Here’s some pics I took of my drawing table. Recent WW2 art. Look, ma! I’m drawing on paper!

I had a lovely Thursday. I Drove out to Dallas to draw on sketch covers of X-Men #1 at Lone Star Comics. There was a pretty decent turn-out despite the rain. The wonderful staff had X-Men cupcakes at the ready, vampire teeth and free drinks. I sat down at 2pm and finished drawing on the sketch covers at 8pm. My cell phone died toward the end of the day and I was not able to get pics of a few of the sketches I drew. Here are as many as I could take pictures of. The rest of the covers are going to be emailed to me and I’ll share those later.

Thanks to everyone who came out. I had a great time.

A recent commission of Captain America in WW2. I drew him sporting the costume designs for the upcoming movie. I am so excited for that movie to come out.

WW2 Captain America by Brian Denham

Here’s a shot of Aquaman. I’m still adding to my portfolio. I thought it would be fun to do some character pin-up shots just to get a feel for drawing them. I know the poses may be boring but I will start playing around with action shots soon enough. These are the calm moments before the storm.

I’m working on updating my portfolio and I wanted to share some of the pieces here. First up, Batman.

New art and style done this week.

Here’s the lineart for the Enter The Zombie comic cover. The book will be in stores in August 2010 from Antarctic Press.

From sketch to completed inks the lineart was drawn in Adobe Illustrator CS5. The logo was created by me in program.

What do you think?

I did this crazy cover for my buddies at Antarctic Press. The book will ship in August.

You may see a familiar name doing the interior.

What do you think? We are tweaking the colors a bit, but this is the nearly-completed piece.

I pitched this concept art to Wildstorm in 2008. The basic premise involved the Argonauts assembling in modern times to stop Jason’s ex-wife, the sorceress Medea.

My favorite character was Perseus, one of the ancient heroes. His curse was to secure the head of Medusa. He can’t let her go. She is a constant nag and became somewhat of a motherly figure to him. He wears tennis shoes that allow him to fly and his hood allows him to turn invisible. He’s very disturbed and quite the emo.

The giant in the back is a Cyclops inventor named Brontes. He was one of three Cyclopes supposedly killed by Apollo.

The cute girl in the foreground left is a Harpy.

One of Hercules’ daughter is lifting the smart car.

Jason wields a magical shield.

The Argo is a Thunderbird style ship and Zeus lives as a businessman in Olympus tower.

There is also a character on a hover bike in the back left who was the only female serving on Jason’s Greek crew, Atalanta.

I had a lot of fun creating the characters and situations. It got a little watered down in the process and ultimately would have come off as derivative with so much other Greek legend stories coming out at the same time.

Maybe another time–
Brian Denham

“Face Front, True Believers!”

This print was commissioned by Charles Briede, host of the Fellowship Of Fools podcast.

Charles asked for 6 prints to be made. One of them was a “Stan Lee Proof ” which was given to Stan at the 2010 Emerald City Comic Con.

The website at the top of the print is just a watermark and does not exist on the actual print.

Meeting Stan

I was a teen-ager when I met Stan for the first time.

I drew art samples and I was trying to show them to Stan at one of the Dallas Fantasy Fair’s in the late 1980′s. By the time I worked up the nerve to show them I overheard the show promoter talking about Stan having to head to the airport.

He was leaving with 4 escorts heading right for the door. I had my chance. I followed down the hall. I only made it a few steps before one of the escorts stopped my egress. He told me they had to get Stan to the airport for his flight.

I was crushed. I told the guard that I only wanted to show Stan my artwork. As I started to turn away I saw Stan stop at the exit and come back down the hall to me.

He asked to see my work, gave me a few words of advice, told me he liked my art, and to stay in school. A moment later he said goodbye and left with his escorts.

I will never forget how caring he was and that he would take an extra moment to talk to a nervous fan. It reminded me of that Mean Joe Green Coca Cola ad from the 1970′s. An adult can have an incredible influence on a young person by spending a brief moment with them.

When I go to cons I try to give everything I’ve got to the people who are kind enough to stop and see me. I have free stuff for the kids that come by the table and I will always do whatever I can to live up to that moment.

After meeting Stan I felt that everything I was working towards as a young artist was not just a fantasy. I knew from age 5 that I was going to draw comics when I grew up. Meeting Stan Lee made it real. I knew after that moment that nothing in the world was going to stop me from making it into comics.

At times, it felt like it was taking too long, but I have never given up.

It was a hard world before the internet to realize your dreams. Now you can reach out to anyone at anytime and be part of whatever tribe you wish to be a part of, and get advice and instruction along the way.

My dad was always fond of saying, “What one man can conceive, he can achieve.”

Don’t give up on your dreams.