Almost every morning when I sit down to my art table I've got those creative cobwebs. This can be a bit of a problem when facing a deadline with the expectation of quality work. I was looking at Scottie Young's art blog and I noticed that a number of his pieces were labeled "warm up" drawing. Anyone who is familiar with Scottie Young's work is knows that he's amazing. The pieces I saw don't look like warm up anything, but I really took notice of the idea of shaking those cobwebs off, on something self indulgent, to get those creative juices flowing so that the work will flow.So anyway, I think people get the idea that I love Spider-Man, especially the original Ditko Spider-Man who was almost like a pulp character at his inception. So these four little headshots are just little fun quick attempts to capture that Ditko look without too much pressure or intention.
Ditko's Peter Parker had this almost effeminate quality. His face was long and thin, Ditko took the time to draw his lashes that were generally ignored for more masculine characters. Peter Parker was always an attractive character, in fact, despite his popularity issues, he never had a problem attacting women. So you have to figure that his popularity issues were probably due to not fitting the typical macho male.
Ditko's Betty Brandt has this sad, almost tragic, sexiness to her. She has a kind of pixie-Jackie-O aura. If I were to pick an actress at any time in their career to play her, I'd pick Winona Ryder in the late 80s.
Ditko's Gwen Stacy is almost forgotten. She was a little more coy and sassy than the version that John Romita coined. When I draw these girls I'm trying to channel the Ditko look but I'm also thinking about Dave Stevens, the creator of the Rocketeer, whom just past away this last month. Stevens drew the most beautiful, most sexy women I've seen in comics and whenever I draw a sexy girl, especially in a period piece, which is how I think of Ditko's Spider-Man, I try to borrow something from Stevens.
