The Crow: Hammer Party Coloured

So It is that time of the year again where I mark My and Brandon Lee's Birthdays with a new piece of Crow art. I’ve been doing this for a while now and over the years I've covered a  fair amount of Mediums, Drawing, Painting, Digital, Mixed Media and even Sculpting, With the style that I've done most of all being Hyper Realism pencil drawings. This year I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and do something I rarely do but want to get better at and that is Inking, I hardly ever Ink  my own work and when I do it's typically just the outlines without any shading or solid blacks, I want that to change. I didn't eliminate my Pencil shading completely though as I love my pencils and kept it around for some mid tone shading, I think it also adds a nice texture to my art which is always a good thing when you mainly draw Horror and/or Dark characters.

A second reason on why I decided to go with an Inked drawing this year is to show some love for The Crow comic. Pretty much every one knows of the movie and have seen it at least once but I meet fewer people who have actually read the original comic it was adapted from. The book has some of the finest inking I've seen, It's raw, emotional and where I set the bar for myself to hopefully some day reach. I've not just homaged the style of the book though, no. I have also taken the pose from one of my favorite scenes in the book (known as "Hammer Party" hence the name of this piece)  and tried to recreate and merge it with Brandon's portrayal of the character. I didn't want to draw the scene exactly the same just with elements of the movies costume though, So I also changed the background. In the comic Eric stands in front of his house that he has just set a blaze before heading off for his final encounter with T-bird, but I swapped it out for a good ol' graveyard where I could blend the two mediums together some more with subtle details. Details like the graveyard fence that is from the movie and the stone angel wings that belong to a statue from the last few pages of the book. The framing device is also a hint to the movie as it takes the shape of Eric and Shelly's head stones.

I highly recommend if you are a fan of the movie or comic books in general to check out The Crow, The original comic is by far my favorite but there are many sequels and spin offs out there for you to enjoy also that expands on The Crow universe in ways the movies have yet to go. If this remake that keeps popping on and off the radar does ever go a head I hope they realize the books are the way to go so not to tarnish the masterpiece of Brandon's movie and to deliver something fresh to the film franchise.

Pencil & Ink on Bristol Board
Coloured in Photoshop CS2 with Wacom Intuos

Check out the Lineart version in my Gallery!

~WillAndPsycho
www.PsychoSlaughterman.com