Shalvey Sketches
In today's interview with Robot 6, Declan Shalvey shared some rough sketches of his cover for Venom 37:
Your main work for the past couple months has been drawing Venom for Marvel. Venom’s a very cartoonish character visually, but adding the military approach Tony Moore did gives it a little more substance. Visually, art-wise, what’s it like drawing a character that you can do more with than a standard human body?
Venom has been a great book to work on, but the character specifically has been a real pleasure to draw. I think Tony designed an excellent costume that’s a great mix of military gear, organic elements and that classic Venom still incorporated. I had a hard time getting my head around how to draw him at first, but then everything clicked together and now drawing him is like second nature. I think what I've done with him is stray a little from what Tony did, especially in the eyes. The goggle-eyes weren't working for me, so I wanted to make the eyes creepier, and because the costume itself is a living thing, I could incorporate small changes quite organically. The suit allowed me to be a lot more expressive with how I drew him. The panels where Flash loses control were great to draw because I could actually change his physical appearance to portray his emotions, which is a great tool to have and something you couldn't do with another masked character like Spider-Man for example. Balancing that grounded military look with the more cartoonish symbiotic elements was really interesting and satisfying.