Ideas can come from everywhere… Even from beer! This past August, Fabrice was offered to draw an original illustration for… a beer glass group. These comic book fans are also lager aficionados and they decided to combine the two. Nik Ohanian, one of their leaders made contact with Fabrice, asking for an illustration starring characters reminiscent of the Marvel Noir universe he helped create.
Interesting idea, right? First, the challenge was appealing. Who has the opportunity to see their art printed on a beer glass, right? But Fabrice wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being too close to the Marvel originals and started developing characters as much Noir inspired as Steampunk toned. Blame his work on the current Lady Bird project, where one of the characters has a steampunk adjacent costume.
After delivering a first version that was ultimately rejected, Fabrice found the right tempo and delivered the piece shown above. It took two weeks to design (it’s also very detailed and very big). It stars three new characters that he named SteamBlade, Armada and Houndsect.
Frequent collaborator Walter Pereyra added his beautiful skills to the ensemble giving the piece a very special polish.
Was this a one off? Probably not. Fabrice has now ideas for these characters. They may have been inspired by existing characters, but they’re now taking a life of their own. And they may evolve to the point where they’ll be so different from their originals that it’ll be impossible to know they were cut from the same cloth. If you too want to see more of these characters at FairSquare Comics, please comment and support this project!