Black Knight and Azrael

A recent commission I managed to squeeze in, this is a 9 x 12" of two characters I had never sketched before: DC's Azrael and Marvel's The Black Knight. I'd known about Azrael from the 1993 Knightfall storyline, but was unfamiliar with the recent incarnation of Michael Lane, brought to life in Batman: Arkham Knight. As for The Black Knight, I had recalled first seeing the first version - Sir Percy of Scanvia - in a 1982 episode of "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" when I was a kid. With the aid of photo reference provided by my client, I composed an inks-only rendition of both heroes, which was a challenge in itself. Since he had requested Azrael's cross to be colored red, I managed to convince him to allow me to render Black Knight's cape, chest symbol, and knee pad symbols as well since they were also red. The broken horizon line behind them is meant to convey a great source of light, which would justify the line thickness away from it on both figures. The cast shadows also served to establish a floor beneath them. To distinguish one from the other, I used a drying brush pen to soften the edges of Azrael's shadow, since he was probably eight feet away from the charging Black Knight. I also employed some feathering on the edges of Black Knight's shadow to imply a sense of motion. I also added some cool gray Prismacolor pencil to bring some dimension to the scales of chainmail on his arm to round it out. I really enjoyed this challenge and as of this entry I'm heading to mail the package now. I really look forward to seeing Kit Harrington take up the ebony blade as The Black Knight in the MCU's Blade project, for the record.