the heaven sent™ girls: commissioned june 2003
coloring status: completed

at the time i was only going to buy one Al Rio original. but when i took hold of my first commission, i knew i was in trouble. it was gorgeous. the girls were bad-ass (especially madison).

ironically, and quite unfairly to Al, it took almost 8 months for me to get around to finishing the colors for it, not because i didn't want to, it's just i was trying to work on a lot of my own stuff at the time...

anyway... i am very happy with how the girls turned out; less so with how i colored the background... but hey -- it's the first one, right? there's bound to be room for improvement.

and it was, of course, around the time the colors for this piece were completed that i failed to resist temptation and went right ahead and commissioned Al to draw madison :-)

madison shaw: commissioned february 2004
coloring status: completed

of course, madison's my favorite shaw girl, you all know that. so it was only natural that the first single-character commission i ordered was a madison piece.

the great thing about Al is that, via Terry Maltos (his American representative), he takes visual and written direction really well. so to describe the character of madison shaw to him was as simple as sending him some of the pictures i'd drawn for reference. along with the simple brief that "madison wears the smallest leather bikini in the world and carries two 9mm Berettas", the rest of this image was all Al's imagination.

when i got the lineart in the post, i was in love. i had to color her pretty much straight away, and she was completed early may. but if you look closely at the lineart in the gallery you will find a difference between it and the final colored piece. there is a large block of black missing from the colored version. this is, of course, a luxury of doing this stuff digitally. in black and white that black block in the background really helps to frame madison... but i just felt like in the colored version it was a minor distraction... so i painted it out of the linework. it's six of one, half the other, really -- it was certinaly an "artistic" choice, and not in any way a criticism of Al's original work.

eden shaw: commissioned april 2004
coloring status: completed

of course i could not fairly have only a madison shaw pin-up in my Al Rio collection. i would need the "matching set"... wouldn't i?

soon after receiving the madison lineart in the post, i commissioned an eden piece. holy cow was i ever stunned by the final work! there was just soooo much detail in the image, and what's more eden looked fabulous, that i wasn't sure i was going to be able to to the piece justice in color.

as it turned out, i did just about all of the background work in photoshop -- the first time a really have ever tried my hand at painting in that program. a real challenge in this image was creating the sense of depth in the jungle behind eden -- who i have to say was just an absolute joy to color! i mean, seriously... dayum, she's gorgeous!

:-)

pure self-induglence: commissioned april 2004
coloring status: in progress

my birthday's in april, for those of you who care. this was like a little "gift" to myself. yes, that is me in the middle of a shaw sister sandwich! ahh, if only! ;-)

i'd recently purchased the "Absolute Dangergirl" oversized boxed comic collection, and in the amongst the gallery pages of covers was one featuring the character of Johnny Barracuda sitting in a chair and covered in the Dangergirls, Abbey, Sydney and Natalia. anyway -- he looked really happy, and i sent that image to Al (along with a few choice photographs of yours truly for reference) ro serve as inspiration for this commission. he translated it really well -- as usual! and what's more, that is a really good likeness of me!

i know it's highly indulgent, but come one now... is this not every man's fantasy...? comfy chair... bikini-clad bombshells on each knee... ;-)

ready for action: commissioned october 2004
coloring status: in progress

by now i figured Al had something of a knack for my characters -- i most certainly had a love of his work on them -- and so it was time to see them together again... but this time in something more indicitive of the heaven sent™/retribution™ cross-over ideas i've had and have featured in my own covers in the gallery.

this i commissioned in pencil only. i wanted to try my hand at inking something of someone else's in Illustrator, and i figured what better artist's stuff to work on than Al's -- and what's more, i get a sexy new piece to add to my collection!

i got pretty specific with what i wanted to see with this piece, and even asked if Al would send a preview for kind of "approval" before shipping the final art. i want to say i was nervous about the small changes i ultimately requested, because you're never quite sure when you might be crossing a line and asking too much of a very talented and busy person... but Al was perfectly accomodating and ultimately gave me everything i asked for...

sadly, though, the original piece got "lost" in the mail between the US and my base in New Zealand. i am really bummed about that -- but fortunately Terray had a high-resolution scan he'd done before it was hipped, and i got that instead. still... it's not the same as holding the original in your hands... :-(

madison nude: commissioned november 2004
coloring status: completed

as time as gone on, the work on the looks can kill™ site has definitely gotten hotter. i've opened up the members-only section of the gallery, where a number nude pieces of the shaw sisters reside for their growing fan base.

and i'd spent a lot of time working on images of madison in kind of a "sexy stripper" mode. frankly, she was getting quite... naughty ;-)

so i figured, what the hell... the time was right. i had a little US funds hovering around i might as well get rid of, so i commissioned two more pieces from Al -- only this time i wanted some nudes.

as usual, i sent Al a bunch of recent madison pictures i'd done for inspiration, and the brief that she should be nude and exotic dancing.

well, this is about as nude as madison has ever been, and Al has captured her beautifully once again! her body is pretty-much perfect!

eden nude: commissioned november 2004
coloring status: not started

an eden nude was commissioned at the same time as the madison piece. Al was briefed in the same way -- a couple of recent eden pictures i'd done, and the simple brief of "nude jungle goddess".

frankly, i think Al really enjoys drawing these kinds of environments. notwithstanding the beautiful figure of eden in the foreground, buit there is again just soooo much detail in this image that i really worry about how i'm going to do it justice in color.

i imagine it will look very similar in tone to the first eden commission... but boy! this is gonna take some time to finish!

without a doubt, Al Rio is one of the premier artists of his time. his work is breathtaking, in all forms. and his US representative, Terry Maltos, is a pleasure to deal with. if you've ever considered commissioning art, i can highly recommend you get yourself some Al Rio. these images will reside forever on my walls, in pride of place, because they are simply stunning and a treasure to own.

for pricing and information about Al Rio commissions, visit www.alrioart.com