Somewhere Oa The Rainbow

A week ago, I happened to catch a glimpse of the new cg-animated teen Iron Man series and the new kiddie-friendly Spectacular Spider-Man show. Of the two, Spidey was definitely the best as there was something just too weird about Iron Man to be palatable (it would have been better if it was an original character rather than a licensed show). Spidey had the fashionable faux anime style but at least the show stayed true to the spirit of the comics, mixing Silver Sable, Silvermane, Hammerhead and even Foswell aka the Big Man into the mix. The best Marvel animated series at the moment is still Wolverine and the X-Men however, which I find odd to watch having emotionally divorced myself from the X-line now...it's like watching home movies of an ex-lover...

Still, while musing how DC rules the animated airwaves over their Marvelous competitors, I began watching the new Green Lantern: First Flight animated DVD and wondered why their animated features are also much more enjoyable than Marvel's. It's not that Marvel's are terrible, it's just that they're usually misjudged reimaginings that make the characters unlike the originals and a result in forgettable adaptations. DC's animated features however stay true to the roots of the characters and results in a great set of films. New Frontier is definitely the best but Green Lantern is pretty fun, a great rollicking template for the upcoming live-action version.

I've been coincidentally reading some GL stuff recently (such as the promising Blackest Night and the first Sinestro Corps War collection) and as I wanted to try and do a new colour pic, I decided to draw Arisia from the GL Corp. Her costume stands out from the other GLs because of the large amount of white so she immediately draws your eye, as she did in the DVD.

I remember her from the 80s as being quite a naive, innocent character so I wanted to keep a doe-eyed look (not modelled on but kinda like Beth from Neighbours wot sung Torn) instead of a smiling sexpot. I liked the face on the first attempt but wasn't sure I was going to comfortably fit the second leg in and had concerns about twisting the torso musculature correctly. The second version quickly went off the boil: I tried the same face but it came out wrong, the hips went wrong and the pose was boring. Luckily third time's the charm and I managed to pencil and ink a version today. I'm going to reduce this down, pencil shade it and colour it on the PC so hopefully it'll all turn out well in the end...