I've been cartooning since I was a little kid, but I didn't really start scanning my work until the mid-00s. In fact, I rarely scanned my art even in college. I used to fill up notebook after notebook with sketches, but it never occurred to me that I could be sharing my work online!

Anyway, in early 2005, I decided to print out a portfolio. So I went to Kinko's and scanned eight of my favorite drawings. And this Havok sketch made the cut:

Havok is one of my favorite comic book characters. I love the themes at work with him, especially how he tends to struggle with unwanted power and responsibility. I'm a bit of a Havok fanatic, having followed the character from Uncanny X-Men to X-Factor to Mutant X back to Uncanny X-Men, and, soon, back to X-Factor!

Visually, few characters can hold a candle to his original design by Neal Adams. It's gorgeous in its simplicity and complexity, especially under the pencil of Jim Lee. I also like his 90s redesigns by Joe Quesada, Jeff Matsuda, and Tom Raney.

My visual rendition is a mix between Havok's classic look and Sunspot's silhouette form. Also, I decided to try out a more tactile representation of Havok's concentric circle plasma blasts (which, if you notice here, appear to be made of the same material as the bands on his head).

I wish I was the type of artist that could eloquently capture the negative image effect of his powers and the perfect overlapping circles of his blasts. But neither of those effects are in my bag of tricks, so instead you get this version!

Regardless, to this day I have a special place in my heart for this sketch, and that's why I've dredged it up... FROM THE VAULTS!!!

Also: Tumblr

When I thought both my first and second 500th Twitter followers ignored my offer of a personalized sketch, I decided to contact a third person -- someone who was already following the Super Haters on Twitter.

See, Lisa-Marie Wilson (@upsetapplecart) had expressed regret that she was already following me because she wanted a combination animal sketch too. So who better than to make my honorary 500th follower?

She requested an echidna tortoise, which is a brilliantly crazy combination. Her request was the first time I'd ever heard of an echidna, and it took me several tries to get this sketch right.

Anyway, suffice to say that I was all sketched out after this. So when I gained my 600th follower a week ago, I offered them a non-art related prize. However, I'm sure I'll be back to sketching by the time I hit 700. Stay tuned for the results!!!

ALSO:
Echidna Tortoise on Twitter
Echidna Tortoise on Tumblr
Echidna Tortoise on deviantART
Echidna Tortoise on Flickr