What if…

 

We love comic books and superheroes and it’s hard to explain why, however we could say that it’s one of our first contacts with art, even though they are commercial. Now imagine if a famoust artist like Pablo Picasso were alive and decided to paint about superheroes? Thanks to artist Mike Esparza, we finally get to see the Man of Steel and other superheroes the way they were always meant to be seen as if painted by Picasso’s Cubist style.

“I get a lot of my inspiration from comic books, movies, music and observing other artwork. When I paint, I tend to bend the rules a little, but try to keep my subject recognizable so the audience can still connect with it. Pablo Picasso is a great influence, I’ve always wondered if he were alive today, what would he paint? This past year I’ve had a lot of fun creating a superhero series with a Picasso style twist to them. I do have some super plans for creating more superhero artwork in the near future.”, says Mike.

Batman

Captain America

 

Doctor Manhattan

 

Flash Painting

 

Iron Man

 

Spider-Man

 

Superman

 

Thor

 

Wolverine

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Captain America!

A couple weeks ago, during the LA Times Hero Complex Film Festival, the marketing people at Marvel released a limited-edition retro poster for Captain America: The First Avenger, and I absolutely loved it. Taking advantage of the missed opportunity by X-Men: First Class earlier this summer, it was a ridiculously cool design and it’s a true shame it won’t be getting spread around much. Now Marvel has released a new one-sheet and, sadly, it’s lacking that awesome retro vibe.

The new artwork is cool and uber-patriotic (as it should be) but it’s just not as cool as it could be. What is interesting is that it’s bordering that very fine line between way too much Photoshop and a hand-drawn appearance, but it’s falling more on the wrong side. It’s not a terrible poster, but it also can’t be their best idea.

Check out the one-sheet below or click it to see all the incredible detail in the ultra-high-res version.

The best poster for Captain America: The First Avenger is one you won’t be seeing in theaters. As part of the LA Times Hero Complex Film Festival over the weekend, Marvel Studios printed 100 copies of a vintage-inspired Cap poster to give away to the audience on hand for the Sunday Marvel presentation. It’s designed like a poster for Casablanca or an old World War II movie, and much like this classic comic book cover, features Cap punching Hitler in the face. We can only hope Chris Evans gets to do the same thing in the actual movie. Check out the poster below.

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Avengers Promo Poster!

An early promo poster for The Avengers has popped up online. I wouldn’t expect to see this in theaters, since truth be told, it looks more like a collectible trading card than an actual movie poster. The photo is just something snapped by a camera though, maybe it’ll look better in high-res?

Here’s the image, originally pushed out on to the internet by this ESQ twitter account. They captured it at the 2011 Licensing International Expo.

A little awkward the teaser poster may be, but they’ve managed to fit in all the principals. Hulk, Hawkeye, Thor, Black Widow, Captain America, and Iron Man are all in evidence. Normally I’m all for hand drawn posters, but I guess they can’t all be winners.

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Three New Captain America Character Posters Revive The Marketing Campaign

With Thor safely in theaters and making the buckets of money expected of it, Marvel Studios can now focus on their other giant release of the summer, Captain America: The First Avenger. We didn’t actually hear anything about the film in the entire month of May, as Paramount essentially pumped the brakes on the marketing campaign in order to let Thor flourish, and I guess marshall their resources for getting their next film, Super 8, out in theaters next week. But now there’s a sign of life in what’s sure to be a quickly escalating marketing campaign before the film’s July 22 release– three new character posters have popped up at the Brazilian site CineMarcado; it’s unclear if these are foreign posters or will also pop up in the United States, but since they’re pretty much just photos it doesn’t really make a difference.

Check out the three below, featuring Cap (Chris Evans), the villainous Red Skull (Hugo Weaving) and love interest Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) looking sassy/scarily at the camera. After enjoying the hell out of the 60s setting in X-Men: First Class, I’m looking forward even more to seeing the Captain America adventure unfold in the 40s– because the only movie villain more foolproof than the Soviets, of course, is the Nazis.

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Detailed sketches – a bit creepy but still interesting

The artist is quite a mystery; he describes his biography in a very odd way, but his name is for sure Vladislav Novikov-Barkovsky and he is an art-director of Red Richman Creative Studio, and that’s about it. He decided to make “anatomical sketches of a traveler” as he calls it himself, of not only of Guevara and Dracula, but also Dr. Zoidberg from the famous animated TV sitcom Futurama is also there, as well as Pinocchio, a butterfly and others. The skulls are drawn on old fashioned sepia-colored paper that gives them a pirate-ish look.

The papers are even ripped at some places, and I bet they feel like several hundred years old, and that just goes hand in hand with the skull part. Another artist have also used skulls to express his art; he made some really weird steel sculptures.