hottest is my favorite character, Aidan Devane, played by Aiden Turner. Though I'm less than happy with the way Aiden has been shaving his chest hair for the last couple of years (if you could have seen him with the dusting of hair across his pecs that he originally had...YUM!), and I'm not crazy about the way the show has lately made him an embittered conspirator in a child-snatching, Aiden/Aidan remains at the number-one spot on my list of hotties in Pine Valley, PA. Aidan, in his proper form, is brave, resourceful, strong, and heroic. He rescues and protects women and sticks up for his friends. And...he's British. BRITISH, if you please! Since he's the nearest thing to a super-hero on daytime TV, I decided a while back that I would make him one. Enter and behold...IRON BRIT!

I actually sent the original artwork for this piece to Aiden Turner himself at ABC Studios in New York. Alas, he never wrote back. In the past, I have written to various daytime TV hunks and gotten signed pictures back, but I'm afraid I've not had the pleasure with Aiden. I don't even know if he's seen this. A shame, really. Still my appraisal of him has not changed. I hope the show will soon make him once again the hero he was meant to be. I hope they will give him a true love that will not break his heart so badly that he starts to behave like a villain. (I'm looking at you, Rebecca Budig as Greenlee Smythe!) And I still hope that someday he will grow back his bloody chest hair! In the meantime, here he is above in costume.

Monday, December 22, 2008

THE LITTLE THINGS FOR THE HOLIDAYS

For the holiday season, a little post of my Christmas Card from last year (above), along with a little story I'd like to tell.

A couple of years ago, the daytime soap All My Children closed its holiday episode with a song called "Christmas in the Heart" by a recording artist named Hugh Pool. I thought this was a very sweet and endearing little number, a sort of modern-day "Jingle Bell Rock" that deserves to become a classic passed down for generations just like that song. And I wanted to have a copy of it for myself. At the time, I didn't have a fully functional computer and was doing all of my surfing on library and cafe computers, and couldn't collect it from iTunes. This year I finally upgraded my computer to the MacBook I'm using now, and was ready to buy "Christmas in the Heart" from iTunes for the holidays--except for some reason iTunes had removed the thing and I couldn't find it anywhere else! After several futile attempts to find the song, I at last E-mailed Hugh Pool personally for help. After several weeks I assumed he was too busy to reply to me, or that he just didn't do favors of that kind for listeners. Imagine my surprise a few mornings ago when I checked my E-mail and found a note from Hugh with an MP3 of the song attached!

I would share the song with you here, but that would mean posting the MP3 for download with no way for Hugh to receive a cent from it, and after the exceptionally generous turn he did for me, I just didn't feel right about doing that. But I wanted to pass on this story just by way of saying that sometimes the pleasure of the holiday season is not in the big-ticket items we buy for ourselves and our loved ones, but in the decent little things we do for each other. So, one little picture from last year (the first time I've ever repeated a Christmas Card), one little story for the season, and one great big "Merry Christmas" to one and all.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

ACROSS THE UNIVERSES

Here's a drawing that I did a while back. You should recognize these characters if you're a fan of comics and know your "stuff". One of them is a denizen of a "new" universe; the other belongs to what bills itself as "the original universe". Regardless, they're two of the hottest heroes ever to scorch a comic book page!


Sunday, December 7, 2008

QUANTUM CHRISTMAS CARD 2009!

Hi again:

We took last week off from posting for the Thanksgiving holiday, but now we’re back with something special. Every year I do a super-hero Christmas Card featuring my own characters. On occasion I bring in a character or characters from well-known comics to appear with my heroes. This is one of those years. What we have for the 2009 Holidays is a mock cover for an imaginary issue of Wild Jon (the super-hero version of my eBay creation, Jungle Jon, Prince of the Wild). My Prince Jon is a hero who leaps and swings his way through the “concrete canyons” of Manhattan. We see him here with a character with whom you may be acquainted, who’s famous for doing the same thing!

As an extra-special treat, I’ve included this Card in three versions. Along with the final Card, you see here the Card in its initial penciled staged and in its initial color stage before the final paste-up and background coloring. All the colors here are digital, by the way--direct from Photoshop!

As Christmas approaches, I hope everyone surfing this Blog is warm, safe, and happy, and will continue to be so into 2009. And yes, we’ll have more goodies here between now and Christmas, so keep coming back!


Saturday, November 22, 2008

CHARGED AND READY

One more of our Shirtless Hero Pairs: Here's a shot of two of the mightiest champions of their world, looking ready for...well, you decide...


ON A RING AND A PRAYER

Continuing our series of Shirtless Hero Pairs, here are the young successors of two of their world's greatest heroes, speeding and soaring into what kind of action we can only imagine!


Sunday, November 9, 2008

SHIRTLESS HERO PAIRS

I've just finished an auction of shirtless hero team-up shots. We'll be seeing these over the next several weeks. As fall is upon us and a lot of places are getting colder, let's hope these can keep us warm!

SPEED AND SKILL BOOKENDS


DUO 1 AND 2

Saturday, November 1, 2008

INTERPLANETARIES, CONCLUSION

Here are the last characters in the Interplanetaries series. "Long live the..." oops, never mind. :-))

THE TRANSMUTER




VOLTAGE



Friday, October 24, 2008

INTERPLANETARIES PART 2

Here are some more of my versions of those hot young heroes from the space-traveling future.

ULTIMATE BOY



TOWER BOY


STELLAR BOY

Sunday, October 19, 2008

INTERPLANETARIES PART 1

If you're a comics fan and know your stuff, it shouldn't be hard to figure out where these characters came from. I designed "The Interplanetaries" for one of my online auctions, changing the names and altering the costumes of the boys to protect the innocent. Well, actually, to protect me from charges of trademark infringement! Here are some of the hot young super-heroes of the space-traveling future. There'll be more in the next post.

GALAXY BOY


SOLARMAX


VANISHING LAD


WOLFBOY



Friday, October 10, 2008

HEROES UNCOSTUMED


These pieces are part of a collection of ACEO (Art Cards Editions and Originals) trading cards that I auctioned. They are my reworkings of some of the most familiar super-heroes of one of the leading comic book companies. If you know your stuff, you should be able to tell from which characters they were derived!

DUDE, WHAT'S ON MY BACK?

Another of my commission pieces. Based on the context and the film reference, can you guess which young movie stars are being portrayed here?

Saturday, October 4, 2008

MORE JUNGLE JON

These are some of the initial drawings in the Jungle Jon, Prince of the Wild series that I sold on eBay. They loosely tell a story of other hot boys arriving or appearing on the mysterious Rainbow Island, of which Jon is the Prince, and Jon coming face to face (among other parts) with his boyfriend Tom for the first time.

SUNDOWN: Here’s Jon, alone on the Island, thinking it might be nice to have someone here to share its beauty with him. As he nods off to sleep in the trees, he’s about to get his wish.
CURIOUS: Tom (the blond) and Lucas (the Pacific Islander) have just appeared on the Island. They’re not quite sure why they’re here, but they might as well enjoy it. They don’t suspect that their arrival has been noticed.
MARK’S WORKOUT: Mark, the exhibitionist/bodybuilder, “pumps iron” with a big log (there’s a phrase loaded with multiple entendres) while Spencer, the swimmer and diver, looks on appreciatively. And he’s not the only one...
COPPERTONE TOM: This piece was inspired by that old Coppertone Sunscreen advertisement with the little girl having the bottom of her bikini pulled down by the frisky little dog. Substitute Tom for the little girl and one of Rainbow Island’s friendly lemurs for the dog, and we’re in business.
COME ON IN!: This is one of my favorites. Rainbow Island has a lot of waterfalls, and waterfalls are one of Spencer’s favorite things. As he dives in, Mark joins right behind him.
FIRST SIGHT: Meanwhile, Tom and Lucas have already made it to the water when the Prince and master of the Island decides to reveal himself. Tom is as smitten with Jon as Jon is with him. And wouldn’t you be?

We'll be checking in Jon and his friends on Rainbow Island from time to time, so be sure to keep surfing back this way!

Saturday, September 27, 2008

A SCENE THEY DIDN'T SHOW YOU IN BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN


I've done a lot of auction work, selling my art on eBay, from which I've also taken on a good deal of commission work. This is a commission piece I did for a fan who considers it one of his very favorite things I've created for him. (And this is my very best buyer.) He wanted to see some shots of Jack and Ennis (Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger) in Brokeback Mountain, in a more intimate context than what we were allowed to see in the film. I agree that this is one of my most beautiful renderings, and I decided it would be the perfect initial post for the Quantum Male Art Blog.

MEET JUNGLE JON!


I began my auction work with a series of drawings called Jungle Jon, Prince of the Wild. The idea first came to me after I saw the animated Walt Disney version of Tarzan and it occurred to me that Tarzan's loincloth is a complete non-sequitur. Tarzan is a nature myth about the natural world doing what man has always done to nature, and reclaiming an infant who would have been raised "civilized". As man has always had his way with nature, so nature had its way with Tarzan. It's only because of our provincial fear and loathing of the human body (especially the male body) that Tarzan is portrayed with a loincloth; to be true to the concept, the character should be naked! The character in the Quantum Male Art title image above, Wild Jon, is a super-hero variation on the Jungle Jon concept. It's something new that I started brainstorming last year. Wild Jon lives in Manhattan and wears clothes but doesn't like them; Jungle Jon lives on a mysterious island and wears nothing!