I just got the OK to post a 5-page preview of Existence 2.0, my upcoming book from Image/Shadowline. I'm happy with the look of this one. Everyone involved did an awesome job.











This is gonna be good! Pre-order your copy now!

Sorry, it's been about a half a year since I last updated. I've been quite busy since then.
I've drawn some and I'll post them here when I have time. Or, you can stroll over to my Deviantart page at ronsalas.deviantart.com. That's the site that's currently most up-to-date.

Anyway, I've currently been busy working on pages for a miniseries coming out via Image/Shadowline this July. The solicitation for it was just posted online at CBR this week so feel safe about posting about it here.

Here's the cover for the first issue.



"Self-absorbed physicist Sylvester Baladine finds his consciousness transferred into the body of the hitman who just killed him! Things don’t seem too bad until his daughter is kidnapped by the same people who 'killed' him. Now, he's forced to dig up his past and solve his own murder… inadvertently making himself a target once more."

You guys probably can't tell 'cause this is in black & white but my favourite Wolverine costume was always John Byrne's orange and brown design. It just had that sleek and cool quality while giving you the impression that this was a rough and tumble kind of guy. It's sad that they keep going back to a yellow & blue costume design for him. I understand that that colour scheme is more in keeping with the X-men colour pallette but the orange and brown costume is just so much cooler! Idiots.

Titans Tuesday is in a different style today.

I've always loved the look of Wonder Girl. She has one of the sexiest and best-designed costumes around. It's a bit sad that she has been left floundering due to Crisis and what it had done to her history and origins. I've actually read the who is Wonder Girl and Who is Donna Troy stories in Titans as well as Perez' Donna Troy mini and I still don't know who she is anymore. All I know is that I'm glad that the Perez-designed Troia costume is gone. That was ugly, man.

Masked Monday is a bit late. Well, okay, a day's late but how about that economy, huh?

Anyway, this drawing is of the character "Kick-Ass". If you don't know who he is, it's understandable as he is the main character of the creator-owned series of the same name by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. It's probably the most bloody and gratuitously violent comic JRjr has ever drawn but somehow it's still not so bad when he draws it. I wonder if Tom Palmer has a share in this 'cause his inks here are a great selling point for me as well.

I always thought it was interesting that Superman somehow had the ability to fool everyone into thinking he was just plain old Clark simply by putting on a pair of glasses. Numbers of writers and creators have tried to explain why that worked but none of these explanations were really all that convincing.
I think the best explanation for me was a demonstration of the difference between the two characters. It was the scene in Superman 2 where Christopher Reeve was about to tell Lois that he was Superman. To see him actually go through that change almost makes me believe that it could work after all.

As much as I love reading Marvel comics right now I've always been a DC guy. They're the ones that have the most iconic heroes, and the ones with the greatest legacy. I wanted to dedicate Saturdays to the JLA because it pretty much gives me an opportunity to draw from a huge range of characters as most of the heroes in the DC Universe have been members of the JLA at one time or another.

I'm starting with my favourite superhero, Batman.

I'm a bit late. Watching the Obama/McCain debate kinda cut into my free drawing time.

I'm a huge kung fu movie fan so on Fridays I want to showcase my favourite kung fu movie actors. Before this I had already done pictures of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, and Tony Jaa. Now, I want to showcase one of the best action actors and choreographers today, Donnie Yen. He's probably most famous for starring in Iron Monkey but he's been in dozens of movies. Some were good, some not so good but throughout all of them he's displayed superior athletic ability and technique above almost anybody in the business today.

Thursdays are about the day's namesake, Thor. I've always been a fan of the character since I read Walt Simonson's historic run. The Thor of today is a lot different from how he was back then. He's a lot more stoic--sometimes angry, even. I don't know if I like that so much but the art by Coipel keeps me hooked.

I wanted to dedicate Thursdays to Thor because, while I've been a long-time fan of the character, I've always had a problem drawing the character. It's that damn helmet!

Wednesday's are all about Wolverine 'cause I just like alliteration, what can I say? I'm a big fan of Wolverine as a character although I do miss the days back when he was the little hairy Canadian fireplug. I don't think he has ever been written as well as he was back when Claremont was on Uncanny X-men. It's easy to pick on Wolverine 'cause he's so popular and "cool" that it's sometimes easy to forget the reason why he's so popular in the first place.

For Titans Tuesday I'm drawing a member of any incarnation of the Teen Titans, New Titans, or just the Titans. Today's guy is Nightwing, ex-Robin, sidekick of Batman. One of the things that's amazing about Nightwing is that Dick Grayson as Nightwing has been around for over two decades but is still mostly known these days as Batman's sidekick. He still has not sufficiently developed an identity of his own--a failure, I think of the various writers of his own title.

This Monday's pic is of Dan Schkade's awesome character, The Fowl. He's a sort of a nutty, schizophrenic version of Batman with guns and great page designs.

Following Chris Samnee's example I'm going to try a theme drawing-a-day thing. Probably won't last long but it's an attempt, anyway. haha

The final issue of All-Star Superman just came out and it was as awesome as I expected. Morrison really has shown that new things can still be done with the old guy. Quitely's depiction of Superman is probably one of the best I've ever seen. He's heroic without being corny. The kind of guy everyone can admire.

Here's the Sunday Superman.

I've been busy working on some sketch cards for Marvel Masterpieces 3. I'm doing 250. Ordinarily I would have these done in no time but I'm actually doing a lot of stupid work on these cards so it's taking longer. I'm currently on the home stretch now so it's not too bad. I did about half colour and half in greytones. I'll post them on the site when I get them submitted and approved.

I managed to squeak some time in to work on these drawings for a couple of jams. The Kabuki is for a jam on the Bendis Board and the Thing is for this thread on Ivan Brandon's board.

Anybody excited for the Batman movie? Of course you are. I know I am.

I drew this for a thread on the Bendis Board. This take is slightly influenced by Dave McKean's grotesque take in Arkham Asylum. Obviously, mine and his don't look at all similar but I just wanted to get across the feeling of a guy whose facial muscles are all constricted and contorted into a rictus. I like Heath Ledger's take on the guy in the upcoming movie based on the trailers I've seen but I don't like their visual conception of the character. He looks less like a freakish carnival reject and more like a painted bum. But that's just me. I'll probably like it more when I see the movie. I'll always prefer Bolland's and McKean's take on the guy, though.

And 4th of July too, for you US-ians. :)

Hope you are all having a safe and happy holiday weekend. I myself wasn't really able to enjoy the fireworks and festivities of the July 4th weekend 'cause my car decided to act up this weekend. It wasn't a real big disappointment for me, though since it's as hot as the Dickens out there. I'm kind of glad that I was forced to stay at home instead of braving the heat and the crowds out there.

You know, I like being busy but I don't like being too busy. This week has been crazy.
Actually, this whole month has been pretty crazy with the trip to Germany to working on comic pages for one project and working on a cover to another project to trying to work on some home improvements to entertaining visitors from overseas. I feel like I'm losing sense of reality and I know it's mostly 'cause my routine's been messed up and I haven't really been able to relax. I'm looking forward to the time when I can just sit myself down and watch a movie or play a video game or something.

Oh well. Here are a couple of pics I did for some online jam things. I think this is the first time I've drawn Doom, ever.

Superman turned 70 this year. Can you believe it? Still going strong, too, I think.
I drew this for a drawing jam on the Drawing Board. If you think the costume looks different it's one of Joe Shuster's early Superman designs.

I added the halftone effect for nostalgia's sake.

I've decided to jump on the Kill Bill bandwagon!

...Five years too late...



Actually, I drew this for a Kill Bill jam over on the Bendis Board. I meant to draw her when the movie came out but I don't think I ever actually did.

Here's a panel from a comic I'm currently working on. I'm using inkwash for this which is a bit of a learning process for me since I usually just use strict b&w. I don't even do inkwash like normal people so I'm still working on finding a good working method that's not too laborious so that I can start cranking these pages out.



I posted the first 4 pages in my Sequentials gallery.