Thursday 23 October 2008

Red Is...Iconic

To me, the colour red is iconic and stands out more than any other colour. I have decided to use characters from story’s/comics which I think Iconic but not everyone else may do.

I started to look at characters that I knew like Hellboy and Little Red Riding hood who are well known for their “red” colour. I then progressed and started to look at other characters like Deadpool who wears a very well known red costume and the not so known Scarlet Spiders.

From there I started to think of other characters that I knew somehow had the colour red incorporated into either their name/persona or their overall costumes. For example, Edward Elric, from the Japanese authored comic “Full Metal Alchemist”, has a very distinguished Red Trench coat.

I have looked at existing images that I either have or have found on the Internet. Certain characters like Little Red Riding hood can be interpretated in many different ways but other like Deadpool have a very fixed appearance. (It all depends on which artists have drawn him as opposed to an artist drawing him in his or her own unique and characterised way.)



So I was inking and colouring my ten pieces of work today and I knew straight away that not many people would get where I was coming from. Many people don't know the characters but I thought: What the hell. I've never done a project just for myself and on my ND course my teacher hated anything to do with my own interests.



So here are the characters I drew and why I choose them.
1. Wiccan: (Billy Kaplan) A marvel character who wears a red shawl in homage to his mother the Scarlet Witch. (see the connection yet?)

2. Edward Elric: From the Japanese comic "The Full Metal Alchemist." In his younger days he wears a very Iconic and flamboyant Red Trench Coat. He's also searching for the philosophers stone which is sometimes called the blood stone. (See! See! There is a connection.)

3. Hellion: (Jullian Keller) An X-men character who used to wear a red training suit and the word hell also makes me think of the colour red. Where he got his original name was from the Massachusetts Hellions (a rival Mutant group whose costumes where also red)

4. Little Red Riding Hood: What...You need an explanation? Well all right, it's such an Iconic story that can be interpreted in countless ways.

5. DeadPool: Wade Wilson. A very Iconic Red Suit and when every I think of the word "deadpool" I think of blood. (maybe it's just me. o.0)



6. Hellboy: HB's code name is Red. How much more detail do you want me to go into here?

7. The Scarlet Spiders (Team Red): After having a delightful disagreement with Ben lets clear one thing up. This is NOT spiderman. Nor is it THE scarlet Spider or SpiderMan in his armoured costume that Tony Stark made for him. It is one of the MVP clones. 'NUFF SAID. (This geek gets pissy with the little details.)

8. Icarus: (Jason "Jay" Guthrie) CannonBalls little brother with red wings and matching hair. A character wasted in New X-men when he was pointless killed off with a good handful of other characters.

9. Carnage: (will explain this the best I can) Cletus Kasady shared a cell with Eddie Brock (venom) on Rikers Island prison. Symbites reproduce asexually and the offspring got into a cut on Kasady's hand and there for Carnage was born. When he killed someone he was known the write "Carnage Rules" in their blood on the walls. Precocious little scamp, ain't he? ;D

10. Marvel Comics: The logo from the late 80's early 90's and then first one I initially grew up with. Marvel Have always had the iconic red colour. (Unless they're doing a character promotion. *shrugs* Who really knows how these comic peoples minds work.)


(mine and Pauls work.)

I added a green background to some of the images after Jo pointed out that it would make the red stand out more. I only got half of them done with the time we had left but the full complete green against the roughness of the felt tips made it stand out more.

On a minor note, and it's a point I do feel I have to bring up. It was brought to my attention that in the crit one of the pieces of work was taken down in a way that no piece of work should be treated. I found this terribly rude and disrespectful of said person taking down the work of another student who had worked really hard all week to produce a great body of work.

Simply Put: TREAT OTHERS WORK WITH RESPECT! (and they won't have a small bitch about you later...kay? =D)

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