A Portrait in Pencil

Matt Schuler is one talented guy. And this Iron Man drawing of his is proof. As Matt has pointed out, its based on the very first cover appearance of shell-head, as originally drawn by the great Jack Kirby. Of course, Matt has used his skill with charcoal to add several nice touches. I especially like the lighting flare around the chest lamp and the excellent handling of reflections and hi-lights all around. In some ways, this kinda reminds me of those "collaborative" paintings Alex Ross does, where he does a tonal painting over someone else's lineart, like George Perez or Dan Jurgens. Sometimes I like those paintings, sometimes I don't. But there's no grey-area for me here -- this Iron Man drawing ROCKS!