Points from the Paint: Clarissa vs. Fanny!

Here is a couple of unpublished pages from c. 1993 featuring Clarissa James (Ms. Megaton Man) and Donna Blank, the Phantom Jungle Girl, shooting some hoops on some suburban driveway. This sequence was intended to be a part of Bizarre Heroes, and I don't know why I was too lazy to ink the sparse backgrounds and finish them up (including the last panel with Jasper Johnson, Rubber Brother). This scene offers some important backstory to the Phantom Jungle Girl and her historical origins and I still may use it as a flashback scene in some future project.

What is unusual about these pages is that they are largely inked with a Hunt #102 crowquill pen and some brush on plate finish Bristol, which inks a lot smoother than the usual medium surface Bristol I used with brush. It is also significant that my female characters tended toward more realistic proportions much earlier than my male characters. Prior to this, I tended to make everyone cartoony so as to match the unwieldy proportions of Megaton Man, a tension that I struggled with for far too long. One of the reasons I always found some release in drawing Ms. Megaton Man was precisely this release from the feeling that everything in the Megaton Man narrative had to appear exaggerated and humorous. By this time I was growing comfortable with the idea that things could be light and humorous (and character-driven instead of parody-driven), and drawn in a less forced way.

1989 to 2015: Early Ms. Megaton Man Sketch Finally Finished!

Here's a newly inked and colored pin-up of Clarissa James, Ms. Megaton Man, and Stella Starlight, the See-Thru Girl, developed from a 1989 sketch. I scanned the original, fleshed out in pencil and Sharpie pen, then further refined on canary yellow tracing paper, and finally inked on Clearprint Design Vellum.

1989 is significant because this would have been one of the earliest Ms. Megaton Man sketches. The fact that I can still make something of the pose shows how significant the character was for my development. Ms. Megaton Man allowed me to get closer to something like a realistically-proportioned superhero style and away from the humorous style that I never found satisfying for the secondary characters surrounding Megaton Man.

The final colored in Photoshop

The rough sketch blown up next to the pencil elaboration

The final ink on Clearprint next to the refined rough on canary yellow tracing paper

The original 1989 sketch. Something about this gesture seemed worth developing further!

Final linework on Clearprint Design Vellum

The sketch elaborated with blue and graphite pencil, and tightened with Sharpie fine line pen .03 mm

The drawing refined on canary yellow tracing paper