Enter the Spectre!

The Spectre, created by Jerry Siegel & Bernard Baily

Once in a while, a bit of nostalgia overcomes me and I put pencil to paper to draw something.  When I was younger, I used to draw all the time. I was, like Salieri to Mozart, cursed to be good enough to be seen by non artistic types as being able to draw pretty good but lacking the actual skill or talent to be truly unique or gifted in that regard.

Most of my art relied on a lot of cheats. For example:

• Super heroes with energy blasting powers were a favorite because it kept me from having to draw pesky details like fingers.
• Super heroes with hands balled up into fists also kept me from having to deal with fingers.
• Batman was always a favorite to draw; draw an extra long flowing cape and toss on lots of shadows and voila, I was able to obscure most if not all of my shortcomings at drawing human anatomy.
• Heroes who could fly really fast? Speed lines took care legs and feet.
• The simpler the design, the better. Jim Lee, I am not.

Recently I had a moment of boredom so I took pencil to paper and sketched up a drawing of The Spectre.  A lot of good things for me there. A basic green and white design is the epitome of simplicity. His supernatural nature lends itself to shadows. And look how he's rising on of the dark ground is a swirling fog; yep, I don't have to draw feet. And of course since The Spectre is the God's angel of vengeance, his fists are clenched in righteous rage.

Now the drawing above does not look a simple pencil drawing and it isn't. I took the scan of my pencil drawing and ran it through Microsoft Paint to add colors and shading.

I have to admit it was a lot of fun revisiting this sort of thing and maybe I'll post some more of these in the future. I have a portfolio somewhere of some of my "classic" stuff I would love to dig out and look back over.

But if there is a lesson here, it's this. I think all of us has some kind of art that we can bring us joy. Maybe it isn't that good, objectively speaking. But if it gives you joy, that's reward enough.

Y'all be good to one another.

Dave-El

I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You



Amended 5/30/2014: 

Here's the original pencil sketch.