New kick ass custom figure and some cool fan art

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I really enjoy doing these side by side cover comparisons of these X-Men back issues with the corresponding X-Men Classic reprints. On this one I'm so torn because I love the original but the cover variant looks pretty damn good too especially with how they included Forge's neutralizer which was a pivotal part of the issue. An issue I'm happy to remind you all which launched a four issue story arc (X-Men 186, 187, 188, 189) of the attempted assassination of Forge by the Dire Wraiths only narrowly avoided by some help from The X-Men. But as it turned out Forge had almost as much to worry about from Storm despite her having lost her mutant powers. Here's a back posting of the side by side comparisons of the next two X-men issues  http://romspaceknightart.blogspot.com/search?q=classic+x-men

2.5"x3.5" Watercolor over inks sketch card by Danny Kuang

Now as we all know sometime not too long before the Wraith War spilled into the pages of the X-Men the Dire Wraiths had something of a "changing of the guard". In other words the females killed off all the males so they could do things they're way proving that indeed the female is the more deadly of most any species  : )

 

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But that certainly doesn't make this new custom male Dire Wraith from Chris any less cool. In fact it's not just merely cool it's down right bad ass. And to save you the trouble of asking the base figure was The Thing from the Fantastic 4.

It's funny when artists who are Rom fans seem to almost be thinking about the same thing at nearly the same time. It wasn't long ago I did a piece that included Rom and Acroyear and even more recently Firefall. Have a look what just turned up yesterday http://dannphillips.deviantart.com/gallery/

Sunday Update: I think Firefall must be the spaceknight of the month or something look at this video that just turned up today http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvXLbM6Womc

How I see art and characterization

I know I'm probably gonna catch some shit for this but keeping things interesting around here every week doesn't come from me sugar coating my opinions and thoughts on things. That being said I've never been a real big fan of Fred Hembeck's work. A lot of the behind the scenes humor for Marvel's production staff that Hembeck's art often centered around didn't really resonate with me as a kid back in the early 80s. I'm not saying he sucks or anything and in all fairness I'm not all that crazy in general about caricature type renderings when it comes to my favorite comic book and sci-fi characters. There have been exceptions ofcourse such as in the case of the parodies done in MAD Magazine and similar type satire.Well, it so happens that this Hembeck sketch card that I found on ebay recently is also an exception. I actually like I don't know why but I think it has some charm to it. So what do you think, like it?
Here's a Torpedo redesign. I really like it but at the same time I can't help but want to see that new suite drawn in a less "cartoony" way it would have really kicked ass then.

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You all remember that posting of me lambasting those preliminary designs for The Micronauts cartoon that never was right? Well just by the animation style alone I knew it would have sucked and done an all around disservice to the original Bill Mantlo series. Just like a really really bad movie sequel to a great original.

And speaking of great things that Mantlo helped inspire here's a couple of Sabra sketch cards I found recently. As you can see both are quite excellent in terms of what the respective artists were going for but as usual I'm more partial to the one that is a more accurate representation (minus the cape) of Marvel's premier mutant power house of The Promise Land.

And speaking of fan made art of all sorts we've made some other new discoveries of stuff posted in recent weeks: http://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-Spaceknight-396822744
http://www.deviantart.com/art/ROM-399788046
 http://aaronsynn.deviantart.com/art/Salem-Uncommons-1411-394364693

Speaking of my kinda art look what just turned up from Dann Phillips again. We've seen so much new ROM fan art from this guy he must be able to do it in his sleep or something.

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