Little 90s X-Men

I was able to turn these little guys around pretty quickly. I love how they came out. You can definitely expect to see more members of the team in this style.

Inktober 2015 - Little 90s X-Men part 2

I've still been working through the X-Team from the 90s cartoon, which has been super fun because it is probably my favorite team. Here are a few of the more responsible members.

Draw Every Day 201-210

More Marvel characters this time. I was thinking about X-Men a lot after seeing the new Wolverine movie. I also wanted to do a few heroes I haven't tried in a while and I spent a little more time working on one of my original characters.

Update: Cyclops

When I made my poster of Cyclops, I originally went with his modern Astonishing costume, but I was never quite satisfied with the way it looked. Even though he has spent most of his career wearing a hood, my natural instict with Cyke is to have his hair showing like the Jim Lee costume I grew up with. I thought about going with a 90s style costume for him, but I felt obligated to use his modern costume. Well, after updating Beast with a more classic costume and realizing that Cyclops isn't even wearing his Astonishing costume anymore, I went back to him and gave him the look I wanted for him. I did keep a few more modern things - he isn't wearing any yellow underwear - but I prefer the hair over the hood and the blue over the black. Now that I made these updates, I am finally happy with him.

Draw Every Day 161-170

I wrapped up my Power Rangers sketches with both of Tommy's first costumes and Alpha 5. Then I tried my take on a few of the main Venture Bros characters and got back in to Marvel's mutants. Follow on Twitter and Instagram for daily updates @natexopher

Draw Every Day 41-50

This update is from mid February, so it features a few of my favorite couples to celebrate Valentine's Day. It also features some characters from The Big Lebowski and the start of my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cover recreation. February was an interesting month. Check my daily updates on Twitter and Instagram @natexopher

Cyclops

TRADING CARDS - Cyclops

Anyone remember these old X-Men trading cards from the 90s? I don't think I had any growing up but a few years ago one of my buddies gave me all of his. I was looking at them recently and thought it would be fun to redraw a few of them, so starting with #1 is Cyclops.

"No one embodies the beliefs and dreams of Professor X better than Cyclops, his most beloved student. A founding X-Man, he's grown from a troubled youth into a confident leader of the Blue team!"

Oh the Blue Team... stacked so much better than the Gold Team. Be sure to check back for more trading card re-draws.

x-men group poster

so a while back (longer back than i'd like to admit) i drew up all of those individual x-men images hoping to one day compile them in to a group image. for some reason, i could never get it to look quite right. every once in a while, i'd reposition, resize and reconfigure, but it didn't work. so i finally decided to make the changes i needed to make, redrawing arms, changing poses, to make it actually work in a group image. while i was at it, i went ahead and made their costumes a little more mainstream and current... still with a little nate x twist here and there.

hope you all like it!

- nate  x

contest entry: wolverine and the x-men comic cover

a little something for a contest on facebook. there are rumors that the short lived cartoon series might continue as a comic, so the contest is to draw a comic cover based on the previously mentioned plans for season two ... which look a lot like age of apocalypse.

i tried to incorporate a lot of the show's character design in to this image because that's probably what the comic version of a cartoon show would do.

- nate  x

X-MEN: cyclops, phoenix, beast, angel, iceman

As promised here are the first five redesigned by yours truly. With all of these characters, I tried to create new costumes by looking back at what the characters have worn and taking key elements or colors and combining those with my side-panel team costume idea.

Cyclops got a little more detail this time. Quite a bit more, actually. I like his gold trim on his current (Astonishing) costume but I've always liked his stupid belts from his 90s costume. I guess it's a good time to mention that none of the X-Men really need belts. However, I like the idea that their red X circles are communicators and locators, so I went with belts for everyone.Phoenix looks pretty close to how she did in my last drawing. I gave her more of her Phoenix sash/belt and also whited out her eyes. I figure she'd kind of be like Storm how she has eye color when she's normal but they go white when she's powering up.

Beast also got some more detail. He's a big guy and tends to get stuck wearing the big X to identify their team. It happened with their black leather uniforms and with his Astonishing uniform.Angel's costume doesn't typically vary too much. It's been red and it's been blue. For a while he had a really different costume, but he seems to be back in blue. I took away the headpiece so his longer hair could flow. I like the idea of him looking really angelic, kind of like Ultimate X-men, but hopefully not as bad, so here he gets chiseled features and pretty hair.
Iceman should be covered in ice/made of ice, but I don't think he should lose his costume's visibility. I also don't think he should have giant boots. Sure, that's my costume of choice for him when I'm playing Marvel Legends, but not when I'm drawing him.

My next installment of X-Men will be their next installment of classmates... minus a few losers (I'm lookin' at you, Banshee and Thunderbird).

my x-mens

i've often thought about how much i would like to work on x-men. i don't know why, but it's always been my favorite marvel franchise. if i was in charge of them, these are the core members i would use and these are the costumes i would go with.

cyclops- he's the best leader. and he can be a cool character if you let him. he has to keep himself totally under control because he's scared of how powerful he is when he's not in control. he usually keeps his costumes pretty basic, so i tried to do that. i also prefer him to have no hood on his costume.

phoenix- my favorite of the x-girls. she was one of the originals, and the original love interest for cyclops. plus she has good powers and the potential for the dark phoenix is interesting. i wanted to incorporate her green but still keep her costume in line with the others.

beast- he's always been my favorite. i don't know why. probably because my favorite color is blue and that's all it used to take as a little kid. i also like that he can't hide his mutation, plus the whole genius in beast's body is cool. he's never really had a decent costume, though. i am totally against cat-face beast. i think that was a bad choice. i much prefer ape-style beast and tried to emphasize the ape in him, giving him massive forearms and shoulders. i also gave him more of a costume than just pants or underwear. he's tricky though, because he has to keep enough exposed so he doesn't lose his flexibility. i like what i came up with... even if you just see it from the back here.

wolverine- it seems no x-team is complete without wolvie these days. i do like him though. i like how he balances out cyclops. while cyke is always in control and wishes he didn't have to be, wolverine is a wildman wishing he could be more civil. plus, wolverine is like, the ultimate tough guy and i love that about him. he's a runt, so he bulked up as much as he could. he's always the first to rush in to a fight even though he's never the most powerful. he's a cool character and i can see why he's become so popular. i based this costume on his astonishing one. i think it's my favorite for him because it still gives us the stupid mask, stripes and yellow that we love, but also makes it more reasonable. i thought the paneling on the sides also fit well with how i wanted to make their costumes. i gave him a belt with the 'x' on it rather than the little circle because he's more of an add on x-man than an original.

so i wrote a lot more than i planned on... oh well

- nate x