Ultimate Spiderman Breakdowns

This is the "breakdown" stage. I basically take the layout I did at 3inches by 4 inches and enlarge it through a print out. I lightbox or trace off that layout onto the full size 11x17. You can see I made a few changes in spaces and added Sandman into the very background since I had more room at the top now.

Still need to put in details and especially shading for light sources. But from this point on it's mostly just finished rendering on the pencils, then onto the inks.

Ult. Spiderman Breakdown - 487

Pencil breakdowns

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

I FINALLY got my email fixed so you can email me at the above email just fine. 

Thanks for your patience!

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Initial layouts

Ult. Spiderman...

I just finished up my 5 issue arc on Castle for Marvel, which finally gives me some time to catch up on past commissions. I'm working through these in the order that I got them and will be posting all my progress here on the blog.

Starting off an Ultimate Spiderman! I've been reading this title since issue #1 and I've loved it all. What I'm trying to capture here is Peter's just changed and is swinging away from the high school to face off his enemies and protect the city. I'll have Green Goblin, Doc Ock and Electro kind of ghosted in the back.

Ult. Spider-man - Layouts - 486

I'll post up pencils for it soon!

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

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More Figure templates...

A while back I posted some basic figure mannequins I drew a long time ago. I recently had to do a few more just to nail down a basic style for a job. I also use these when I go and talk to school kids and do a "Create your own SuperHero" assignment with them . Yesterday I visited a 3rd Grade class in Virden, Illinois, and today I visited Iles Elementary's 1st grade class in Springfield, Illinois. I love getting a chance to share with kids what I do and try to impress on them that if they are interested in the arts, that it's a possible career.

If I  have time after my presentation with the kids,  I do this quick project with them. Having these figure templates helps them get past whether or not they are good "draw-ers" and they can focus on the costume and ideas for the characters.

Each year I go to a number of schools, and often it has become a tradition with certain teachers that I come each year. My wife is an Elementary school teacher, which is partly what got me started doing this, but also what makes me appreciate how much it encourages the students.

Feel free to use these in anyway that you like, creating your own characters, or print them out for your kids to use. With templates like these, you're just limited to your imagination!

Figure Templates - 485

Bruce Timm style (Justice League, Batman Animated series)

More cartoony than my typical style, but fun to change up proportions!

My more natural approach to superhero figures. I leave off the top of the head incase you want to draw some awesome heavy metal hair, or a wicked 90's ponytail on your character.

Here are my older templates so you don't have to go diggin' through my blog to find them. 

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

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Mech Battle Colored..

Here is the Mech Battle panel for the art on the new Comics Experience website. You can see all the new courses that I'm teaching there this year. Exciting stuff for anyone looking to learn about or improve their art.

Colors here are by Simon Gough. I adjust his colors to get the second version. Mostly because I'm such a fan of Gundam mobile suits, that I wanted to see the mech that I drew have that traditional white base and read and blue accents. The orange and blue version that Simon did initially is the published version. My version is just a quick patch job to see for myself.

Fun stuff!

Comics Experience Web Art-

Mech Battle Colored - 484

Simon's official version

My Gundam Fan Art version colors that I layered over his awesome work. 

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

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Gundam-esque Mech Banner art

Another of the web banners I did for the new Comics Experience website. Andy Schmidt didn't give specific direction on what he wanted drawn, just that there be a variety of genres represented.

I've been a long time fan of large robots or mobile suits ranging from Voltron to Transformers to every incarnation of Gundam anime. There's just something about it visually that I completely enjoy. As much as I love it, I've rarely taken the chance to draw it. So when told I could draw anything I wanted I went for this.

It's not any Gundam model specifically, I had to avoid copyrighted material. But I take enough influence from the design that it could easily fit in that world. Here is the rough sketch and final inks for this Mech Battle piece.

Comics Experience Web Art 

Mech Battle - 483

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

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Sci Fi Panel colored

Here's the Sci Fi banner art for the new Comics Experience website. Colors by Simon Gough. I love that he put the number 5 on the character's armor and on the starship/fighter in the back. It's always been my favorite number, I was typically #5 on my soccer teams growing up and through college. I was the 5th kid in our family growing up. After seeing this I want to title the character "Five". As soon as I drew this I had so many ideas for stories involving the character. Hopefully I can do more with it down the road.

Sci Fi Panel Colored - "Five" - 482

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

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Comics Experience website art..

I've been an instructor for the Comics Experience for about 2 and a half years now. It's something I've thoroughly enjoyed. I chose to get a M.F.A. degree through the Savannah College of Art and Design because I wanted to learn how to draw comics, but also because I wanted the credentials to teach collegiately eventually in my career.

With Comics Experience, I've been able to keep up with my comics career and teach while I'm doing it. Best of both worlds!

Comics Experience was created by Andy Schmidt soon after his work at Marvel as an editor. His goal was to create courses to help teach creators the craft of making comics, how to break in and share his experience while in the industry. He had been doing this for a couple years by the time I met him when he became the Senior Editor at IDW and was my boss all through my run on GI JOE and most of Snake Eyes.

The Comics Experience has just introduced a new website including brand new courses! You can check it all out in the links to the site. When I first started teaching there, I was just then instructor for the Introduction to Comic Art class. Since then I've help develop courses and expanded the art curriculum so that now I'm teaching 5 classes:

Intro to Comic Art
Advanced Comic Book Art: Storytelling Masterclass
Advanced Comic Book Art: Pro Penciling Techniques
Introduction to Figure Drawing and Construction
Advanced Figure Drawing and Construction

We have plans to include even more next year!

A lot of my enjoyment from teaching there has been getting to know artists and writers in my classes and helping them get work in the industry. In fact, I just finished drawing a part of the GI JOE annual from IDW that will come out this Spring. That book was written by Paul Allor, who was in one of my classes and a Comics Experience alumni! I'm also drawing Castle for Marvel, which is being colored by Chris Sotomayor, who is also the coloring instructor for Comics Experience.

Part of this new website is a series of new banner art created by fellow comic professionals, Comics Experience staff and alumni. I did drawings for three of the new banners and I thought I'd share them here as well.

Comics Experience Web Banner - Sci-Fi - 481

Final Inks

layout

I'll post the colors by Simon Gough and more banner art over the next couple of days. It was nice to do a variety of genres with these banners. The art pretty large, filling a horizontal 11x17 page. 

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

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Mega Con absence...

Hey all, just  a quick post. I was not able to attend Mega Con this weekend in Orlando as I had hoped. I apologize for all those that have come by my table this weekend. I certainly appreciate your interest, and am sorry I'm not there to sign books or do sketches.

Circumstances here at home kept me from being able to make it and it was a last minute call when I realized I would not be able to come down this year. Again, sorry for the inconvenience, if anyone was expecting to pick up artwork and had been in touch with me before the show, please email me personally and we can work out getting that artwork to you.

Thanks again, and sorry I'm missing out on all the fun.

Robert


I do want to post some kind of artwork, so I'll share some concepts on a current project I'm doing with Ted Jacobson. I'll post more as I can, but for those of you that can see the signs you can gather what this might be related to.

Cool stuff!

Jet Concepts - 480

initial concept options

Final design

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

I will be set up at the upcoming GI JOE Con in Indianapolis, IN April 4th-7th

I will be doing sketches and commissions at the show and have prints and artbooks available. 

I also just got this large 17x33 inch print back from the printer. If you're interested, email me and we can work out the transaction and details.

*the large print is seamless between the separate covers this is just a quick combined scan

The IDW JOE-Verse by Robert Atkins

17x33

$40

Shipping Domestically $7, Internationally $15

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Baroness...

I actually went nearly a year without getting a Baroness sketch at a convention.  I do get commonly requested GI JOE characters, Snake Eyes, Cobra Commander, Storm Shadow and Baroness mostly.  In a very cool way though, the last 3-4 conventions I've had more lesser known Joe characters requested (Airtight, Alpine, SnowJob, the awkward Flint and Shipwreck High-5).

Even with the amount of times he's requested I don't think I could ever get tired of drawing Snake Eyes. I don't think I've ever been very good at drawing girl characters, it's taken a long time and quite a few stumbles along the way to even get to where I'm at. So despite my lack of confidence in drawing the Baroness, I still like to draw her. I think it's because she has such a distinct look that is lots of fun to try and capture her attitude.

Here is a 9x12 sketch of here from the Emerald City Comic Con. I still have a few more to take care of that I'm looking forward to completing!

Baroness - 470

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

I will be set up at the upcoming GI JOE Con in Indianapolis, IN April 4th-7th

I will be doing sketches and commissions at the show and have prints and artbooks available. 

I also just got this large 17x33 inch print back from the printer. If you're interested, email me and we can work out the transaction and details.

*the large print is seamless between the separate covers this is just a quick combined scan

The IDW JOE-Verse by Robert Atkins

17x33

$40

Shipping Domestically $7, Internationally $15

Check out the amazing trades and/or other discounted comics at 

INSTOCK TRADES 

The Punisher...You know...punishing things....

Here is another commission sketch I recently got done. Inked on 9x12 paper. I'm sure from my GI Joe background my work lends itself to this kind of character especially. I've been on and off a fan of the Punisher. For me it really depends on the creative team. I like the premise of his character and motivation. I think I like it better when he teams up with/fights against other costumed heroes and seeing their reaction to him. At one point, I think I remembered liking it a lot when Frank Castle was confronted by Captain America during the Civil War event. I realized, and it makes since with Frank's military background, that he had an almost reverence for Captain America. Captain was beating on him, but Frank wouldn't fight back. It says a lot about his character. I really dug it.

This is a book I'd like to draw, but it would really depend on the story and writer. I'm not into anything super violent, anything beyond basic shoot 'em up action movie stuff. At times Punisher stories have pushed the limit for what I'd be comfortable working on. So a lot of people say I'd be a good fit for the book, but it would really depend on the story.

When it comes to sketches though, I could do this all day long!

Punisher - 469

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

I will be set up at the upcoming GI JOE Con in Indianapolis, IN April 4th-7th

I will be doing sketches and commissions at the show and have prints and artbooks available. 

I also just got this large 17x33 inch print back from the printer. If you're interested, email me and we can work out the transaction and details.

*the large print is seamless between the separate covers this is just a quick combined scan

The IDW JOE-Verse by Robert Atkins

17x33

$40

Shipping Domestically $7, Internationally $15

Check out the amazing trades and/or other discounted comics at 

INSTOCK TRADES 

Batman Vs Robin...kinda...

This was a sketch in a guy's sketchbook from the Emerald City Comic Con. I've worked on 2-3 sketches for him in the past in various themed sketchbooks of his. It's fun because he almost always has a spin on what would normally be a pretty ordinary sketch.

he asked if I wanted to draw a Batman vs Robin sketch, and I said, "yeah that sounds cool" and genuinely it does. But then he pulled out the reference he wanted.

Now, I'm not familiar with this alternate version of Batman and Robin at all, but still seemed like a cool sketch to do. I had it started and laid out one night at the hotel, but hadn't inked it yet. By the end of the show this was all I'd gotten done before they were kicking us out. But I knew I'd see Jeff and his sketchbook again down in Heroes con this June, so we agreed I could finish the sketch then.  Here's what I have done so far. 

Batman vs Robin - 468

I like the "Batman" helmet, it has a real Judge Dredd look to it.

So check back in June to see the "To be continued..." wrap up. 

For Comments and Questions email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

Ninja Battle Larry Hama style!

At this past convention, someone had a brilliant idea! They got a sketch done with both Larry Hama and myself working on it together.

Real quick for those who don't know Larry Hama created the modern version of GI JOE. It was all him. He came up with the names, the backgrounds the military ranks, everything. He was an artist before he was a writer or editor at Marvel comics back in the 80's. So when you go to a convention you can get an original sketch done at the show by the man who created GI JOE! It's really fantastic. And man, he cranks these sketches out.

I'll never forget sitting next to him at Joe Con in Rhode Island and him berating me the whole show for being too slow with my commissions. He does 5-10 in the time it takes me to do one. I always like hanging out and going to dinner with Larry at the shows, the entire time he tells stories of his past and experiences and it's never boring night.

Anyway, they had Larry start this sketch with Snake Eyes, and I did a Storm Shadow as best as I could to fill the space and make it look like they were interacting. Fun idea, and cool to think I got to work on a piece with Larry.

Snake Eyes vs Storm Shadow - 467

It did make me realize why Snake Eyes always wins. I mean he's unloading two uzi's into Storm Shadow's face here, and all Stormy has to defend himself is his sword (luckily it can magically deflect a rapid fire machine gun barrage...ninjas are awesome, what can I say?)

For Questions and Comments email me at

Robert@RobertAtkinsArt.com

Storm Shadow strikes again!...

I think it's obvious to say that GI JOE has been a HUGE part of my career, and a property that I'm passionate about. It was a big part of my childhood, and now luckily an even bigger part of my day to day life. 

It is always a blast going to conventions around the country, because inevitably Joe fans from all over find their way over to my table and we get to talk about GI Joe all day long. Some are fans that followed the IDW published comic books, and some just catch a glimpse of my banner set up behind me with Snake Eyes on it, and that's enough for them to stop and chat.

I just want to say Thanks! to all those Joe fans that make it out to the shows and meet with me. This sketch was done for a guy out at the Emerald City Comic Con last weekend that was a big Storm Shadow fan, and happened to like the redesign I did for IDW. I've posted a lot about Storm Shadow already, so I wont go on and on about how cool he is... Instead I'll just post links of the numerous times I ramble on about his coolness.

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2012/05/cobra-storm-shadow.html

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2012/05/cobra-yearbook-storm-shadow.html

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2011/11/storm-shadow-6th-grade.html

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2012/02/snake-eyes-and-storm-shadow-new-idw.html

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2011/07/storm-shadow-vsany-guesses.html

(huge Ninja Foot)

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2011/06/who-was-that-masked-man.html

(here I talk about my IDW redesign)

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2011/12/return-of-awesomesauce-dun-dun-dunnnnn.html

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2012/02/snake-eyes-10-cover.html

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2012/09/gi-joe-snake-eyes-17-cover-inks-part-3.html

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2011/07/side-by-side.html

http://robertatkinsart.blogspot.com/2011/08/wizard-world-chicago-convention.html

See aren't you glad I didn't go on and on about this guy?

Storm Shadow - 466

For comments and questions email me at

ROBERT@ROBERTATKINSART.com

If you've tried emailing me at that address recently, I've had issues with the email. I'm working that out soon, thanks for your patience!

I will be set up at the upcoming GI JOE Con in Indianapolis, IN April 4th-7th

I will be doing sketches and commissions at the show and have prints and artbooks available. 

I also just got this large 17x33 inch print back from the printer. If you're interested, email me and we can work out the transaction and details.

*the large print is seamless between the separate covers this is just a quick combined scan

The IDW JOE-Verse by Robert Atkins

17x33

$40

Shipping Domestically $7, Internationally $15

Check out the amazing trades and/or other discounted comics at 

INSTOCK TRADES