Periscope Studio: storyboards, illustration and comic book art in Portland, Oregon. » Ben Dewey

Ben Dewey Colossus art

Periscope Studio — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 13:00:32 +0000

Ben Dewey has worked his magic on another fantastic piece: The X-Men’s Colossus, fighting The Brood.

This was painted in ink, marker, watercolor, and whatever else Ben had handy on high quality watercolor paper. The original art is for sale at The Periscope Studio Etsy store. It’s really something to see. The scan doesn’t do it justice.

Colossus was created by Len Wein and Dave Cockrum, and is ©Marvel Comics.

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Margaret Atwood’s Kidney Boy and Dr. Snit. UPDATED!

Periscope Studio — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 19:49:53 +0000

We read this and fell in love:
“After Twitter user @kidney_boy recommended Atwood’s books to his friend @DrSnit, Atwood said she wanted to design superhero costumes. She updated the pair every few days with her thoughts on design elements and possible superpowers, suggesting “a crown made out of painkiller pills.” One month after the initial communique, Atwood produced a full color sketch of her interpretation of “Dr. Snit” and, later, a black-and-white model sheet for “Kidney Boy.”
Read the rest at Comics Alliance

Some of the artists here were even compelled to draw their own versions:
UPDATE: Scroll down for two new sketches!
Ben Dewey:

Ron Randall:

Steve Lieber says “I like to think Kidney Boy has named his two fists Oryx and Crake.”

Cat Farris:

And Natalie Nourigat:

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An Avengers For The Ages

Periscope Studio — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:55:19 +0000

Ben Dewey produced this custom cover painting for the Hero Initiative’s latest benefit and he’s decided to make it count. The image in question features no less than 19 of the Avengers of past and present teams, assembled to help raise money at auction for retired and struggling comics professionals.

Ben started by looking at Wikipedia for the rosters of the Avengers in various incarnations and with the help of other studio members whittled his initially insane list of “every single avenger ever” down to a couple sticky notes filled with a manageable number of names. “It started as a way to challenge myself” Ben said, “I had done a Josie and the Pussycats cover for The Hero initiative before and I wanted to top that image.”

Initial Sketches

blocking in characters

More underpainting

It took about 20 hours and in the long run Ben had to yield to a similar pragmatism in the process of painting; “Sometimes you have to stop before something gets over worked. I realized it would be tough to get it totally polished at the scale I was working and that I’d better put down my brush before I went nuts trying to render everything.”

Refined rough with some detail

Refined Rough 2 (cover detail)

More of his work can be found the upcoming book BADASS! by Ben Thompson. He’s also illustrating the autobiography of former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde, and has a story in a Robert E Howard anthology coming soon from Dark Horse Comics.

Ben updates his free web comic, Tales from the White Pony on Monday and Thursday.

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West Wing fan art by Ben Dewey

Periscope Studio — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:00:00 +0000

Ben Dewey found time between his comics and storyboards to draw the cast of The West Wing.

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Dewey Goes To The Zoo

Periscope Studio — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 21:08:03 +0000

Ben Dewey recently attended the Zoo with his visiting family. Some of the animals held still and some were not as amenable to his sketching. As Ben says “The nice thing about sketching live animals is that you get the chance to work on both capturing information as it presents itself and using the internal modeling tools you need to develop as a comic artist.”

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Hero Initiative Cover Art: Ben Dewey

Periscope Studio — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:46:34 +0000

Continuing this week’s showcase of Archie Covers done by Periscope members for the Hero Initiative. The Hero Initiative is a charity providing aid to comics legends who find themselves in need. Today we’ve got Ben Dewey’s over-the-top interpretation of Josie and the Pussycats. Can an Archie cover rock any harder? No. No it cannot. Click to make enormous.

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Ben Dewey, hard at work on “Blighter” for Dark Horse Presents

Periscope Studio — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:23:15 +0000

Ben Dewey inking “Blighter”, written by Jeff Parker for Dark Horse Presents. It’s free, go read it.

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Ben Dewey never wears that hat in here.

Steve Lieber — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:02:56 +0000

We’ve been working quite a bit with Ben Dewey, a local artist you probably haven’t heard of yet, but you will. He’s terrific.

Besides being a badass cartoonist, Ben’s also a working musician. Here he is playing with Portland country favorites Emily Herring & Henpecked. Ben’s solo starts at around 1:15.

If the embed code isn’t working, go here.

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