Storm Hipster Version - Ben Caldwell

Ben is an artist that I wanted to meet for a long time. His art style has a wonderful range, from frenetic to sultry, Ben can do it all. Ben (understandably) only travels to shows near the east coast so I had to travel to New York for the opportunity. Ben was very nice and listened while I rambled on and on about how much I liked his art. I figured Storm would be a good character for him to be able to inject his personal style into the piece and away we went.

Ben surprised me with his choices, but magnificently so. I thought for sure he would have gone with punk rock mohawk Storm, but I love the straight hair look. The texturing of the hair is wonderful and adds a nice contrast to the paper and outfit. The expression is appropriately cheeky given the use of Ororo's powers and gesture. There's a subtle fish eye distortion due to the thick glasses which is an outstanding detail included by Ben. My only regret is that I went for the bust. If I could do it again I would have asked for the full figure. But hey, I have another shot at NYCC in 2016.

New York Comic Con 2015