This homage to wolverine was an absolute blast to do. I remember seeing this comic on the wall of my local shop in the 80’s and knew I had to have it. wolverine was at a stage where he was still a pretty big enigma. frank miller was just coming off of daredevil, elektra, and ronin. He hadn’t become the stylized juggernaut most people fell in love with through sin city, or dark knight returns (although I’m of the opinion that the apex of his art was elektra lives again). He and claremont took wolverine to japan to battle ninjas, sure that sounds great now, but that’s mainly because of this book. This was the start of the wolverine most x-men fans adore, and frank did an amazing job giving it that gritty, guttural feeling it needed. This cover, and logan’s smile, felt like they were just beckoning a kid to part with their allowance.
I’ll continue to skip the technical details on this post, I’ll make sure to include them on the next. I will however comment about how this one turned out. In retrospect, I really feel like I was channeling a bit of juan jose ryp when drawing this. Something about the face and the way the linework turned out just really makes me think of his work when I look at it. I don’t think that’s a bad thing as he’s a phenomenal talent with an insane level of detail in his work (he could give geof darrow, seth fisher, art adams, and nick bradshaw a run for their money), but it wasn’t intentional.
I also really love how the muted tones came out, they play so well off the wear, and aging textures. Like all artist’s looking at their own art, we often only see it’s flaws. While age has helped me get past that and look at where I’ve succeeded. Either way, they’re still there, glaring right at me. Regardless, it’s incredibly important to look at your work through other people’s eyes. Otherwise, at times you might feel like giving it up completely.
