An auction you might find interesting, plus lots of pretty artwork (of course)!

[icon_uk]

The first image I ever had posted on scans_daily wasn't actually posted by me, some had found it on my CAF account, and liked it so much they'd posted a copy of it, with a nice link to my gallery and everything.




The only reason I found it was that I was googling the artist to see if I could find any more of his work, I came across livejournal's robin_daily and scans_daly pages and knew I'd found my idealogical home... so the rest, as they say, is history. :)

Effectively therefore, the artist, one Mitch Ballard by name, is the reason I'm here (or, "his fault" if you want to look at it like that), though he has no way of knowing that unless he reads this, which he has mentioned he might.

In the past I've showcased artists whose work I have liked (Like Andy Price, Sonny Strait and Katie Cook) and I think it seems apt to do it again. I found these on CAF some years ago and picked them up. Over the years Mitch has done a lot cross/team images, notably a whole heap of JLA/Avengers ones, that you can find if you look through here.

This is a set of New Teen Titans and Golden Age/Earth-2 JSA crossover pics, highlighting just about everyone (Sorting out the tags for this could kill me)













For legality, I include the cover of of The New Titans 61. which inspired the backdrop for the Nightwing panel above



As you will probably have noticed. He has a very nice Perez-ian / Giordano-ish style to his work which I really, REALLY like, he draws sexy women AND sexy men, which as you might imagine, is important to me. Recently I found he was taking commissions again after an absenc, and got a couple more pieces from him which delight me rather a lot, and which I posted here just before the migration to Dreamwidth, and he's lost none of his skills.

I've noticed that he has another ebay commission auction up, at what I think is a VERY reasonable price, and given that his "2 character commission" was what got me the now near-legendary Robin and Deathstroke piece as well as those fun Nightwing/Robin and Nightwing/Nightcrawler pieces, I thought there might be a few folk here who might appreciate the opportunity to outdo me by trying to get a better commission than I did! (And no, I'm not on commission, but given how many compliments I've had over his work, I should probably have wrangled for that! ;-) )

tags:
creator: mitch ballard
creator: george perez
title: the new titans
genre: commission
group: justice society of America
group: teen titans

Comments

[bradhanon]

Sexy women, sexy men, and different bodies on different characters. Different heights, muscle styles, breast sizes... it's almost as though they're not the same person wearing different outfits. WEIRD.

[taggerung301]

hah! I love that first drawing!

[icon_uk]

Getting the e-mail of the rought draft through the e-mail was quite an experience.It and my Trevor Von Eeden piece were what made me realise that I COULD ask artists for some fun slightly kinky stuff and they wouldn't bat an eyelid. In fact they frequently went far, far further than I would have ever dreamed of asking them to! :)

[lamashtar]

I don't think I could ever talk about that stuff publicly with a serious artist. They'd have to be some porn artist to make me ask for real sleaze.

[icon_uk]

It takes a LOT of nerve the first time, and especially if it's an artist whose work you've long admired. (On the other hand, have you SEEN some of George Perez stuff... WAY more blatantly kinky than I'd ask for.

I'm sure a lot of them think I'm a complete degenerate and are just too professional and polite to say anything. On the other hand maybe they're just made with relief that it's not another Power Girl snogging Wonder Woman pic.

The fact I usually ask for an older TEEN Wonder style Robin and never ask for the REALLY heavy fetishes (no nudity, piercings or the like), and stay, as far as possible, within the notions of the Comic Code Authority, probably help save my rep there, as does the fact I can be quite imaginative in my suggestions, plus I always offer them the chance to say no without rancour, a couple have, and that's never been a problem, I'd rather they were honest.

I have a friend who gets me some original commissions for Christmas every year (I do the same for him), so he's asking for stuff that's not even CLOSE to his own tastes. He found describing it very, difficult and slightly embarrassing gawd bless him, then he hit upon the idea of taking some samples of my existing galleries to show them the sort of thing I might like.

[lamashtar]

That would be terrible..trying to describe somebody else's kink. "Er..bigger boobs, I think. They're supposed to be roughly the size of her head! Make sure she's not wearing a bra--we have to see nipplage!"

I think I got those exact directions when I was doing sketches. :P

[icon_uk]

Yes, luckily for me his tastes are very straightforward, I'm not sure I'd have the nerve myself... well, okay I probably would. I think my (very straight) friend practised on artists who he already knew, so when he said "I'd like a tied up Robin... IT'S FOR A FRIEND" they were more likely to believe him! :)

[northstarfan]

Oh, blast it, now I'm tempted.

[perletwo]

Dagnabbit. There goes my bank balance...

[citygod]

This ISN'T George Perez? Fooled me. (Not hatin', just sayin'.)

[icon_uk]

Indeed, it's one of the reasons I like Mitch's stuff, it is very Perez-ian... Perez-ite?

[citygod]

Georgian!

Rimshot please!

[icon_uk]

:D

Re: Rimshot please!

[citygod]

but seriously folks...


Actually, I do have a serious question: this guy is so good, wonder why he isn't in the biz?

Re: Rimshot please!

[icon_uk]

I honestly don't know, it might be a hobby for him, a sideline, like The Black Cat. Plus graphic storytelling is a different kettle of fish from portraits and commission pieces.

Certainly he's been doing these for a while... as this piece is from 1986.

Re: Rimshot please!

[citygod]

Don't want to be snarky, but theres a lot of guys making a living in the biz who have never got past doing pin-ups...grumblegrumble...
But it's nice work - guess I'm just envious. If I could draw like Perez, I'd be kicking in the doors at DC/Marvel/TopCow etc etc.

Re: Rimshot please!

[icon_uk]

theres a lot of guys making a living in the biz who have never got past doing pin-up

No arguments there.. alas.

[lamashtar]

I've heard nasty things about the way they treat their monthly art talent. Selling one by one instead by a monthly deadline probably makes less stress.

Re: Rimshot please!

[crabby_lioness]

Because they'd rather pay for work by Liefeld and Lee.

http://www.bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/cable.jpg

And you wonder why comic book sales have tanked!

[yaseen101]

The pencil sketches look awesome. If they ever make it into a comic, I'm afraid that colourist might somehow ruin it.

[icon_uk]

The right colourist can enhance it even further

[yaseen101]

I don't really like the colouring the drawing you linked, I prefer the colouring in the NTT cover. :)

[icon_uk]

Really? I love it (but that's not to say I insist that everyone does! :) )

I don't know who did the colouring on that cover... the colourist I used was Tom Smith, who is one of George Perez's favourites and a professional colourist for over 20 years.

[yaseen101]

I guess it felt like the colour just muddled over the art while the colouring in the NTT cover actually preserves the greatness while enhancing it at the same time.

[icon_uk]

Fair enough.

That might partly be my fault, since I never had the Robin/Deathstroke piece inked. I thought about it at the time, and Mitch offered (or to put me in touch with an inker), but it was my first commissions and I was worried the fine linework might be lost, and left it with "just" the pencils. So Tom essentially coloured from the pencils and made his own judgement call about the inking effect.

[yaseen101]

OK. Though, I don't blame you, we just have different tastes in art, I would have probably left with only the line works too if it was my first commission.

[crabby_lioness]

Wait a sec. Didn't Mitch Ballard draw an indie back in the late 80s?

[icon_uk]

I wasn't aware of one, but you never know.

[jelly_ace]

No one can outdo your commissions, icon. :)

[icon_uk]

Perhaps, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't dare to try! :)

[jelly_ace]

True, true. Outdo icon: that'll be my commission motto.

I just need a theme...

[icon_uk]

Take it from me, a good theme can be a friend for many, many years. Aside from my own, my favourites include

The trophy wall theme

Characters re-interpreted as Wild West characters.

And sometimes the same characters draw multiple ways

[former_callixte]

Great googly-moogly! I don't have time to look at all of those now, but thanks for linking to all of those. I'm going to have to come back to those later. Wow! I must say that thanks to S_D and people like you, I have a much greater appreciation for the artwork in comics. Thanks again!

[icon_uk]

Always a pleasure... :)

[jelly_ace]

Oooooh. I love the Wild West ones. Historical dress-up is so fun.

[pyrotwilight]

Gah...but...can't...no...

Stop tempting me damnit.

Sadly there's still a handful of arts I'm waiting for by various people (which annoys me to no end) but he'll be added to my list of "totally wants!" For the future.

[sun_soraya]

Thanks a lot for posting these. After seeing the pretty art (I really thought it was Perez at first!) I'm actually getting interested in buying a comission... never did that before, how detailed can (or must) the image descriptions be?

[icon_uk]

Good question. You can be pretty specific, but I usually find I get better results if I leave as much to as possible to the artist, since they tend to be much better at art than I am (As indeed, are most mammals, and several varieties of fish) and will have a much better grasp of scenario and posing (though I've been told I have a good mind for ideas).

I'll usually suggest characters (though I try to be open there too, if an artist like Freddie Williams II asks if he can use the Joker as the villain of the piece, I'm not likely to say no, and I got a href="http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/311238.html">this as a result, so it was a good call IMHO. :) )

For example the Robin/Deathstroke one above was more or less based on the suggestion "Deathstroke, being a big game hunter, displays a captive Robin like a big game trophy, within the bounds of the Comic Code Authority" (That last because I like "suggestive" a lot more than "completely blatant kink", and the artists seem to like the challenge). The posing, and Dick's wonderful "This is SO not over" glare at Slade is all Mitch.

A dialogue with your artist can be enormous fun too, and Mitch has always been great to communicate with.

[sun_soraya]

Oh, thanks for your explantions and tips, I just bought my very first commission. Now I have something to think about tonight. :)

And I agree with you, "suggestive" can be way more fun.

... Ok, now I'm *really* impressed... I just paid for the commission 15 minutes ago and I already have a personal email from Mitch in my inbox.
Boy, I'm afraid that could become an addiction.

[icon_uk]

"Neither scans_daily nor icon_uk will be held accountable for any fetishes, obsessions, addictions or kink-leanings which posters and lurkers might develop as they were most likely already present in the first place."

Or to paraphrase "Scream";

"Scans_daily didn't make me kinky, scans_daily just made my kink MORE CREATIVE!"

[mystery]

Good to know. I like his work a lot.