Iron Man (Battle Damaged Mark 14) by Bob Layton

Talk about a surreal experience! A few weeks ago, it was announced that the biggest name on Iron Man ever, Bob Layton, was visiting Belgium. He was coming to a comic book shop only about an hour away.

Unfortunately, I couldn't make it. Not wanting to miss out, I reached out to Bob and wanted to see to still get a pre-visit commission. I thought: "A friend could always pick it up?", or perhaps I could pick it up on a different day. Bob was awesome and he proposed grabbing a coffee together on one of the other days that he was staying.

So we did!

My wife and I met up with him at his hotel and we went to a local coffee chain. We spoke for more than two hours - a little bit about Iron Man and comics, but mainly about Bob, his adventures in Hollywood, Korea & so much more!

The commission. My original idea was to ask for a battle-damaged Iron Man on one knee. Now, I thought this may have been too complex, so I pulled them apart and gave Bob those two scenario's. Out of himself, Bob put them together, after also asking which version I wanted - the Mark 14 he designed, of course!

I absolutely adore the heroic pose. Down, but not out. With astonishing marker work highlighting both the armor and the complexity of it, Bob delivers another iconic Iron Man image.

Done on 9x12, pencils, inks and markers!
The background grounds the whole story.