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About Me Member Varied Artist yumeru20/United States Recent Activity Deviant for 5 Years
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Superheroes are Here!

Sun Oct 4, 2009, 4:41 PM
At long last I can release the superhero drawings I did for Grinnell College. Awesome. For those of you who do not know me personally, and are therefore not up to date on what this project was, I will explain: This summer, I was commissioned by Grinnell College to do a series of nine superheroes based on the tenants of self governance: Awareness, Trust, Community, Common Sense, Communication, Compromise, Respect, Responsibility, and Accountability. (I know, what a doozy!). These superheroes were to be utilized during student staff training and new student orientation. I am really proud of these illustrations, especially since there are amongst my first commissions! Yay!

I went into designing these heroes with a few personal goals in mind. I wanted my heroes to be ethnically and physiologically diverse. I wanted to avoid as many superhero stereotypes as I could. I only moderately succeeded. Three of my heroes are African American, Two are Asian American (though I realized, in retrospect, you can't really tell with Common Sense because of his mask.. oops), and one is either Hispanic or Arab (you can't really tell due to helmet). With the female hereos I tried to avoid the small waited-big breasted look. Trust has small breasts and large thighs, Respect is muscular, Accountability has some meat on her bones, and Communication's not terribly thin either. I also tried to avoid all the guys being super muscular. I think Responsibility is the only male hero with the typical buff hero look. That being said, I know there's a lot more I could have done to make these heroes more diverse and break away from the confining superhero molds of mainstream comics. For one, both my superhero duos are male/female. I did this for several reasons, but mainly because I envisioned these duos as siblings rather than lovers. I probably also could have made another non-white hero (probably Hispanic, since I don't have an overtly Latino/a hero and Awareness is ethnically ambiguous). All that being said, there was only so much I could do to be social-justice minded in the time frame I had and the concepts I had to work with. I really only had enough time to revise a design maybe once and then get straight to work on the final version.

I had a ton of fun working on these heroes, even if it was highly stressful. The entire project took about 60 hours total and I only had a few weeks to do it in. It was like being back in college. I was really flattered that Grinnell contacted me about doing this project for them. They were inspired by the vinyl cut heroes I had done for my senior art project and wanted to me to do more. It was enjoyable but difficult to design nine heroes in a row and make them distinct from one another. The whole project was challenging and highly rewarding. It was also a great chance to work with Illustrator more.

At any rate, enjoy these superheroes! Blood, sweat, and tendinitis filled wrists went into their making.

  • Mood: Content
  • Reading: Swordspoint
  • Watching: Dragonball Kai
  • Playing: Magic the Gathering

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Devious Info

  • Current Residence: Chicago
  • Interests: sci-fi, fantasy, RP, drawing, painting, printmaking, belly dance, belegarth, tattoo art, Japan
  • Favourite movie: The Star Wars Trillogy (the original ones!)
  • Favourite band or musician: I just like music, no favorites
  • Favourite genre of music: Most everything really
  • Favourite artist: atm I am hardcore obsessed with Alex Ross and Bruce Timm
  • Favourite photographer: mcgiro <3
  • Operating System: Windows XP
  • MP3 player of choice: iTunes
  • Favourite game: Enjoying Pokemon atm
  • Favourite gaming platform: I only own a DS and a computer, so one of those?
  • Favourite cartoon character: Nightwing
  • Tools of the Trade: pencil, ballpoint pen, acryllic paint, charcoal, silk screens

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Comments


:iconshorelle:
Thank you for the fave! :heart:

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:damphyr: "Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot." -- Neil Gaiman
:iconxor-90:
thanks for the fav!

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"Fear is the mind killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past me I will turn to see fear's path. Only I will remain"
-Frank Herbert
:icondjartistknight:
Thanks for the Favourite,much appreciated :)
Ben

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All the artistic talent of a cluster of colourblind hedgehogs...In a bag.
:iconsharp-n-pointy:
Happy Birthday!

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*The bearer of this sig has no skill, but they have accepted that fact and moved on*
:iconguerrillasuit:
Thanks for adding me to your watch list.

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Jesse Justice
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:iconmbuff1124:
Thank you for adding my work to your faves.. cheers!
:iconvityso:
Thanks very much for the FAV´S!!!;P
:iconcountry-emo-lover:
:D

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:love: Cant stop loving you :heart:
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~I LOVE WRITING!~ :typerhappy:
:iconcountry-emo-lover:
You are, dont take this the wrong way, but the COOLEST geek i have yet to meet!
:iconyumeru:
aw, thanks! I totally take that as a compliment

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