Fiend's Backbone Finshing Move -- Warm Up Sketch

So, I had a great surprise this morning. I downloaded the podcasts I listen to every Tuesday and started my warm up sketch. As I'm listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Art & Story Alive, host Jerzy Drozd brings up the question I had sent as a discussion topic. Not only that, he also mentioned my web comic :D

That was pretty awesome.

My question to them was about lettering speech patterns & accents and whether it's better for the artist to do it or to let the readers create them in their heads as they read.

Jerzy, Co-host Krishna Sadasivam, Ryan Dow, and Javier Hernandez, had a really great discussion and brought up some very interesting opinions and advice. I really appreciate it, thanks guys. You should check out their stuff -- it's really great ( you can just click on their names)

Art & Story Alive is one of the podcasts that has helped me keep my mind creative while I was working a non-creative job. They helped me with artistic inspiration and motivation, when I was considering throwing in the towel.

I've mentioned these podcasts before, but if you haven't checked 'em out yet, here are the links: Art & Story, ChrisOatley.com, Big Illustration Party Time. Check them out, I promise you will be happy you did.

Today's warm up sketch is of Grim doing his finishing move the "FIEND'S BACKBONE"

which was originally called the Devil's Backbone.

Why change the word Devil to Fiend? Well, I didn't want to freak out kids and parents. Well more so not to freak out the parents. The reason I chose the word "Fiend" is pretty simple. The Japanese card game/anime Yugioh changed the names of their demon cards into fiend cards, here in the U.S. to be more kid friendly. That's the first thing that popped into my head when I was thinking of changing the name. It works : )

I was also asked recently by a friend of mine why all the characters finishing moves were real moves and not crazy Anime moves? Good question.

Well first of all, I didn't want to be compared to the Anime Kinnikuman (or Ultimate Muscle, here in the U.S.) I really like that anime but that's not the direction I wanted to go. All of my monsters do have superhuman strength but I wanted to focus on just how brutal and awesome real wrestling moves would be with that kind of strength.

Second....hmmm, I guess there is no second. The main point is that I just wanted to do something different. There will be crazier moves that we will see in the comic but I have a STRONG rule of not doing any crazy Kinnikuman/DBZ moves. That and changing moves that involve a crotch in the face -- awkward to draw, awkward to read.

Later!