I've been wanting Mike to do a Lord of the Rings project for me for a couple of years, but the semantics (mainly getting enough blanks) took me a while to get in order. My favorite Lord of the Rings movie is "Fellowship of the Ring", with one of my favorite scenes being when Lord Elrond has the meeting to select the Fellowship. That was my project- all 9 members of the Fellowship plus Elrond.

    I love everything about that scene- the participants, the mission, Gimli's failed attempt to destroy the One Ring, the argument that ensues, Frodo's inner turmoil, Frodo volunteering, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Legolas volunteering to go, Gimli making sure to volunteer after "the elf" does, Boromir doing his duty for Gondor (with maybe a hidden agenda?), Sam, Merry, and Pippin secretly hiding then insisting on going, and finally the declaration by Elrond that this would be the "Fellowship of the Ring" (hey, that would be a great name for a book or movie!). 

    So the first sketch in this project is Elrond Lord of Rivendell, who is masterfully played by Hugo Weaving. I hope you like the sketch as much as I do. More to come from this project at a later date. Until then, thanks for reading!

#lordoftherings #michaelduron #locoduck #locoduckduron #artistsketchcard #artistsketch #sketch #fellowshipofthering #thetwotowers #returnoftheking #elrond #lordelrond #rivendell #hugoweaving #frodobaggins #samwisegamgee #bilbobaggins #aragorn #gandalf #legolas #gimli #boromir #merry #pippin @michaelduron @locoduckduron @michaelduronportfolio 

   The first Return cards I ever bought from Mike were from 2008 Star Wars Clone Wars. One was R2D2/C-3PO, and the other was Darth Sidious/Count Dooku/Ventress. George Lucas was great at making the bad guys cool in Star Wars. A little bit scary with a big helping of badass. Mike does the same with his art, and sometimes even adds some humor. So when I had the chance to pick up this Revenge of the Sith Widevision sketch of Darth Vader and Darth Sidious, I jumped at it. 

   The first thing that struck me about the card was how tall and imposing Mike made Vader compared to Sidious. I think he did this on purpose to show Vader's strength, and maybe, just maybe as a purposeful slight to Sidious. Plus the fact that this sketch is on Widevision stock lends to the imposing figure of Vader. Then of course I noticed the look on Sidious' face, and his hands. He has the "evil scientist" look on his face- a sense of glee that his evil plan is working lol. The beady eyes and evil grin are fantastic! The Sith Lord and his Sith Apprentice. I think it's an awesome card.
Well, that's all for today. Thanks for reading. Feel free to sign up to be a follower and/or email notifications for new posts!
#starwars #michaelduron #locoduc#locoduckduron #michaelduronportfolio #artistsketchcard #artistsketch #sketch #darthvader #vader #lordvader #darthsidious #sidious #emperorpalpatine #palpatine #sith #sithlord #sithapprentice #revengeofthesith #order66 #anewhope #empirestrikesback #returnofthejedi #thephantommenace #attackoftheclones  #theforceawakens #thelastjedi #riseofskywalker @michaelduron @locoduckduron @michaelduronportfolio 

   If you look at the top of today's sketch card you'll see that it says "RAIDERS IN 5 CARDS- PART 2". I don't know this for a fact, but I'm guessing Mike did these 5 card tributes for each of the first three Indiana Jones movies (since "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" had yet to be released when this set came out). I've seen other cards in these summary series by Mike, and in fact I have another card from "Temple of Doom" coming in the mail (future post for sure). This one depicts Indy and Marion right after her bar in Nepal burns down. She's holding the "Headpiece to the Staff of Ra", a medallion that was the key to finding the Ark of the Covenant!

   Marion: "Until I get my $5,000 back, you're gonna get more than you bargained for.. I'm your g@ddam partner!" With their history, I don't think Indy minded very much.
   So how do you summarize a movie in five sketch cards? Mike did it. And I'd love to know what the other 4 cards were in this 5 card series. I'll try to find out. 
   Thanks for stopping by and reading. Sign up to follow by email (you'll get a notification whenever a new post is published) and if you like what you've been reading become a follower! Thanks for your support!
#indianajones #michaelduron #locoduck #locoduckduron #artistsketchcard #artistsketch #sketch #raidersofthelostark #indianajonesandthetempleofdoom #indianajonesandthelastcrusade #indianajonesandthekingdomofthecrystalskull #longhashtags #harrisonford #indy #drjones #marionravenwood #marion #headpiecestothestaffofra #baddates #arkofthecovenant @michaelduron @locoduckduron @michaelduronportfolio 

   I don't get the chance very often to pick up one of Mike's Return cards from fellow collectors, so when I got the message that an Anakin Skywalker collector was liquidating some of her collection and, because I had sold her a bunch of Anakin sketches in the past, she was giving me one of the first shots at her sale, I jumped at the opportunity. Looked thru her pages of cards.. saw this full color beauty of Anakin.. Vader's eyes in the background.. holding a lightsaber.. fist clenched. Couldn't believe my luck!! I had to have it!

   Mike always seems to do an exceptional job of capturing the moment or finding the look that conveys exactly what's going on with the character. Anakin Skywalker, not yet Vader, but you can see it in his eyes. The anger on his face. The clenched fist. The Dark Side was coursing thru his body. Others may disagree, but I thought Hayden Christensen did a great job in Revenge of the Sith of conveying the transformation from Anakin the Jedi, to Anakin the apprentice of Darth Sidious. So much conflict in the character- how could he save the woman he loved? He had already failed once with his mother. Could he find a way? Seduced by Sidious and convinced that he could learn a fabled power, he was consumed by his desire to keep Padme safe. So very ironic that in the end his betrayal broke her heart and led to her eventual death. 

   Well, that's all for today. Feel free to sign up for email notifications of new posts and become a follower. Thanks for stopping by and reading!

#starwars #michaelduron #locoduck #locoduckduron #michaelduronportfolio #artistsketchcard #artistsketch #sketch #artistreturn #anakin #anakinskywalker #darthvader #vader #lordvader #sithapprentice #sithlord #revengeofthesith #thephantommenace #attackoftheclones #anewhope #empirestrikesback #returnofthejedi #theforceawakens #thelastjedi #riseofskywalker @michaelduron @locoduckduron @michaelduronportfolio 

   I will always have an affinity for Mike's Lord of the Rings sketch cards. The very first sketch card I ever bought was a Gandalf sketch by Mike from Masterpieces II. That product is 13 years old now, and Mike's sketches rarely show up on Ebay. I was lucky enough to trade for a few of them recently, including for this gem of Arwen, Elrond, and Shadowfax (if you want to be technical it also has parts of Treebeard and Gollum), which also happens to be the bottom left corner of a 9-card puzzle sketch (picture of the full puzzle included).

  
 I count 22 characters In the puzzle if you include the "Eye of Sauron", which I guess is more of an entity/landmark than a character.. but I'm going to count it anyways lol. I would call this sketch puzzle EXCEPTIONAL, not only for the artwork but for the creativity. I think creativity is Mike's strong point. His mind works differently from most of us, and I mean that in a good way. I think he sees a scene in his mind, and can sometimes even take that scene to even greater heights than it already is (for an example of this see my post on my original blog about the Luke training with Yoda on Dagobah Return Card that Mike did for me). I think Mike's creativity really shines thru on the cards in this set.
   Well, that's all for today but more to come soon. Thanks for stopping by and reading!
#lordoftherings #michaelduron  #locoduck #michaelduronportfolio #artistsketchcard #artistsketch #sketch #sketchpuzzle #fellowshipofthering #lordelrond #elrond #hugoweaving #arwen #livtyler #shadowfax #treebeard #thetwotowers #returnoftheking #thehobbit #anunexpectedjourney #thedesolationofsmaug #thebattleofthefivearmies @michaelduron @locoduckduron @michaelduronportfolio 

   I never knew there was such a thing as a "blank comic book cover", but I stumbled across them one day on the internet. Comic book companies will print comic books with a blank cover so the buyer can commission an artist to draw a cover for them. Okay... interesting... WOW! I loved sketch cards, loved Widevision and Panoramic sketch cards even more because their sizes gave more room to the artist to work, so finding blank comic book covers was a giant leap as far as how much room an artist had to draw. 
   In 2015, Marvel was doing a reboot of Star Wars, so the first issue was obviously Issue #1. They had a blank cover variant, so I ordered 5 copies each from two different Comic Book shops. My first artist to commission.. Mike of course. It was issue #1, so I had to go with main character #1 from the original Star Wars movie- Luke Skywalker. He gave me a price and I sent him the blank comic book. I didn't know what to expect- I had never gotten one of these done. As always, Mike came thru with flying colors for me! I didn't want anything elaborate- I had just asked for "Jedi Luke", and Mike delivered. I like the little details- things like the background, and how Mike drew the lightsaber up into the book's issue number and info- cool little things like that. It was a great start to what I hoped would be a cool custom comic book cover collection. That's all for this post- hope you enjoyed it and thanks reading!
#starwars #michaelduron #Locoduck #customcomicbookcover #comicbook #marvel #artistsketch #sketch #lukeskywalker #jediapprentice #jedimaster #jedi #anewhope #lightsaber #usetheforce @michaelduron @locoduckduron @michaelduronportfolio

   One of the things I enjoy so much from Mike's work is his ability to inject humor/whimsy into his art. 
   Take for example the Galaxy 7 sketch in this post. The scene is from "Return of the Jedi" in Jabba's Palace after Luke Skywalker's battle with the Rancor. In the original movie, Malikili, the handler of the Rancor, is seen sobbing after Luke kills his "pet". Mike takes that scene over-the-top, having Malikili hugging the dead Rancor, mouth wide open, and crying loudly ("WAAAH"). Sometimes Mike makes the humor subtle, sometimes it's over-the-top. Either way, it always makes me smile. 
   Plus, who else even thinks to draw that scene? I have seen sketches of Malikili, and I have seen sketches of the Rancor, but I'm not sure I have ever seen the two together. Now that I think about it, that scene doesn't explicitly happen in the movie. The Rancor dies, Malikili is seen sobbing in the Rancor's lair, and then they cut back to Jabba dealing with Han Solo and Chewbacca. So Mike basically ad-libbed the scene perfectly, because if you've seen the movie, you can definitely see or imagine what Mike drew actually happening. 
   That's a wrap on this post. As always, thanks for reading!
#starwars #michaelduron #locoduck #artistsketchcard #artistsketch #sketch #returnofthejedi #lukeskywalker #jediapprentice #jedimaster #jedi #rancor #malikili #jabbathehutt #slaveleia #salaciouscrumb #usetheforce #anewhope #empirestrikesback #thephantommenace #attackoftheclones #revengeofthesith #theforceawakens #thelastjedi #riseofskywalker @michaelduron @locoduckduron @michaelduronportfolio