I’m starting to sense a theme with these Doctor Strange characters in that I don’t know who they are, and they have some very interesting costume choices.

Once again, I leaned on the magic aspects of the character to create some fun effects, and focused in on the character’s face to make it more menacing.

Labels: Baron Mordo, Ditko, Ditkoctober, Doctor Strange, Pentel, Photoshop, Steve Ditko

I knew nothing of this character other than the change in casting when the Doctor Strange movie was coming out. I think I mostly came across Doctor Strange as a guest in other comics versus through his own stories, so a lot of the supporting cast just fell off my radar. This character has a design aesthetic that was pretty heavily used in Marvel comics unfortunately, so it didn’t stand out too much. I wanted to focus on the magic use, with a little nod to the recognizable Doctor Strange window pane.

Pretty straight forward on this; I wanted a cooler tone to offset the bold colour choices of the outfit while also trying to draw attention to the cosmic and magical elements of a character like this. The galaxy through the window was a lot of fun to create and I think it lends itself well to the character.

Labels: Ancient One, Ditko, Ditkoctober, Doctor Strange, Pentel, Photoshop, Steve Ditko

I knew absolutely nothing about this character, not even in passing. I think it was a plot that I just hadn’t come across. This design was tough for me as I tried in most cases to stay true to Ditko’s originals but I just did not gel with this character’s look. It is very “of the time” in terms of design, and I just don’t think I did it justice unfortunately.

As much as I was not a fan of the design, this character does have a fun colour palette I can get behind. Again, applying a very minimal amount of shading and effects, I just tried to work within a confined palette. As this character is from the Doctor Strange storyline, I did a little throwback to my first coloured piece of the man himself and brought back some of the halftones to highlight the magic.

Labels: Clea, Ditko, Ditkoctober, Doctor Strange, Pentel, Photoshop, Steve Ditko

I’ve always gotten a kick out of the character of Doctor Strange. It’s been interesting watching these characters come out on the big screen and how they’ve been interpreted compared to how I remember them as a kid.

In terms of this drawing, I simply wanted it to be dynamic with lost of magic crackling around him; I wanted the air to feel electric. I did get a kick out of the fact that he was so concentrated that you could only see eyebrows.

This was the first one I coloured, and I think I was still finding my footing a bit on how to tackle these. There’s elements here I would repeat later, such as the halftones or colour holds bleeding out past the image border, but this is the only image where the entirety of it is coloured with no black ink. I thought about approaching it again when assembling them here, but I like the idea of sticking to my original intent and showing progress image to image.

Labels: Ditkoctober, Doctor Strange, Pentel, Photoshop, Steve Ditko

This is the first monthly challenge I've actually finished all of not only on time, but 7 days early!

Here's another batch! These include some of my favourites...

#17 Sppedball
#18 Mysterio
#19 Baron Mordo
#20 Hawk & Dove
#21 Scorpion
#22 Kraven the Hunter
#23 Shade (the Changing Woman)
#24 The Leader

Labels: Baron Mordo, Ditko, Ditkoctober, Doctor Strange, Hawk & Dove, Hulk, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, Scorpion, Shade, Speedball, Spider-Man, Steve Ditko, The Leader

I've been participating in a monthly sketch exercies for the month of October, in honour of Steve Ditko and the many characters he created. Here are the first 8. Of the group, I think Sandman is my favourite, but I tried to do something different with each.

In order they are:
#1 Doctor Strange
#2 J. Jonah Jameson
#3 Nightmare
#4 Aunt May
#5 Dormammu
#6 Captain Atom
#7 Sandman
#8 Clea

Labels: Aunt May, Captain Atom, Clea, Ditkoctober, Doctor Strange, Dormammu, J. Jonah Jameson, Nightmare, pen and ink, Pentel, Sandman, Steve Ditko