My buddy Mark drew a retro Nova piece on a The Marvel’s project variant blank sketch cover for the Inkwell Awards’ fundraising auctions. This was my 3rd time inking Mark but my first Nova image. I tweaked and enhanced some areas and Mark asked me to add stubble to the face since he forgot to. I decided to make it a cosmic shot of Richard Ryder to add more impact to the human rocket namesake. So after I inked it entirely with markers I filled in the background with black with a Pitt brush marker and used removable tape and notes as a frisket so that I could cover up elements while spatter stars into the background and not worrying about lifting the artwork after like a “low-tack” frisket sheet would have. I tried to not cut too deep with my X-acto blade as well so the winner of this item wouldn’t have a cut up cover. After the spacescape was completed I rubbed in some dot Instantex for the small planet and added tonal line zip to his metal waist area of his uniform. Lastly, I used white paint drybrush to enhance the flying/speed effect. This was completed on 2/27/10.

Mark McKenna at Comic Art House: http://www.comicarthouse.com/mckenna.html

Bob’s Inks

Mark’s pencils