I was rummaging through Acme Comic's 50 cent bin again when I came across two issues of The West Coast Avengers. On the cover was a wiley new cat woman for me to draw named Tigra. The storylines of the issues were surprisingly intriguing. The story centered around Hank Pym, a washed up former super hero that now calls the shots for a team of super heroes, the West Coast division of the Avengers. Hank Pym had many super hero identities in the past: Ant Man, Giant Man, Goliath, and The Yellowjacket. He never was cut out to be a super hero, and the pressure got to him. He eventually cracked and got thrown in jail for zapping a suspected villianess before it was proven that she was evil. His super hero wife divorced him, and his life lay tattered in pieces. In the issues I have a super villain Pym's team captured even mocked him for his failure as a hero. Once Pym served his time and got out of jail, Pym hooked up with woman named Greer...
This is where Tigra comes in. Greer combined her soul with that of a cat to become Tigra, a cat woman warrior. At first Tigra had two personalities- Greer's and a more savage cat side, but soon she integrated her personalities into one. Her new "Tigra" personality no longer loved Pym, so she dumped him. The love of Tigra was all that kept Pym going. Without it he was drawn over the edge. He wrote good-bye notes to all of his friends, talked to his ex-wife one last time, and then put a 357 magnum to his temple. All of this in a 1986 mainstream comic!!!
Tigra is not only a bitch in the comic book, but she was also a bitch to draw! She's in the 1980's mainstream comic style like Felicity. This drawing style gives me a very hard time. The only reason why I draw 80's comic cat women at all is because they are so challenging for me. Even worse, I had to take the time to ink all her body stripes which took for ever. I have to give the people at Marvel credit- just one drawing of Tigra took me about 6 or 7 hours yet they fill up entire comic books with her each month! I used a .05mm mechanical pencil with both 2HB and 5H leads on 80lb. Strathmore paper. I darkened my pencil work with Paint Shop Pro 3. I used a Pigma Micron 08 pen to ink the stripes. I colored the results with colored pencils, and did additional computer effects with Paint Shop Pro 7.
This drawing has the honor of being the last picture created during my Freshman year at college.
All text and original multimedia is © 2001 Daniel Keller. All other information is copyrighted by their respective owners.