How to Color a Picture & Get Most of it Wrong

 

The Bequest #4 from Aftershock Comics

 

As you've no doubt realized, I've been enjoying The Bequest series from Aftershock Comics. In the comics world, one way of celebrating that is by doing fan art. Fan Art can bring a series welcome attention, and help enlarge its readership.

A few weeks ago, penciler and inker Freddie E. Williams II released a few preview images from The Bequest #4 on his Twitter account. I particularly liked this drawing.

 

After the events in The Bequest #3, I knew our heroes were headed to the east coast to take on the United States government. This brought back memories of my visit to Washington D.C. three years ago. My wife and I took a tour bus at one point to save on some of the walking we would do that day. 

I saw Human warrior Warlock Garthodd and Half-Elf Jerril Fain as sitting on a bus traveling to or around the Capitol, while Night Elf Creedux Sharmae, their mentor and dragon Relik, and Wood Sprite Billi Uft-Imp lay on the floor in the entryway between the seats. I wasn't sure if Relik and Billi were sleeping, or exhausted from a fight.

I noticed something covering Relik, and draped over Sharmae. I assumed it was a tourist map.

 

I started in on hair and skin coloring. Gray and silver for the bus interior shouldn't conflict with any of my color choices for the characters.

Wait. Perhaps they weren't riding on a city bus? Right. Garthodd must be driving Relik's van. A blanket likely covered Sharmae and Relik, not a map.

Along the way, I realized I had mistaken a portion of Relik's jacket for Billi's blouse. I've never found a good way of removing colored pencil, so I colored the rest of his jacket light blue for a base.

 

I associate Relik with wearing black and plum jackets and coats, so I thought about working toward both those colors. Then I thought: midnight blue is close to black, and would still show up the inked areas, so I left his jacket blue.

I wanted purple and green in the picture, so I made the seats Jade green. I really wanted lavender for the blanket. Rather than add too many colors, I opted to go with a green blanket to go with the seats.

When painting ceramics, I use yellow as a base color before applying gold. Sadly, when I applied my Gold colored pencil over the yellow, Sharmae's earrings got lost amid her skin and hair. 

 

Jeremy Colwell was always going to color his image different from me. As you can see, he gave Relik the plum jacket I wanted to. Interestingly, the shoulder strap from Relik's jacket actually belongs to another blue jacket draped over him and Sharmae. So it's a blue jacket, not a green blanket, or a city map! 

Hm. Who the blue jacket belong to?

As for how I got Garthodd's arms and hands so completely wrong, I have no explanation.

 

I want to thank Freddie E. Williams II and Aftershock Comics for sharing those fun black & white sketches with readers. I don't know if anyone else will color them, or do any other fan art to share their love for The Bequest. If they do, I hope they do a better job than I did. 

Given its mature tone and thought-provoking themes, The Bequest is a great fantasy series that teens and adults will enjoy. It deserves a big audience. Writer Tim Seeley, penciler and inker Freddie E. Williams II, colorist Jeremy Colwell, and letterer Marshall Dillon have created an interesting and entertaining group of characters. 

May Garthodd and his War Party protect the portals between Earth and Tangea in many more adventures, for at least seventy-four more issues!

Dragon Dave

The Bequest #3 Review: Battle of the Monsters

 

The Bequest #3 Cover by Freddie Williams II & Jeremy Colwell

In The Bequest #3, vengeful one-eyed monk Epoch Craev has teamed up with the politically astute Dylan Medici. After capturing a horde of magical creatures, the two take to the road. Soon, TV stations and internet news sites are filled with reports of the monsters that the men are gradually releasing across the United States.

As in The Bequest #2, we find Human warrior Warlock Garthodd watching TV without his pants on. This time, he's watching the news, as opposed to 1980s Fantasy movies. In his defense, I must also mention that Night Elf Creedux Sharmae, who reminds me a little of Gamora in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, is mending his only pair of pants.

No doubt, if Garthodd had a spaceship, he would claim that, seen under a blacklight, the interior would resemble a Jackson Pollock painting.

 

Relik is the War Party's guardian and mentor in this Earthly realm. He is not only sensitive to the tension in the veil between worlds. He is also concerned about the terrors Epoch Craev is unleashing on our world.

He decides to seek guidance from the Chamber of the Unopened Book. 

I don't know if colorist Jeremy Colwell colored the portal pink because the Mistress of the Rose wears red roses, the Master of Cups drinks red wine, or because Relikiquarfek, who goes by Relik, can transform into a Crimson Dragon. But in The Bequest #1, when Jarril Fain calls on the Mistress of the Rose to whisk the War Party away from the battle between Igneous Dragon Veristine Kole and Epoch Craev's army, she transports them away in a similarly pink bubble.

Nor do I understand the specific duties of the Council members, or how they relate to this (sacred?) Unopened Book. But as I learn more about the members of the War Party, I've grown more sympathetic to Garthodd, whose parents are on the Council, and has not lived up to their expectations of becoming a great Warlock.

In fact, when the Council decides that the War Party should sit this one out, and let the Earthly authorities handle the monsters Craev and Medici are unleashing, it is Garthodd who suggests they intervene.

Is this because, like Star-Lord in the Guardians of the Galaxy, he's found a nobility of purpose? Is it because he lacks purpose, and gets bored just sitting around? Or is it because, as Jerril Fain suggests, Garthodd just wants to get up his parents' noses?

In any case, this otherworldly conference call, and the Council's approval, will launch Relik and the War Party on a road trip in search of monsters.

 

If you haven't noticed by now, writer Tim Seeley uses The Bequest to speculate on the way the media shapes our opinions, and how seemingly rational people adopt views that seems so irrational--or even hateful--to others. While Epoch Craev and Dylan Medici are dedicated to their holy causes, they form an uneasy partnership. 

Craev may have initially recruited Medici, but I can't help but wonder if Medici isn't becoming the stronger of the two.

Oh, and if you're wondering about Dylan's eyes, that's a power that Epoch Craev gifted him in The Bequest #1. If he hasn't already, the one-eyed monk may well rue the day he decided to recruit Dylan Medici and his white supremacist followers.

While he's found that Dylan is a man with such political and financial connections, and is extremely driven and astute,

Dylan is also a man of very strong opinions.

When those opinions are even questioned, Medici has a boiling point that letterer Marshall Dillon reveals with screeching clarity.

Of course, along with the heady political and media speculation, writer Tim Seeley also throws in the odd bit of satire.

Penciler and inker Freddie Williams II continues to impress in The Bequest #3. In addition to gorgeous panel transitions such as those between Epoch Craev and Dylan Medici, this issue features many scenes in which Garthodd, Sharmae, half-elf wizard Jerril Fain, wood sprite Billi Uft-imp, and Crimson Dragon Relik take to the road.

Let the Battle Of The Monsters commence!

In addition to great panel transitions, Williams' point-of-view also amazes. After the panel in which Garthodd gets knocked down, Williams angles the camera lens up from Garthodd's chest. I can only imagine Garthodd's shock when he sees Sharmae catch the sword the monster knocked from his hand, and leap over him to attack. 

There are so many gorgeous panels with the War Party fighting the horde of monsters Craev and Medici are unleashing upon the United States. It's hard not to show them all. But I know your time is valuable, and you're anxious to get on to other things. 

Still, I thought I'd end this review with a final teaser. As in The Bequest #1, Relik never fails to impress when he transforms into his alter ego.

Or is it his true self?

 

As Craev and Medici traveling east, they intend on ushering our country, and perhaps our world, into a new and better age. Can Relik and the War Party stop them before the chaos they unleash creates an End of Days for the world as we know it? If you have not yet picked up The Bequest #3, be sure to do so tomorrow, when you visit your local comic shop.

While you're there, you might also want to pick up The Bequest #4. Assuming Craev and Medici's monsters haven't totally disrupted UPS delivery schedules, it should be there tomorrow too.

Dragon Dave

Chiron & the Moons of Jupiter

 

In Starlog Issue #13 from May 1978, Terran Travel Agent Jonathan Eberhart announces an exciting new travel destination. Dubbed "Object Kowal" after astronomer Charles Kowal, this recently spotted spacial body could be a planet or a comet. Alternatively, it could also be an asteroid, or even a moon that escaped its planet's orbit.

In case the scientific community decided it was a planet, Charles Kowal suggested the name Chiron. Some in the popular press welcomed this new addition to our solar system with open arms. "Welcome tenth planet Chiron," their headlines proclaimed.

Much has changed since 1978. Pluto, the only other spacial body rotating our sun that shares a blue atmosphere with Earth, no longer allures as a possible travel destination, since it has been striped of its status a planet. Yet Object Kowal, or Chiron, still intrigues. 

 

 

As it orbits our sun, and exhibits the characteristics of a comet, the scientific community recognizes Chiron as both a minor planet and a comet. As a minor planet (or possibly, like Pluto, a dwarf planet), it is known as 2060 Chiron. As a comet, it is called 95P/Chiron. 

If the possibility of traveling to a place that is both a planet and a comet doesn't excite you, how about taking a tour of Jupiter's moons instead? In the same May 1978 Starlog article, Terran Travel Agent Jonathan Eberhart informs us that astronomer Charles Kowal has recently discovered Jupiter's thirteen moon, as well as another spacial body that might someday be confirmed as the planet's fourteenth moon. These days, in the shiny new year 2021, the scientific community recognizes not just fourteen Jovian moons, but seventy-nine.

I repeat: Jupiter has a whopping seventy-nine moons! Jupiter has a staggering seventy-nine moons! Jupiter has a mind-blowing seventy-nine moons!

The pandemic may currently be limiting Terran travel destinations. Yet I cannot help be excited by the possibilities. Imagine visiting a place that is both a minor planet and a comet! Imagine exploring all of Jupiter's seventy-nine moons!

When the pandemic winds down, and the interplanetary cruise industry ramps up, I know which tour I want to book. How about you?

Dragon Dave