New "Expendables 2" Posters

Over at IMP Awards, they have a whole bunch of the new Expendables 2 posters, a bunch of character sheets, which seems like a very popular trend these days. I think it's to try make the appeal as broad as possible, rather than focusing on one particular person. You don't like actor A? That's ok, we got Actors B, C & D here for ya!
Anyway, these are my favourites.

Carlos Pacheco Convention Sketch- Raphael

Man, I got so much stuff this weekend at Supanova, I can't wait to show you, but I'll just start with this, because it fits in my scanner. A sketch of TMNT Raphael by master comic artist Carlos Pacheco. This is a big deal.

He said that at the last convention he was at, someone asked him to draw a TMNT, so that was he first time he had drawn one. So I guess this makes mine the second one he's ever drawn. Pretty cool.

Suburban Idyll

Suburban Idyll

Really enjoying these free apps on my phone.

My Grandfather's Chair

 

PacNorris

Sorry, I don't know the source of this, so can't give credit where credit is due, but I'm sure we can all agree, it's pretty cool.

New Work: Jesus Defeats Satan

A couple of Friday nights ago, I was walking through the Valley with Brad and Nadia, and we passed a shop that was selling those 3D lenticular pictures, and one of them was Jesus arm-wrestling Satan. It was both one of the most fantastic things I've seen, and truly awful in it's kitschness. If the store was open, I probably would have bought it. But the big problem I had with it was the theology it was expressing, of an equal fight between good and evil, between God and Satan. The fight is over, Satan has lost, so I wanted to do a painting that conveyed that theology, but still was that wonderful mix of awfulness and fantasticalness that the original picture had. These are my first sketches, playing with the idea.

I wasn't quite happy with the first sketch, the one above, so I made it closer to 3/4 profile, and I think that's the pose I'll go for. I'm thinking of having different bodies in the foreground, to represent different heresies or false religions, maybe like Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, and various other Hindu type gods or Buddha, but we'll see. Ooh, controversial!

Updated
Actually, below is the first idea I did, but I did it in another sketchbook, so I forgot about it with the move to the crucified Jesus in the above pictures. The one below is supposed to be in that traditional robed dress that we see in a lot of representations, and which the 3D picture portrayed. I think I'd like to try do both, the robed peaceful Jesus and the loin-clothed, crown of thorns wearing, bloodied Jesus.

Films Look Better When They're In Japanese

I wanted to show this movie poster of the upcoming Pixar movie Brave a while ago, but never got round to it. It's obviously the Japanese edition of the poster, and I can't help but feel there's a deliberate similarity to the feel of it to a Miyazaki film. I'm sure it's a fine film, but I have to admit, my interest is heightened thanks to this poster, rather than any of the others I've seen.

I think the upcoming film Battleship looks to be about one of the most uninspiring films to come out of Hollywood for some time, and most of the posters have reflected that, but this Japanese one actually makes me interested. I'm not sure I'm interested enough to go see it, but still it's more interest than I've had before, despite the obvious comparison to Transformers. I think it's something about the scale of the threat to human figure that captures my interest.

So you can see that, at least from these two examples, films look better when they're for a Japanese market. If you want to compare the two films to the other posters, you can find the Brave ones here, and the Battleship ones here.