Not George, Paul or John...

What can I say about MIKE WIERINGO that hasn't been said by everyone else in the biz?
Nothing. Not one damn thing.

Mike was a class act, a fantastic artist, and one of the best people to have walked this planet. It doesn't seem like we lost him 3 years ago this coming summer, but I don't think a day goes by that a bunch of us don't miss him.

I always wanted to ink Mike. His work has a wonderful flow to it, his figures all have this energy to them, even when they are at rest. I printed off every piece Mike ever posted to his blog. They sit in a stack by my art table.I hadn't looked at them in a while, but when I paged through them all to find a piece, i just had to sigh a bit in disappointment. Disappointment in the fact that there won't be any more Wieringo books coming out. No more daily blog posts. This is all we got, so we'd better damn well cherish it.

I decided on this Superman piece mostly cuz it's Superman, and I really liked the pose. I used a lightbox to pencil it onto Canson comic art board. I really like their comic board. It's got a nice tooth to it, and it takes ink really well. Brush work turns out fabulous on it. I haven't used a quill on it yet, so I don't know if it bleeds. I inked it with a #3 size Kolinsky series 8404 brush. I used a Pitt artist pen for the 'S' shield and belt buckle. Ink was Dick Blick's Black Cat brand ink with a little Kohinoor ultradraw ink mixed in.

I think I could have done a bit better job on a few of the lines here and there, maybe making some holding lines a bit heavier, but I do like how it turned out. Karl Kesel is still my favorite 'Ringo inker. The work they did on Fantastic Four was pretty damn awesome. Check it out if you can find it.