Nova

I meant to put this in a longer post about my experience at Heroes Con this year, but it's looking like I probably won't have time tonight. So I thought I'd put this up separately.

One of the absolute best things about going to conventions is talking to friends I haven't seen in a while. Since last Heroes Con Rod and I have gotten to know Matt and Suzanne Wieringo, and they are two of my favorite people. Matt is a fellow Hammer Horror fan (I think we might've gotten him into Amicus too!), and we just didn't have enough time to hang out and talk as much as I would've liked. But I ended up taking on more commissions at the show than I should've, and just didn't get time to walk over to their table enough. My fault entirely.

It also happens that Matt and I are both Nova fans, and we agreed to exchange Nova sketches while we were at the convention. Matt had started on one that he showed me in its early stages (which I still think looked great, even if he doesn't think so), but he ended up working on a new piece after he got home. And I definitely can't argue with him on that-- it is definitely easier to work while at home with your own drawing table than being hunched over, drawing at the convention tables.

So last week Matt sent me a gorgeous Nova piece that he posted on his blog last night. And I promptly went nuts over it and sent it to Rod and my sisters to look at because I was so thrilled with it. But it also made me nervous because it'd been years since I'd drawn Nova and I wanted to come up with something nice in exchange-- I couldn't hand Matt a piece of crap after seeing the incredible piece he did for me.



Over the weekend I worked on my Nova piece, and since Matt did such a great job with Rich Rider's original costume, I decided to draw Nova in his threads from the early 1990s when I first really started getting into him. I liked the costume so much because it was only slightly different from the original-- which is my favorite. So this is what I came up with:

Rod is actually the one that convinced me to add gray tones to it, because I was so afraid I'd overdo things (as I have a tendency to do) and mess it up. But I think it turned out okay and Matt liked it in the end, and that's all that matters!

This was a lot of fun. Maybe next time I can convince Matt to exchange Peter Cushing drawings with me!