Olivier Raymond's art thread Options

[Olivier Raymond]

Hi,

I am fairly new to this site, still trying to find out how everything works...

This is the thread where I will make my artwork available both for praises and insults I have had a crazy, crazy year professionally, so there should be enough material in the bank for me to show, while being lazy on the new stuff (just kidding, I'm still drawing my thumbs off seven days a week)...

Let's start with some covers!

CANADIAN SHIELD one-shot:



THE CANDYMAN (not published):



ROND FORTIER'S TALES OF THE MACABRE #2 (NOT final lettering):



Thanks to Ron for letting me have fun with his (remarkable) self!

I have a new comic book project coming up (Movie Seals' Fleur-De-Lys one-shot), I should be able to post some color page previews soon.

In the meantime, please C&C as it comes!

Thanks for your time,

This post has been edited by Olivier Raymond: Nov 7 2011, 07:07 AM

[Ron Fortier]

WAHOOOOO!!! Welcome to Comic Related, my good pal and one of the finest artist out there, Mr. Olivier Raymond. Olivier and I hooked up many years ago via Digital Webbing's boards which then led to him doing a truly awesome 5 pg WW II horror page that is now found in "Ron Fortier's Tales of the Macabre" # 1. Then Olivier volunteered to have a go at the cover for issue # 2 seen above and totally wowed all of us.
The Twilight Star Studio edition (with the final and correct logo) should be out by Thanksgiving all over the wonderful state of Ohio, thank you G-Man, and then shortly thereafter up on (www.IndyPlanet.com) via Rob Davis' Redbud Studio edition for all of you to pick up.
Hell, this is one comic any fan would want just for the cover!!!
Again, welcome to CR, my friend.

[G-Man]

I am just as excited as Ron to see you show up on these boards! It has be a pleasure getting to know you and working with you on the Ron Fortier's Tales Of The Macabre series and can't wait to see more and more of your work.

You are an amazing artist, thanks for choosing to share some of that incredible talent with us!

(loved the cover to Canadian Shield #1 !!!!)

[Kenn Minter]

Nice stuff!!

[Olivier Raymond]

What a warm welcome!

Thanks guys! I have been having a blast contributing to your projects this year, and look forward to collaborate again.

Bill, I am glad you like the Canadian Shield cover. The comic book (I did not do the interiors) was based on the first episode of the indie web series Heroes of the North. It is a very creative b-movie take on archetypical super hero clichés, with a Canadian Politics' twist.

Speaking of this series, let's take a fe moments for a good ol' fashioned plug! This project as a whole is worth being discovered, especially among the comic book crowd.

Basically, you have your WWII Ally hero, with a shield, created in laboratory, here called The Canadian Shield. He was lost in action while fighting Nazis and inspired all the Canadian heroes which followed.

Fast Forward sixty-odd years in the future, where a top-secret government agency has a whole team of such 'agents' at Ottawa's disposal. They are:

The Canadian: Grand-son of the original Canadian Shield, this one's bigger, better and definately meaner. He is the team leader.
The Black Terror: Your gun-toting, drug-crazed serial killer with a skull emblem, used by the agency under close oversight.
8-Ball: the disillusioned super mercenary of legend, who wouldn't care otherwise but feels compeled to do the right thing.
Nordik: A girl adopted and raised by the Inuit north of Fermont, impervious to cold and equiped with freezing rays.
Fleur-de-Lys: The super hero of Quebec provincial allegiance. She fights a new cell of the FLQ, which was a real 1970's terrorist organization (which really was a sort of low-carb, uneffective excuse for a North-American I.R.A.), who wanted to achieve Québec independance by planting bombs in the mail... The leader of this new FLQ is her own brother, Felix.

The series is action-packed and surprisingly slick visually (thanks in part to the 'softcore industry' role-casting), but it's the infinite amount of cultural allusions which makes it brilliant. Fleur-de-Lys and her brothers are descendants of Madeleine de Verchères, founding mother of Montreal, and they all have textbook Québec cultural icons' first names. The New FLQ thugs dress in lumberjack clothes and blow themselves up along with the mail boxes, symbols of the federal 'oppression'... There is also this running gag, of Fleur-de-Lys always wanting the Canadian to stay 'out of her business' while she really seems to have a thing for him, which is a huge poke at the Québec-Canada relationship... And even if you don't get all the little references, it's still a fun ride. So, that was my plug, now go watch it ...

As it is a transmedia venture, the whole story branches into comics, prose books, toys and more. I am presently finishing the colors for the Fleur-De-Lys Origin comic book, on which I do the full interiors down to the lettering, while the cover art is by Donald Caron. This story will be reprinted in a diamond-distributed paperback by Ardden in early 2012. Here is the first (wordless) page as a teaser :



The twelve page story should be completed in a week or so. Can't wait to show more!



This post has been edited by Olivier Raymond: Nov 10 2011, 02:12 AM

[Olivier Raymond]

I finally delivered the final pages for the Fleur-de-Lys comic book. I had Donald Caron and Al Rio on the covers, so I gave it the extra work (the kind which eats away the sleeping hours)!

Here is a dump of artwork from 2011. There is still a lot more, but I will start with this for now ...

Pages from Bombsight! (from Ron Fortier's Tales of the Macabre #1):





Pages from Blooming (from Fleur-de-Lys:Origins):









Some Mafia Wars Chicago (Facebook game) concept art and illustrations :







And these player portraits, from Last Dragon Standing! (our Indie Game for XBox 360):



Thanks for watching!

Olivier

[Ron Fortier]

I will always be a huge fan of your work, Olivier. And I can't wait to work with you on a new strip. Got the old wheels spinning in my head, my friend. Thanks posting all this super fine art.

[Bill Nichols]

How in the world did I miss this thread??? Awesome to see you here, Olivier! Any friend of Ron's, well, has got to be something else! And I love this! Welcome to CR

[Olivier Raymond]

Thanks guys!

Indeed, Ron and I go back a few years, back when I was in college in Quebec city, and still far from my profession... He let me try my skills on Captain Hazzard and patiently pointed out what needed to improve if I wanted to make it as an artist. I still have issues with chins from time to time, but overall, his first, detailed critique turned to gold for me. Some day I will scan those horrible first pages, just to show how much skills can improve, given the right guidelines and efforts...

By the way, Bill, I went to see your inking ont Deviant Art and it rocks. Inking is a beast to me, I only manage to do it by using very small micron pens and letting my youth slip away...

Anyone with your skill has my respect!



Thanks again for watching!

Olivier

[Bill Nichols]

Cool, a mutual admiration! Which balances nicely since I'm not much of a penciler.