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Donny B's Minimate Artwork


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I love drawing. 

Sadly, the older I get, the harder it becomes to find time to just sit down and create art. Still, within the last few years, I've been slowly building up a body of work specifically focusing on Minimates, and I've decided to finally get them collected together in a thread here on the Multiverse.

Click on the thumbnails to view larger scans of each drawing.



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YURIKO ARAN

I'll start with my very first Minimate drawing, Yuriko Aran: An amalgamated design that I came up with for the MMMV Alternate Universe Custom Contest. The general idea here was to blend Samus Aran (from the Metroid game series) with Lady Deathstrike (from Marvel Comics). The color scheme is a little bland, but that was on purpose, as I felt that it best represented the design elements of both respective characters.

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Size: 11" x 14"
Medium: Colored Pencils & Micron Pen
Finish Date: March 10, 2011

 

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CHOR OF THE HYLIDS

Next up is Chor of the Hylids; Another original design I came up with, this time for the Create Your Own Battle Beast Contest. I think this design would have blended in decently with the unreleased second wave of Battle Beast Minimates. But regardless, I really enjoyed the conceptualizing process - especially when figuring out how the legs would work.

36560252043_63a6aca0c3_o.jpg

Size: 11" x 14"
Medium: Colored Pencils & Micron Pen
Finish Date: May 29, 2012

 

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VORIN

This drawing of Vorin was done before the actual Battle Beast Minimates were even released, so I based it on a photo. This is a slight variation of my entry for the Trick or Treat Contest.
I drew this specifically for the contest, but I knew that I wasn't going to want this drawing to have a Halloween theme once the season had passed. So I drew what you see below, scanned it, and then scanned it again with separate drawings for the speech bubble and the candy basket taped in place.

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Size: 8" x 10"
Medium: Micron Pen
Finish Date: October 2, 2012

 

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SCALPUS / STRICTUS

Continuing with my Micron Pen style of Battle Beast drawings, here is Scalpus (or Strictus, if you have the LCS version). This one is special because it's the first Minimate drawing I did just for myself (as opposed to the others, which were all done for contests). I think that there is a noticeable difference in the quality of this drawing, since I had no time constraint and was able to work on it at my leisure. If 'art is never finished, only abandoned', then this one was abandoned after I was content with its progress - not when a deadline told me it was time to stop.
Again, I worked on this one before the line was released, so his pose is taken straight from an official promo image.

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Size: 8" x 10"
Medium: Micron Pen
Finish Date: November 15, 2012

 

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10 YEARS OF MARVEL MINIMATES

Now we're onto my first big Minimate art project. When the 10th anniversary of Marvel Minimates rolled around, I knew I needed to do something special. And so did the Minimate Multiverse. My entry for the contest was one of the more time consuming drawings I've ever done, eating up all of my free time for more than a week straight. My idea was to convey the first decade of Marvel Minimate history in one image, and I felt that contrasting the classic releases of certain characters with their newly bulked up counterparts would make for a great visual representation of how the line has progressed in that time.

This entry is comprised of 10 individual pencil studies, which I then scanned and colored via Photoshop. Here are links to each separate drawing, with side-by-side comparisons of the Photoshop coloring:

Classic Juggernaut - Bulked up Juggernaut
Classic Venom - Bulked up Venom
Classic Hulk - Bulked up Hulk
Classic Rhino - Bulked up Rhino
Classic Thing - Bulked up Thing

The final version was a beast to put together, and the deadline caught up with me sooner than I would have liked. I've never been content with the background and the font, and with more time, I likely would have designed the rocky ground much differently.

37794239046_a0b11470e7.jpg

Medium: Pencil & Photoshop
Finish Date: May 31, 2013
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After taking a breather and thinking through how I would have done it differently, I decided to make a new project using those same drawings. This time, I turned them into individual character profiles, so each character could shine on his own:

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FANTASTIC FOUR (MARVEL NOW!)

A few months later, minijeff announced that he was putting together a museum display celebrating Marvel Minimates' 10th Anniversary. He was looking for artists to contribute to a series of comic book covers, which I could not pass up. Along with lending him the original pencil drawings from my previous project, I began working on this cover featuring the Fantastic Four in their Marvel Now! costumes.

37230135011_585af8b15a_o.jpg

Size: 12" x 10"
Medium: Pencil & Micron Pen
Finish Date: September 13, 2013

 

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ANNIHILUS

As an added bonus, I included a Micron Pen drawing of Annihilus on the back cover.

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Size: 6" x 6"
Medium: Micron Pen
Finish Date: September 14, 2013

 

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STARMAN

Next up is my first commissioned piece of Minimate artwork - a cover recreation of Starman #30.
The original cover was done using heavy line art, which I felt was a nice compliment to my Micron Pen style. I then added color via Photoshop, and incorporated all of the fonts and other elements from a scan of the original cover.

37230127481_3ce59262d2_o.jpg

Size: 7" x 10"
Medium: Micron Pen & Photoshop
Finish Date: October 31, 2013

 

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WOLVERINE VS BROOD

For my first time participating as a Birthday Elephant here on the Multiverse, I gave my recipient a drawing of wave 47 Wolverine fighting a Brood. Although the gift itself is black & white, the final version is colored in Photoshop, which I think creates a very striking end result.

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Size: 8" x 10"
Medium: Micron Pen & Photoshop
Finish Date: December 13, 2013

 

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BATMAN

As I was flying home from visiting my family for Christmas, I felt like doodling to pass the time on the plane. The end result of this one was pretty simplistic, but I love the way it popped after I added colors.

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Size: 6" x 6"
Medium: Micron Pen & Photoshop
Finish Date: January 2, 2014

 

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BATMAN (BLACK & WHITE)

My second Birthday Elephant gift is an homage to Mattalica's awesome custom based on this image. Sadly, the actual drawing came out a little rough so I tweaked it a bit in Photoshop to give the blacks a cleaner look.

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Size: 4" x 6"
Medium: Micron Pen & Photoshop
Finish Date: January 28, 2014

 

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HULK SMASH

I wish I had discovered Copic Markers decades ago. This commissioned drawing was my first venture into that medium, and I instantly fell in love. Drawing with Copics is as close to painting as you can get with markers.
I spent far more time on this drawing than I usually do with an average one-page project, but then, I suppose I did bite off quite a bit to chew. Between the fact that I was experimenting with a new medium, and the amount of detailing needed to give the rocks the right look, I'm kinda surprised that I finished this in under 20 hours.

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Size: 8" x 10"
Medium: Copic Markers & Micron Pen
Finish Date: December 10, 2014

 

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MICHELANGELO

Here's a simple but fun one - my first ever TMNT Minimate drawing (I'd love to do many many more), done for the Show Some Green, Win Some Green Contest.

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Size: 5" x 7"
Medium: Copic Markers & Micron Pen
Finish Date: March 17, 2015

 

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CAPTAIN CANUCK

It's always a lot of fun to design a new Minimate. This one is an adaptation of Captain Canuck, but since no Minimate exists of that character, I had to start from scratch with what I thought his 'mate might look like. I seriously think an official Captain Canuck Minimate would be in my top 10 Minimates of all time. The costume just seems to lend itself to the Minimate aesthetic so perfectly.

I took a more simplistic approach with this drawing than what I had been doing with previous Copic & Micron drawings. I didn't want any of the design elements to get lost or covered by a large amount of detail, so I kept the hard black lines to a minimum. Micron Pen is one of my favorite mediums, but the heavy linework often buries the finer details of an image in favor of creating heavy textures and shadows.
So for this drawing, I let the colors do all the work of creating depth and texture. I think it worked nicely.

37200817112_a3141c1010_o.jpg

Size: 7" x 10"
Medium: Copic Markers & Micron Pen
Finish Date: April 15, 2015

 

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EXTREMIS ARMOR IRON MAN

Sadly, life distracted me from doing much drawing for more than a year. When I jumped back into it, one of my first projects was a Copic rendition of the Extremis Armor Iron Man. Like the Captain Canuck drawing before it, I decided to let the colors do most of the work and kept the Micron lines to a minimum.

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Size: 8" x 10"
Medium: Copic Markers & Micron Pen
Finish Date: October 13, 2016

 

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MAGNETO

I had been doing a lot of color experimentation with Copic Markers. For this one, though, I wanted to see how a Copic drawing would look if I went for a grey scale approach. This will be the first in a series that I'll slowly add to over time...

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Size: 12" x 12"
Medium: Copic Markers
Finish Date: November 1, 2016

 

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PREDATOR

The next installment in my 'Black and White Minimate Copic Drawings' series. I've got one or two more on my list before I go back to color projects.

36560184353_2bfef9c962_o.jpg

Size: 12" x 12"
Medium: Copic Markers
Finish Date: August 18, 2017

 

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Jack Skellington

'Black and White Minimate Copic Drawing' #3. Jack Skellington discovering snow for the first time.

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Size: 12" x 12"
Medium: Copic Markers
Finish Date: October 13, 2017

 

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I occasionally post these drawings (and many of my photos and edits) on my Instagram (DON.E.B), and much of my non-Minimate artwork can be found on my deviantart page. Also, my Minimate artwork is featured in the Minimate Arts deviantart group, which is open to the public - so if YOU have any Minimate art, we'd love for you to submit it to the group!

As I work on new projects, I will keep this post updated. Thanks for looking!

Edited by Donny B
New drawing added
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