Marvel Comics is preparing to enter a new era with the launch of Marvel NOW! this fall. As with the original Marvel NOW! publishing initiative and other, past publishing banners, the new era will bring about changes both in the status quo of the characters and in the creative teams bringing those characters’ story to life.
For example, The Ultimates is preparing to relaunch asUltimates 2 (read “Ultimates Squared”). The Ultimates writer Al Ewing returns to Marvel’s proactive, bleeding edge super science team, consisting of Captain Marvel, Black Panther, Blue Marvel, Spectrum, Miss America, and Galactus.
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Travel Foreman is the new artist joining Ewing on the series. Foreman’s past Marvel Comics work include The Immortal Iron Fist and Civil War II: Spider-Man. As with any artist taking on a new series, Foreman took some time to figure out how to wrap his distinctive style around Ultimates 2‘s cast of characters.
What follows are sample sketches from Foreman’s early work on Ultimates 2, including the cover to Ultimates 2 #1, with commentary on the artistic process from Foreman himself. Keep reading to see Foreman’s journey from early character sketches to colorized cover art.
Ultimates 2 #1 debuts this fall.
Character Sketches
As with any artist, Foreman started at the beginning, with some rough sketches to get a handle on the characters basic designs.
“Every artist beginning a new title does a little ‘field testing’ of the characters with an assortment of sketches to get familiar with the book’s characters,” Foreman explains.
As the only major character appearing in the book that Foreman hadn’t drawn before, Black Panther was a special challenge.
“Black Panther is the only classic Marvel character in the title that I haven’t drawn before and this first page of sketches is the beginning of trying to unravel my approach to the character,” he says. “I want Black Panther to be solid black, almost reminiscent of how Havok and Sunspot of the X-Men were originally drawn.”
Costume Tweaking
After getting the basic designs down, Foreman moved on to testing the color and texture details for the characters’ costumes, which are the kind of details he’ll have to collaborate with other members of the art to accomplish in the final product.
“Sometimes sketches are equivalent to how movies use screen tests to test lighting on actors,” says Foreman. “I can see here that having grey mixed into Black Panther’s costume doesn’t achieve the effect I’m looking for. I want Captain Marvel and Black Panther’s costumes to be very smooth and reflective, giving off stark highlights. This will be something I have to coordinate with the colorist who’s working on the book as well.”
Character Faces
In this set of sketches, we get to see up close depictions of most of the Ultimates team: the Blue Marvel, Spectrum, Black Panther, and Miss America Chavez. Foreman is working on facial consistency as well as attempting to improve on his characters’ “acting skills.”
“The next part of the process, after learning how to draw all the costumes, is figuring out to draw everyone’s faces consistently,” Foreman says. “Character acting and emoting is something I’m trying to get better at and understanding a character’s face helps tremendously in drawing it in various emotional states.
Cover Sketch
Moving on to the cover sketch for Ultimates 2 #1, Foreman was working with a set of instructions from Marvel, and did what many artists do – drew on the comics he loved as a child for inspiration.
“The cover sketch was done from [Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing and Executive Editor] Tom Brevoort’s instructions to do a clear group shot of everyone flying towards the camera,” Foreman recalls. “The first comic I bought, when I was 9 years old, was Uncanny X-Men #227 with that iconic shot of the team flying towards you. I thought seriously about doing an homage of that cover here.”
Cover With Colors
From sketch to colored cover, here we have an epic team shot with the core cast in the foreground, the Anti-Man hovering behind, and the massive Galactus cradling the entire team in his arms. Foreman decided to experiment a bit with the final image, playing with the lines and shadows.
“For the final image, I wanted to try something different from other covers I’ve done,” Foreman says. “I removed some of the line-art in areas and rendered shadows in grey rather than using black lines to give it more of a smooth, painted feel. This is a great set of characters so this cover was a delight to work on from start to finish”
