A project recently came to me that I thought was pretty cool. Draw the cartoon character Voltron for an artbook. A character I have always thought looked cool visually, but also one I could hardly remember anything about. Usually in this situation I would give myself a good hour looking up info online and taking screen grabs for reference. I decided not to do that on this one and just go with what I remembered. Also I wanted to take the character in a different direction than how I’d seen him done in the past. Basically I was curious as to what Voltron would look like if Jack Kirby had taken a stab at drawing him? I have been on a Kirby kick lately after seeing some old monster covers he had done. I had also been wanting to print out some of his old pencils and ink them for fun, but sadly freelance has been too busy to do so. This project would be a good way to scratch that itch.

I instantly had an idea for a composition I wanted to use for the piece. Thor #160 is one of my favorite covers. While it is pretty much just a pin up cover and probably far from one of Kirby’s best as far as story telling goes. I just think it shows prime examples of what made Kirby so great. The anatomy, the Kirby Krackle, the design of Galactus. Works for me. So I used this issue’s cover as my base of reference.

From there is was pretty simple. The pencil stage allowed me to figure out how to adapt the look of the giant robot to fit the 60’s feel of Kirby’s Marvel Comics.

From there it was onto the inks.

Finally it was time to apply colors. I wanted it to look like a slightly worn out and faded comic that has been sitting around for a while. I added the copy along with the old comic’s code in the upper right. Pretty happy with the results as I think the colors really bring it all home to the homage I wanted to make.

So there it is. A piece showing my love of Jack Kirby told through a Voltron project. I hope you dig it. Once there is more info to share on the project I’ll be sure to post about it here.
Brent