The first drawing I ever sold was of a Predator: a copy of the final page of issue 1 of Predator VOL.1 from Dark Horse, art by Chris Warner. It took over a month to do, as inbetween I broke my finger playing basketball in school (or rather some prat thought it would be funny to kick the basketball, missed and caught my right hand instead); a1 sheet, rotring pens, on the floor of my bedroom, as I wasn't allowed to use the dining table for stuff like drawing. It would mark the beginning of a lifetime of sore shoulders.
It went for 50p.
Even adjusting for nearly 18 years of inflation, that's still not a lot. But copying Chris Warner's fantastic art was a great exercise of learning how to do those lines which look so good and work so well on the page, even if I didn't have the right tools, knowledge or understanding as to WHY they worked at the time.
The excellent Dark Horse Predator, Aliens and Terminator titles were my first real introduction to the direct sales comic shops in Liverpool- Worlds Apart upstairs in the Acorn Gallery off Renshaw Street, Liverpool Comic Company downstairs in the Palace arcade on Slater Street. Saturday mornings meant knocking at my mate Neil's to jump the bus into town and spend my hard saved £5 from that weeks dinner money to get a few comics. Sometimes there'd be nothing new out that would grab me; I'd look in disappointment and awe at the huge collection of trades which were well outside my budget, so instead would ruffle through the back issue boxes, finding gems like Marvel UK's Strip, Warrior, 70's Planet of the Apes, and tons of 2000AD's. Though I soon moved from the licensed titles onto the likes of Vertigo and Dark Horse' Legend line (which of course gave us Hellboy), I would still go back and copy from those panels.
Fastforward somewhat to present day, and I still find it a useful exercise, especially when I've not drawn for more than a few days, or I get fed up with other work. A few quick warm up sketches which end up in the recycling pile, and then I'll just pull a few books from the shelf, have a bit of a read, and start idly sketching.
Which is where this came from::
Which is an homage (copy) of this:
I never actually intended the sketch to become a finished piece, but I enjoyed doing it so much, I thought I'd have a go colouring it in photoshop, if only as a distraction from the weaknesses in the drawing itself.
The green version appeals to me more, but the red version hints at a harsher alien environment, for some reason.
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