EAST, WEST, and BIG HERO 6!

One of my favorite things about the community at DeviantArt.com is the way it gives me access to art from people all over the world, that I'd never get to see otherwise, and in every conceivable style. I don't know about you, but I've been turned on to all sorts of cool new art thanks to that site.

But I always go back to two styles in particular--American comic book art and Japanese anime. Which isn't uncommon obviously, but in my case, it probably has a lot to do with the way I grew up. I guess when you have a Japanese dad and a Caucasian mom, and you grow up in Hawaii surrounded by Japanese influences on the one hand and American on the other, you inevitably end up with tastes like mine. When I was a kid, I loved Starblazers and Robotech just as much as the X-men and Spider-man, and that's still true today.

And it really comes into play when I'm drawing. I don't know if you can tell just by looking, but there's always a back-and-forth pull between Eastern and Western influences that ultimately ends up as my 'style.'

In recent years, I've been working in the American comic book market, and to get work, it seemed like a good idea to tamp down the Asian side of things and push a more mainstream, Western style.

But things just took an interesting turn.

Turns out that I'll be drawing a new Marvel comic called BIG HERO 6, and it's about a team of superpowered operatives... from Japan. Which means all the Eastern influence I've been holding back for years can finally come out and do some good! We're just a few pages into the first issue, but everyone on the art team's pretty excited about the East-meets-West style we're using on the book.

My partner in crime on this is Emily Warren, one of the best digital painters I've ever seen and (going back to my opening thoughts) an artist I first encountered here on DA. It's a real privilege to team up with an artist of her caliber.

Chris Claremont's writing the book, and Marvel just released the first preview images today on Joe Quesada's MYCUP O' JOE Blog:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=92159514&blogID=395144551

Anyway, more news on this later, but I hope people enjoy BIG HERO 6 half as much as we're enjoying working on it. :)



Pencils and Inks: Me
Colors: Emily Warren

New Zenescope Covers

Is there anything more fun to draw than sexy comic book women? Not that I'm aware of, and that's why I love working with Zenescope Entertainment. Sex appeal is the company's bread and butter, and if you're a comic fan in the mood for cheesecake, it's really the only game in town.

Speaking of cake, here's a new one we just finished for the Wizard World Philly convention:



Fans of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers might recognize the imagery from the band's 'Don't Come Around Here No More' video. And that's no accident--turns out that Zenescope founder Ralph Tedesco's a big fan and thought it'd be fun to do a little homage on the cover of the Tales of Wonderland: Mad Hatter one-shot.

Pencils by me.
Colors by Nei Ruffino.

This next one's another con exclusive, this time for Zenescope's new 1001 Arabian Nights series featuring Sinbad.



Pencils by me.
Colors by Christina Strain.

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY '08

May 3rd is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, and Marvel's got two brand new offerings this year. Shown here is the cover for one of them--a Marvel Adventures special featuring Hulk, Spider-man, Iron Man, and (if you look closely) Ant-man.

If you can make it to you local comic store, make sure to grab a free copy!

HULK DIGEST #2!

Really excited to announce that MARVEL ADVENTURES: HULK volume 2 is out this week! For a mere $7.99, you get the entire 4-issue Defenders arc that ran in issues 5-8 of the series (including three issues by yours truly).

If you can't find it at your local comic store, try Amazon--it just went live there today.

NEW YORK COMIC-CON!

Holy smoke--New York Comic-Con (April 18 -April 20) is right around the corner! Everyone and their brother is posting about the show, so who am I to buck the trend? :)

I’ll be at NYCC Friday, Saturday, and most of Sunday at table F11 in Artist’s Alley, right next to my extremely talented friends Christina Strain (F14), Emily Warren (F13), and Beth Sotelo (F12).

I’ll have original art, sketchbooks, and prints on sale, and original sketches will be available as well.

Hope to see you there!



The cover image above is for an exclusive NYCC edition of GRIMM FAIRY TALES #26, published by Zenescope and featuring the Little Mermaid. Colors by Emily Warren.

Beyond Wonderland #0 Cover

The Emerald City Comic Convention is coming up in May, and this is the exclusive cover of BEYOND WONDERLAND #0, created just for the show and limited to 500 pieces.

Since ECCC's in Seattle, we thought it would be fun to riff on Starbucks and the rain instead of doing another cover with the city's famous Space Needle.




Pencils: Me
Colors: Christina Strain

I really love what Christina did with the complimentary purple/yellow color scheme on this one. It's an unusual palette and a tough combo to pull off, but I think she totally nailed it. :)

Testing, Testing...

All the cool kids were doing it...so here I am on Blogger. Figured this might be a great place to premiere new art work, so I'll be adding pieces here as often as I can. If you want to see a more complete gallery of my work, head on over to:

http://david-nakayama.deviantart.com/

In the meantime, here's a shot of Witchblade that Christina Strain and I created for a convention print:




Pencils: Me.
Colors: Christina Strain.