Conan The Barbarian

Jack Kirby is my all time favorite comic book artist and Conan the Barbarian is one of my favorite characters in both comics and fiction, so when I found one of the very few pictures of this character that Jack Kirby ever drew in pencil form in an old issue of The Jack Kirby Collector, I knew I simply had to ink it. There are places where I stayed ultra-true to the pencils bordering on tracing, areas where I tightened/cleaned it up a little and a few areas that are all me. I tried to make Conan really stand out by allowing nothing to touch him save for the shadow to which he is grounded and the leaf that is in front of him. (Basically, a white outline around the entire character.) Went heavy on the black outlines for the foreground shapes and lightened them for the stuff in the background. This is a mix of traditional inks and then a lot of re-work digitally using my Huion GT191 Digital Pen Display. I would have loved to have seen an entire issue of Conan illustrated by Kirby and inked by Mike Royer. Oh, the possibilities!! ©2024 Jack Kirby and Christopher Saghy. All Rights Reserved.