As a kid I loved the character of Mysterio. He seemed impossible to defeat and led to some clever stories where punching your way out of the problem was not the answer.

For the artwork, I just wanted to play on the (wait for it)... mystery of the character by showing him appearing (or is he disappearing?!?) in smoke.

I struggled with this one a bit. Mysterio has a very distinct colour palette so I focused on not pushing the purples or greens too far out there and making the picture look too garish. Some varied smoke colours and textures here and there and we’ll call it a wrap!

Labels: Ditko, Ditkoctober, Mysterio, Pentel, Photoshop, Spider-Man, Steve Ditko

I feel like this character has always been a bit of a punchline, and while I was not reading comics at the time the Penance storyline came to be, I’m not sure if he’s ever been redeemed. I think a lot of these characters that were introduced as light hearted comic foils sort of lost their place in the grittier tones of the 90’s and even into the realism/movie tie-ins of the 2000’s. That being said, I did collect New Warriors for a time as a kid and recall Speedball fondly from that group setting.

For the artwork, I just wanted to show some of the dynamics of the character zipping into the panel.

I feel like the colour scheme of the character itself was pretty bold so I just stuck with that, along with some minimal lighting and colour holds. I chose a subdued background colour to let the costume colours pop a bit.

Labels: Ditko, Ditkoctober, Pentel, Photoshop, Speedball, Steve Ditko

I knew nothing of this character prior to reading his name, and unfortunately couldn’t get much of a sense of it from the information I could find online. I wanted to go for a noir vibe, and play up the good/evil, scales of justice angle. I’d locked into the format of these images early on (12” x 4.5”) and unfortunately I don’t think all of the images came out as strong because of this limitation. That being said, I loved the challenge!

It’s a black and white comic. Get it?

Labels: Ditko, Ditkoctober, Mr. A, Pentel, Photoshop, Steve Ditko

I knew Vulture from the comics and animated Spider-man shows, but it was actually a Rob Liefeld cover of New Mutants that sticks out in my mind when I think of this character. I don’t even remember the context of the issue, the plot-line would soon be all about Cable, but I distinctly remember that cover, Rusty handing on to just Vulture’s leg and just knew I had to have it. This was pretty straight forward art wise. Just played with some stark blacks and a simple background.

I felt like the inks were pretty strong on this one so I didn’t mess with it too much. Very tasteful flats for shadows, some clouds dotted in the background and some basic colour holds on the webbing.

Labels: Ditko, Ditkoctober, Pentel, Photoshop, Spider-Man, Steve Ditko, The Vulture

I love the golden age aesthetic of this character. Her powers are described as the ability to teleport people through The Land Of Nightshades, but in doing so she exposes them to their worst nightmares. I wanted to play that up with the contrast of a nightmare land and a serene landscape.

Taking this to its logical conclusion in colours by having a stark contrast of serene, muted colours against the vibrant red of the nightmares with Nightshade’s portal as the delineator. Stuck once again with basic flats for shading, while using some colour holds to push the contrast on the serene landscape further.

Labels: Ditko, Ditkoctober, Nightshade, Pentel, Photoshop, Steve Ditko

I honestly didn’t intend for this to come out looking like William Shatner but here we are. I only know this character from some of the Eclipso storylines in the 90’s, and even then my memory is pretty spotty. I’ve always had it in my head this was sort of a hero version of the Joker; all chaos and laughs. Such an odd character with an equally odd history. I played up how much the... hair collar (?) looked like it could get in the way.

I will be the first to admit I am not a fan of the colour scheme of this character. The approach here was some tasteful flats to show depth, some emphasis on the lettering and some halftones to play up the 60’s camp of this character/William Shatner look-a-like.

Labels: Creeper, Dit, Ditko, Ditkoctober, Pentel, Photoshop, Steve Ditko

This has always been one of my favourite Spider-man villains. A very Jekyll & Hyde story stemming from Curtis Connor’s good intentions, coupled with the raw, primeval power of the persona of the Lizard leads to a great dynamic that adds depth to a villain on paper that could just be a two dimensional bad guy for Spider-man to knock around. No real tricks on the drawing itself. I just wanted to draw Lizard in a stalking, threatening way; ready to pounce when something comes into view.

This is a fun little trick I’ve used in the past (and in a few pieces in this project) where I apply an opaque gradient on a soft light layer. It normalizes the colours in the gradient a bit, and can be used to create a light source, or in this case, a foreboding red overtone suggesting something bad is about to go down.

Labels: Ditko, Ditkoctober, Pentel, Photoshop, Spider-Man, Steve Ditko, The Lizard