The Hall Of Iron.
An Iron Man Gallery
This was supposed to be a simple picture. The original idea was for it to be a picture of the three main suits of Iron Man armour (1) of the Eighties recreated from the work of the main artists on the book for the era. The problem with this is that there were at least five main artists (2) who worked on the title in this period with only three suits to use: Who to choose?
There was a solution. They introduced the concept of specialist suits of Iron Man armour in the Eighties so I decided to use those for the other two artists and the picture is finished. However, a problem arose when I realised that there were three specialist suits (3) which were all drawn by one artist (Mr. Bob Layton). This would mean at least two suits would be drawn by one artist, of course, which would lead to an imbalance, so which one to leave out?
This led to a change of concept. Instead of being the three main suits, it would be a picture showing every suit of armour used in the Eighties by every main artist who worked on it. That would work. So the picture began and I recreated two of the suits separately and combined them into one.
The layout now would be for the classic red and gold armour to be the centre of the picture, with the Silver Centurion and New Red & Gold on the left and the Specialist suits on the right. This being decided I recreated the suits and finished the picture.
Except the picture didn't feel completed.
For one thing, there was a lot of empty space left to fill and the layout seemed off-balance. Then there was the fact that there was a seventh suit used during the period I hadn't included, the recovery armour/original suit of 1984-85. So, OK, I'll just add that suit to the bottom right of the picture and move the deep sea suit to the left. Easy enough, picture finished.
Except the picture still didn't feel completed.
So, another change. The picture would now include every suit of armour used in the first twenty-five years of the title. There were nine of these and I'd already completed seven so it wasn't that difficult.
Except the layout didn't work. So I moved the classic red & gold suit to the bottom centre and drew a classic Romita suit to replace it. That worked in terms of the layout so what about the background?
Well, the original concept of a metallic background would no longer work as I decided to show the specialist suits in their designed environment (sea & space). So, what to add to the others? A cityscape for the main suits with a night sky for the stealth seemed to work. That being done the picture was completed.
Except the picture now felt too full.
Exasperation was setting in by this time. Still, removing the night sky section would leave enough space to fix that with some vague cloud lines to suggest a planet and some movement lines added to finally complete the picture.
The picture now felt completed (4).
The italicised explanation section thing
(1) Classic Red & Gold, Silver Centurion & New Red & Gold.
(2) John Romita Jr., Luke McDonnell, Mark Bright, Bob Layton & Jackson Guice.
(3) Space, Stealth & Deep Sea Exploration.
(4) Except for colouring and effects, but that is the fun stuff.
Simpler Pictures
Iron Men of Eighty-six recreated from original art by Bright & Layton.
A Jack Kirby Iron Man & Mandarin in the style of his 1969 Marvelmania pictures/posters.
Gene Colan was the artist for Iron Man from 1966 to 1968 and developed the Mk. 4 into the classic red and gold armour which lasted with a few alterations until 1985. Kirby & Heck may have created Iron Man but Colan made him iconic.
The Iron Man figure from the Iron Man & Sub-Mariner One shot in the style of an imaginary Power of Iron Man special (The Power of Iron Man being the title used during the Tales of Suspense era and was supposedly considered as the title for his solo series before it was named The Invincible Iron Man).
George Tuska, the man who defined Iron Man in the late 60's and most of the 70's by virtue of drawing the majority of the stories (you know, the things you buy the comic for in the first place). He didn't draw many covers but his run on the title lasted just over 100 issues (with the occasional break).
Bob Layton Silver Centurion Iron Man from 1987 in the style of a Marvel Masterwork Poster (Very Gene Colan).
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