Original Art Sundays No. 147: The Source Cards

Back to post some art in the midst of the final Best of 2012 posts.
And as promised, it's new work, though possibly not what you expected.
At MN's SpringCon last year, the organizers gave creators cards to illustrate. This year being an anniversary, the 25th, they wanted to put together a set of cards. These will be redistributed randomly to attendees. They did this five years ago for the 20th- it's a lot of fun!
So I did my part.
After leaving the card blanks laying on the drawing table to annoy me for months while I completed other work, I finally just sat down and did them right at the turn of the year.
The work is loose and sketchy- hey, they ARE sketch cards- and colored in pencil, though it looks like marker in the scans. I considered correcting the colors and doing some fancy footwork in Photoshop (what we used to call "production art"), then thought, "naaah."
I decided on four of my favorite characters.
First, Dr. Strange.

I was going for a more urgent tone than this conveys. It's OK, but more mood would have been good. Possibly grayscale/monochrome if I work with the Doctor again?
Next, Omaha, of course.

I might like this one best. While it's much looser than Reed's best work, or even some of my own scattered pieces using the character, I think the tone is right. I freely stole the design and palette from one of the final cover variants of Terry Moore's Strangers in Paradise.

Next, Concrete.

Mildly frustrated by this one. I included the title since not everyone knows the character and the cards are being distributed randomly to attendees, but I think it really hampers the overall tone of the piece. The lettering is too cartoony/ baloony. I deliberately left in most of the pencil marks. I think the intent of the cast shadow in the floor stones doesn't work as well as it might.
Still, I've begun to see Concrete as something of a Buddha figure, and this plays into that, obviously.
The whole thing is grayscale, though it looks blue in the scan.
Finally, CHEW!

The Omaha card elicits the strongest idyllic expression from me, but this just makes me smile! I'm about three issues behind, but CHEW remains one of the funniest and most demented comics out there. The earth tones got seriously bumped into the red in the scan. It was much browner in the original. So be it.
Join us tomorrow (actually later today) for the final installment of Best Comics of 2012.