The BlueBandana Original Art Collection

[BlueBandana]

I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten onto Sophie's commission list a few times late last year, so if you like her work then you've come to the right place in 2019 I don't know if she'll see this post but, if so, thank you so much for your patience and generosity!

First piece is a stunning mixed media (marker and watercolor) Mirage-esque group shot done on 11x17 bristol. It won't fit in my scanner as is, and as far as Sophie can recall, this is the largest piece of TMNT art she's ever done. She was kind enough to send me WIP pics when she was working on it, starting with a barebones digital sketch:



followed by pencils.



Sophie then added the inks, starting with Leo.



After that came gray-scale layers and red bandanas:



Additional colors were then added, as well as a colored background block reminiscent of one of Kevin's "mandala style" pieces (I think all of you vintage TMNT art-lovers will know the one to which I'm referring!). So, here is a photo of the finished result, hope you all enjoy

[Peter Palmer]

That is a great-looking commission! Congratulations!

As an aside, I used to have the same issue of art pieces being too big for my scanner. Now I use Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (ICE). It's a free download and it's pretty easy to use.

Basically, you would take your piece and scan it one corner at a time. Once you have the four images (2 will be upside-down so you could get it on your scanner), make sure they are all oriented the same way (all right-side-up). From there, take your 4 images and drop them into the ICE. It'll stitch them together using the overlap in the four images and you'll have a nice scan of your full piece.

Thanks for sharing!

[Redrumh2o]

WOW...is this a new style for her?? I love it!

[BlueBandana]

Originally Posted by Peter Palmer

That is a great-looking commission! Congratulations!

As an aside, I used to have the same issue of art pieces being too big for my scanner. Now I use Microsoft's Image Composite Editor (ICE). It's a free download and it's pretty easy to use.

Basically, you would take your piece and scan it one corner at a time. Once you have the four images (2 will be upside-down so you could get it on your scanner), make sure they are all oriented the same way (all right-side-up). From there, take your 4 images and drop them into the ICE. It'll stitch them together using the overlap in the four images and you'll have a nice scan of your full piece.

Thanks for sharing!

Hey PP, thanks for the kind words! I'm incredibly jealous of your new Mirage piece, it's easily one of my Top 3 TMNT art pieces of all time, it's just so, so cool.

As for your aside, yeah, I've tried using a few "art stitchers" in the past and tbh I've never been happy with the results. I'll PM you with a question

Originally Posted by Redrumh2o

WOW...is this a new style for her?? I love it!

Hey there, thanks for commenting! I'm not sure if it's a new "style" per se, I know she's moved into digital art for the most part nowadays, but I'll always be a sucker for her traditional pieces...

...which leads me to another piece for the thread, here's Sophie's Leonardo Macro cover! Similar to the 11x17 commission I posted above, she sent me some awesome WIPs. I'm planning on having the Micro and Macro covers framed together sometime in the future

[OA]

Really digging that Macro. Congrats!

[Peter Palmer]

There were a few alterations made from the original to the final published look...one of which was the blue bandana.

Was the original always that way or did she add that after the fact knowing it was going to you?

Either way, it's very nice! Congratulations

[TMNTChris1980]

awesome pieces!

[BlueBandana]

Originally Posted by OA

Really digging that Macro. Congrats!

Originally Posted by TMNTChris1980

awesome pieces!

Thank you both for your comments!

Originally Posted by Peter Palmer

There were a few alterations made from the original to the final published look...one of which was the blue bandana.

Was the original always that way or did she add that after the fact knowing it was going to you?

Either way, it's very nice! Congratulations

Since the published cover was digitally colored, the swishy bandana coloring was all Sophie's idea! I love the surrealness of the blue osmosing into the air, as if part of Leo's being/essence leaks into nature when he is "at one" with his weapons.

As for the edit to the background, I think it's neat that it opens things up to interpretation. Personally, I think the published cover looks like Leo's training is taking place either at dusk (with the sun setting) or dawn (with the sun rising), while Sophie's OA is a snapshot into one of Leo's midnight training sessions, with the moon looming behind him. The ambiguity is one of the many things that attracted me to this piece, I've asked a few people what they see and received different answers, so it gives the art another cool layer for me.

I've been kicking around potential ideas for how to frame the Micro and Macro covers together, haven't decided on anything as yet but, as I had everything laid out, I figured I'd share this photo!

[BlueBandana]

Firstly, I just want to thank those who've PMed me about disappearing photos in this thread, it's become an ongoing problem in recent months and I'm doing my best to re-up them when I notice they've vanished.

Also, a new one for the thread! This is one of my favorite recent acquisitions, it took a lot of patience and perseverance to get it completed but I'm so, so happy it paid off in the end

It's no secret that Jim Lee is one of my favorite artists, so my idea was to get him to do a Leo headsketch remarque for me. Since Jim sometimes refuses to draw on blank sketch covers (due to eBay flipping and the like), I thought I would take the safe route and choose one of Sophie's covers for him to sketch on. I had to gauge which of her covers had the appropriate amount of space so Jim's sketch wouldn't interfere with the printed art. In the end, I settled on the Artist Edition of TMNT #66.

The sketch was done last summer via a facilitator, and I even sent a blue pen with a special request to have Jim color Leo's bandana blue for me. There was some cross-wires and Jim instead ended up drawing Leo with the blue pen but not coloring the bandana. A turtle drawn by Jim is extremely rare, so it wasn't a big deal for me. In fact when he drew the sketch, Jim told the facilitator this was "probably the second time I've ever drawn a ninja turtle, although I have another project in the works next year." Today I saw the announcement that he's drawn the TMNT with a bunch of other characters for a SDCC 2019 print, so I guess that's the project to which he was referring!

Here's a photo of Jim starting to draw my sketch. If you look closely, you can see he has Google Images up on his phone, so he obviously had to do a quick search for reference!



I then asked Sophie if she would be open to doing a mirror-reverse Leo beside Jim's remarque. Sophie typically isn't a fan of drawing remarques but she was generous enough to do one for me, plus she also colored both bandanas. I'm very grateful to own such a unique piece.

[Powder]

The pics here in this most recent post aren't working for me.

[BlueBandana]

Originally Posted by Powder

The pics here in this most recent post aren't working for me.

Thanks for letting me know, I've just re-uploaded all pics from this page (including the Jim Lee-related ones from my most recent post) and will start re-uploading pics from the other pages soon.

[Btown]

that jim lee/Sophie piece is amazing!

[BlueBandana]

Originally Posted by Btown

that jim lee/Sophie piece is amazing!

Thanks very much, glad to see you back around here again!

Have just re-uploaded all photos in the first three pages of this thread, hope they stick around for more than a week One more for the collection, I asked Sophie if she would draw a Leo for me on a piece of black foam board, the bronze metallic ink she used really stands out!

[TheCanadiandrome]

nice dude. i like what i see

[Btown]

Originally Posted by BlueBandana

Thanks very much, glad to see you back around here again!

Have just re-uploaded all photos in the first three pages of this thread, hope they stick around for more than a week One more for the collection, I asked Sophie if she would draw a Leo for me on a piece of black foam board, the bronze metallic ink she used really stands out!

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...c8f5d312c8.jpg

Thanks! I missed this place! Glad to see some familiar faces still posting. I love that metallic ink piece from Sophie. One day I’ll get a piece by her for my collection haha

[BlueBandana]

Originally Posted by TheCanadiandrome

nice dude. i like what i see

As always dude, thank you!

Originally Posted by Btown

Thanks! I missed this place! Glad to see some familiar faces still posting. I love that metallic ink piece from Sophie. One day I’ll get a piece by her for my collection haha

Great to hear from you, the Eric piece you shared recently is great!

Also, a non-Sophie addition to my collection, I'm grateful that Ciro is now part of my "black and white art with bandana colored blue" theme! Ciro posted a WIP of my Leo on his Instagram:



and here is the end result

[IMJ]

Wow, your TMNT OA collection is incredible..... congrats on curating such an amazing portfolio!

[pl212]

Maaaaan! that Leo came out great, congrats on that! Hopefully I will add a Ciro piece to my collection soon.

[IMJ]

Can I ask how you generally go about getting commissions and sketches done? I have an Iron Man original art collection similar to your TMNT pieces, but most of the time my OA come from time spent at a convention's artist alley.

Could you talk a little about your process for getting the work done? It's been my experience that pro-artists are extremely gracious or extremely fickle, with little in between. The fickle one's can make the experience less than fun.

I'd really like your insight because it might help me double done on my own original art collection. Here or PM....

Thank you brother...

[TheCanadiandrome]

Originally Posted by BlueBandana

Also, a non-Sophie addition to my collection, I'm grateful that Ciro is now part of my "black and white art with bandana colored blue" theme! Ciro posted a WIP of my Leo on his Instagram:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...49838441ea.jpg

and here is the end result

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a5c1f3ec99.jpg

awesome dude