Hulk Sketch by Daniel Logan

Although I generally limit my sketch art collecting to a couple of characters, I will sometimes pick up something different if the price is right. That was the case with this sketch card from Upper Deck's Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 set.

This sketch features Hulk, Marvel's angry green behemoth. Hulk is one of my favorite characters, and I even named my second son after Hulk's alter ego. The artist is Daniel Logan, who I don't know a lot about. He has a Facebook page and a DeviantArt profile, but neither one is updated vary frequently. I like all of the green and yellow on this card. The colors really make it pop.

Hulk vs. Thing by Rich Woodall

DC's Power Girl and Star Wars' Leia are the main characters in my art collection, but I do try to grab up art featuring other characters from time to time. One group of characters I like to keep an eye out for is the four heroes my kids are named after, Thing, Hulk, Wolverine, and Nightcrawler.

This sketch card from Rittenhouse's Marvel Bronze Age set has two of the four characters on it, and they are fighting something out, just like my Ben and Bruce do all the time. The two characters have a long-standing rivalry in the comics, and their battles are usually pretty fun due to the strength they each possess. The artist on this sketch card is Rich Woodall, who has a Facebook page and an online shop along with various other online presences. I haven't interacted with him directly, as this sketch was an eBay purchase. It's a pretty neat piece of art, and I would definitely be interested in picking up more of his work some day.

Frank Kadar Hulk Sketch from eBay

I've shown off a couple of commissions by artist Frank A. Kadar before, sketch cards of Power Girl and Princess Leia. I think he does awesome work, and I recently picked up a sketch card of his from an eBay seller. I kind of felt bad because I won the listing for about 20% of what a commissioned sketch card would cost me, but I was also happy to add another piece of Kadar's work to my collection.

The character in this sketch is Marvel's Hulk, in his grey form. He looks properly angry in this sketch, and I like the perspective of the sketch with Hulk's hands in the foreground. Hulk is one of my favorite characters; I even named one of my kids after his civilian alter ego. It's done on Kadar's personal sketch card stock, with some of his social media handles listed on the back. I am always happy to add another sketch to my art collection, especially one that looks this nice.

Hulk and Thing Sketch Cards

My sketch card collection tends to be pretty focused on a couple of characters, but I have to switch it up from time to time when something jumps out at me. That was the case with these sketches that I purchased from an eBay seller a while ago.

Based on the 'Fantastic Four' logo, I thought these might be from one of the Marvel trading card sets put out by Rittenhouse, but when they arrived I found that this was just a logo and some design printed on relatively thin personal stock. I probably could have figured that out if I'd done any research, as the cards from the Rittenhouse product were in the vertical format and had the word 'Archives' printed after the Fantastic Four title. Anyway, I don't have much information on these sketches, not even an artist's name. It looks like the artist's initials are 'LS' and the sketches are dated '08.'

This first sketch features a close-up of the Hulk's face, and he is looking might angry. I really like this sketch, and I wish I knew who the artist was.

The second sketch features the Fantastic Four's ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing, again from an up-close perspective. It appears that he is about to announce that it's clobberin' time.

These sketches feature the characters that two of my sons are named after. If I knew who the artist was, I'd consider trying to commission sketches of my other two boys, although in my recollection Nightcrawler doesn't have much connection to the Fantastic Four. Thing is an original member of the team, while Hulk and Wolverine were members of The New Fantastic Four in the early 90's. Hulk and Thing also have a long-standing rivalry, as Thing is one of the few heroes who can go toe-to-toe with Hulk when he is rampaging uncontrollably.

Pack of the Day 151: One Pack of Captain America from Upper Deck e-Pack

The day before I left Utah, I was considering going out to find a card shop. There were a couple in the area with mixed review online, and the snow was bad enough that I didn't really feel like venturing out into rush hour in search of a card shop that may or may not have been any good. So I ordered a pizza and decided to see what I could see online. Eventually I wound up on Upper Deck's e-Pack site. I had logged in and grabbed free packs a few times, but I hadn't ever made a purchase from the program before. None of the sports packs appealed to me, so I thought I would try a pack of Captain America 75th Anniversary cards. These cards aren't cheap per pack, but I figured just one wouldn't hurt.

The base cards appear to all be covers from various Captain America comics throughout the years. It looks like there are subsets for each decade. The border around the covers seems pretty busy to me.

Here are a couple more base cards. It is weird to me to be paying money for pictures of cards. Supposedly if you collect enough base cards you can exchange them for real cards.

One of the digital cards that came out of the pack I opened had a red flashing border. It was pretty obvious that this was a special card. I managed to pull a sketch card out of my first pack of digital cards from Upper Deck e-Pack. This happens to be a dual-card puzzle featuring the core group of Avengers that appears in the Avengers film. The artists on this puzzle sketch are Arturo Ramirez and Daniel Benitez. I am assuming that one of them draws and one of them colors the sketches.

Sketch cards and inserts can be shipped to your COMC account for free, or transferred and shipped to you for an additional fee. I opted to have the sketch shipped to me. This was a pretty good pick-up for me, and I was excited to pull a sketch out of a single pack. I think the odds on sketches are 1:40 packs, so I definitely beat the odds with my purchase.

A week or so later I tried two more packs, I think one was Dr. Strange and the other was Goodwin Champions. The results of those packs were more in line with my expectations. I got a handful of worthless pictures and a sick feeling in my stomach in exchange for my money. It was fun to try a few packs of digital cards, but it's not something I can see myself doing often.

Sketch Card Week Bonus Round: Sketches from Emerald City Comic Con 2012

These aren't sketch cards, but I haven't ever posted the sketches I got at the 2012 Emerald City Comic Con (ECCC). My other blog has a post about the sketches we got at the 2006 ECCC, if you want to check those out. My wife and I went to one previous ECCC while we were dating (maybe 2004? I don't think we knew each other in early 2003 and I was in Iraq on the 2005 dates), but we didn't get any sketches at that one. I don't remember a lot about the interactions we had with each artist for this post, but oddly enough I have a map in my head for approximately where in the convention hall each artist's table was located. I'll try to remember as much as I can.

One thing I definitely remember is that the show got a lot bigger between 2006 and 2012. The hall was super-crowded, and we had our twins who were just over a year old in a huge double stroller that we were trying to push around, as well as a second stroller for our three year-old boy. I have grown in patience over the years, but about halfway through the first day I was ready to leave and go straight home because the crowd was getting me frustrated. My wife talked me down from acting rashly, and we made a better plan for getting around and seeing all the stuff.

I don't know if artists like this or hate it, but I take a list of characters I like and ask them to sketch any character on my list that they feel would be cool. Sometimes I have a list of artists I am looking for, but I will also stop at any booth where I like the art on display and there isn't much of a line. If I recall correctly, Randy Emberlin was set up near to some huge megastar-type guy like Adam Hughes or something, and his booth was kind of overshadowed by the line for the other booth. I wasn't familiar with Emberlin's previous work on Spider-Man, but I liked what he had on display and he did this awesome old-school Punisher for me. 

I am having some difficulty remembering if Jon Morris drew this for us on request or if he had it already on display. I have a vague memory of having to figure out how to transport the piece while the paint used for Mr. Freeze's gun dried, though. That could be a false memory, though. Either way, he's got a pretty cool art style and I like his stuff. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that he chose Mr. Freeze from my list and drew him right there in front of us.

I am having a similarly difficult time remembering how we got this Cookie Monster sketch from Adam Watson. I think he was set up near Jon Morris, though, and they might even have been sharing a booth. I noticed that Adam Watson recently reblogged something that Jon Morris posted, so they know each other well enough for that. I don't know. He also appears to be interested in entomology, which makes him all right in my book. I was an Entomology minor for a while during my first attempt at a college education.

I don't remember a lot about Dean Trippe. He had some cool prints and I think I knew his name from seeing some of them online. At that time I was looking at a lot of comic book fan art, probably in preparation for this convention. He did this nice Spider-Man sketch for us, complete with tingling Spider-Sense.

Chris Burnham did this She-Hulk sketch for us. He drew it on a really big piece of paper, which is cool, but it was hard to carry around. Most of the other artists used paper from the sketch pad I was carrying around in my backpack or smaller paper of their own. So I had to figure out a way to carry this large paper without it getting destroyed. It's a pretty cool sketch, though.

Colleen Coover was really cool, and we chatted with her and her husband, Paul Tobin, for a little while. I think we chose this Wonder Woman sketch from her portfolio, and then she personalized it for us.

We barely caught Laurie B! as the convention was closing down. I think she was pretty burnt out after a long weekend and she apologized that she couldn't do a free sketch. We weren't expecting a free sketch anyway, and she did this Power Girl sketch for a very reasonable price. Getting a sketch from her was probably one of the highlights of the convention for me. I love her work, and I was glad that she made time for us even though she was ready to get out of there. You might be wondering why I would wait until the very end of the convention to get a sketch of a favorite character from a favorite artist. I don't know. Things just worked out that way.

I think I was drawn to Michael Cho's booth because I liked the prints he had on display, but I may have gone looking for him specifically. He's got some cool stuff out there. I'd probably seen some of it online prior to the convention. He did this Captain America sketch for us. 

The only sketches I commissioned before the convention were a group of three sketches featuring the characters my kids are named after by artist Jeremy Dale. Because they were pre-commissioned, they are a lot more detailed than most convention sketches and they cost me a little more. But it was totally worth it. This is some good art. First up is Hulk.

Jeremy and his wife, Kelly, were very friendly and we talked to them for a while when we went to pick up the sketches at his table. They were nice people, and they seemed like the kind of people we might have hung out with in real life 1) if we lived near each other and 2) if we were the sort of people who hung out with other people. Anyway, they were cool and friendly. This one is Wolverine. My scanner and my phone camera both have a hard time with the colored paper that these are done on, so the colors are a bit off.

Sadly, in November of 2014 I saw that Jeremy had died very suddenly, and it later came out that he had an autoimmune disorder triggered by a case of the flu. Obviously I only knew him from a short conversation at a convention, but it's one of those events that sticks with me for some reason. This third sketch features Thing from The Fantastic Four.

I don't remember much about meeting Leigh Kellogg, but this Rogue that he did for us is super cool. In trying to search out more information on him, I discovered that he worked on several video games I enjoyed, like Close Combat: A Bridge Too Far and MechCommander 2 from a while back, and more recently the Facebook/Mobile game Marvel: Avengers Alliance. Unfortunately, Disney very recently decided to shut down Avengers Alliance, a game that I played quite a bit over the last couple of years.

We got a lot of good sketches at ECCC 2012 and we've been trying to get to another convention, but it seems like the dates and finances never quite match up. Maybe 2017 will be our year to go to one of the conventions in Portland, Seattle, or Salt Lake City.

A Star Wars Sketch Card and Decorating the Walls of My Office

I'm going to keep the sketch card theme rolling with a Star Wars sketch by artist John Soukup, whose work has been featured a lot on this blog. 

This card illustrates the briefing room scene in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope prior to the Battle of Yavin, which led to the destruction of the first Death Star. The sketch comes from the 2013 Topps Star Wars Galactic Files: Series 2 set.

I recognized the scene right away when I saw the card, but here is a screencap from the film. This is the part where they talk about a weak point they've found in the Death Star's defenses, a thermal exhaust port that is vulnerable to a torpedo attack that could lead to a chain reaction that would destroy the base.

I am a pretty big fan of Soukup's work, and I recently also acquired a full-size painting of his for my new office at work. It's a pretty big painting, and I've had plenty of compliments on it from my coworkers. This cell phone picture sucks some of the color out of the painting, which is unfortunate. I have it hanging in front of my desk so I can look at it when I need to zone out for a second. That flame in the middle of the painting glows in the dark.

I also finally hung up some prints we bought from artist Mike Maydak at the Emerald City Comic Con in 2012. They depict the three characters my kids are named after. I don't know what I'll do if we ever have another kid. I guess I'll have to track him down and see if he's got a print of whatever character's name we come up with. He's got some cool stuff. It would be really neat to snag one of his original paintings, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

Guardians of the Galaxy Hulk Sketch by Brian DeGuire

I've been thinking about doing another Sketch Card Week, but it's hard to post only sketch cards for a whole week. Sometimes there are other things I want to post, but I feel obligated to keep posting sketch cards because it's a themed week. You can't tie me down like that.

I haven't exactly been silent on the blog in September, but I've had a couple gaps in posting. Our fiscal year ends on 30 September, so in my current job this is a pretty busy time for us. I've had just one full day off since some time in late August, and like 28 hours of comp time in the last week. I am done with all of my heavy work for now, and the last couple days of the month should be pretty light. In another couple of weeks things will pick back up again as we follow up on all the stuff we did this month, but for now it's a bit of a break.

The Astros were in the thick of the Wild Card race, just needing to close out strong against the Angels and Mariners to have a pretty good shot at a Wild Card spot. So of course they fell flat on their faces. They didn't lose every game, but they've lost enough to fall out of the race. As of tonight (Wednesday) there is like a one in a zillion scenario in which they still make it, but I am assuming that by tomorrow night that will be over with and they will be officially eliminated.

And now. the sketch card of the day.

This one depicts Marvel character Hulk by artist Brian DeGuire. I've been watching DeGuire's art cards ever since I saw the stained glass designs he did for his Star Wars Masterwork sketches, but this was the first piece of his art that I landed for my collection. It comes from the Upper Deck Guardians of the Galaxy set that was released in 2014. I think this one is a pretty cool sketch, and I really like DeGuire's depiction of the Hulk.

We named all three of our sons after Marvel comic book characters, and Bruce Banner, Hulk's alter ego was the name we chose for one of our twins. The twins are 5 years old now, and Bruce's temper sometimes rivals that of his big green namesake. I guess we should have named him after the Jolly Green Giant.