TRDL - Superboy

TRDL 2011 Series, No. 66 – Superboy

This piece was done for the No Spandex jam on the TRDL R3 Forum and TRDL-R3-WeeklyJam group on dA.

I’ve never drawn Superboy. I’ve never READ Superboy, and I’ll let my Marvel-focused upbringing excuse how I never understood how they managed to fold and re-fold all these golden age and silver age versions of these characters into so many iterations of multiverse/monoverse retcon over at DC (but can accept all the same sort of business at Marvel, ha)… anyway, many looks for this kid turn me off, but what got me thinking of the character, enough so to draw him for the No Spandex jam was the plethora of slash and ship of Superboy I see among friends on Tumblr. He’s pretty popular among arty girls and guys alike as a modest, hunky but sensitive teen. From there, I visualized him at that 17-18 range age, rapidly gaining that height and mass we expect from Superman. I fitted him out in Docs and jeans and such based somewhat on how I dress, gave him a bit of a pomp, basically seeing him as a rockabilly/British Invasion fan. You’ll note his back is to you: partly for the composition, and partly so I didn’t have to deal with a Superman logo on the tee shirt. One draft of this pic assumed a frontal view, and I was going to fade out the S-logo to charcoal/black… but I just couldn’t see a teenage alt-universe pre-Superman that both wants to wear normal clothes and yet would throw that huge shield out there. Anyway, there you go.

Process notes here:
[link]