SubscribeWhile Marvel’s terrestial heroes may be its most known (for now), Nova is one of its shining stars in terms of heroes who aren’t afraid to go further to fight crime and injustice. And for our regular Fan-Art Friday series, we asked artists far and wide to send up this interstellar hero with their own spins. Some artists simply did spirited renditions of the classic and modern iterations of the Nova suit, while others like Andy MacDonald took it a step further and redesigned the Human Rocket for the 21st century. – Chris A.
Conrad W. Rudy
Bradford Amirault
Maximillian Nero
Robert Steel
Alex Ward
Paulo Ricardo
Jake Potter
Zachary Gilmore
yihdego
/ November 9, 2012All of it is awesome. I like how people took this fan-art opportunity to do redesigns also.
Paulo
/ November 9, 2012Awesome works!
Edwin
/ November 9, 2012Todd , Robert Steel’s and Matthew Elser’s versions are my favorite designs of this. Demetrios Kasdaglis is a good runner up. Eduardo Torres is incredible, just for making animation. Tom Kelly has the best illustration of the bunch though. Well done everyone
Jim Gitman
/ November 9, 2012Alejandro should have won again. I also like Ali Mitchell’s.
It’s interesting that so many of them are armored. That’s actually what turns me off about MacDonald’s. The helmet is pretty killer, especially the way he’s rendered the eye cutout, but that armor is awfully generic.
Adam
/ November 9, 2012Alejandro’s design is just… I’m speechless, I honestly am.
Bradford
/ November 9, 2012Some really cool designs up there. Thanks for letting ordinary folks participate!
Thomas Fummo
/ November 9, 2012Wow, these are all really great! I can’t believe I forgot about this…
Either way, thanks for these fan-art fridays. Not only are they a chance to see more great artwork, they let a whole lot more people get their work out there.
Jack
/ November 10, 2012Have to say there’s some cool looking pieces here but I love Andy MacDonald’s idea of the star being a see through visor. That’s slick!
Chris A.
/ November 10, 2012Jim: There’s no winners or losers in Fan-Art Friday.
Matthew Bartlett
/ November 10, 2012Just curious how we can find out what next weeks theme will be and where to submit to.
LeGs
/ November 10, 2012@Chris A. – I didn’t think there were ever losers!
Chris A.
/ November 11, 2012Matthew: We’re not doing it every Friday, but at least once a month. Stay tuned for the announcement!
Rob
/ November 11, 2012Really enjoyed making my first entry to P:R and thanks for the kind words, Edwin! I really love Andy MacDonald’s, Matthew Elser’s and Alejandro’s to pick a few favorites but they’re all fantastic in my opinion.
Eduardo’s animated gif is brilliant too. Robert Curet, your’s is… well, it leaves me speechless :-P I can honestly say I would NOT have considered that design option, LOL. Classic!
Ever since accidentally discovering the site, I’ve really enjoyed the alternate takes on characters and I’ve always loved Nova since the character first appeared so I had to jump on this one. I should probably have pushed the idea of mine design wise and not have gotten quite so wrapped up in the photoshop coloring of it but it’s been a while since I’ve done this sort of thing (rather than just looking at other people’s work). :)
Jim Gitman
/ November 11, 2012Having your entry appear before the page break and getting a shout-out in the introduction sure looks like a prize.
Dedpool
/ November 12, 2012Love most of these! Especially feeling the Andy macDonald, Bradford Amirault, Robert Steel, Mathew Elser, and Todd Loesey’s renditions. I love them!! Nova has been a favorite of mine since Annihiation, though I’ve always liked him.
Samatict
/ November 12, 2012I really, really responded to Robert Curet’s impaled Nova. It’s so inappropriate and spiteful that I just find it mesmerizing. I wish there was more to the design than the multiple stab wounds though.
Rick Vo’s Mazinger Nova appeals to my ’70s and ’80s cartoon nostalgia. That’s not a mashup that I expected to see, and it’s a really good fusion of both characters. Is that supposed to be a giant robo or not (there’s no sense of scale in the image)?
Dimitrios Kasdaglis’s submission is fantastic, even if I don’t know what’s happening with the hands. Are they alien hands? Is it a function of the costume? I don’t know, but they delight me. I don’t like the downward spikes on the bridge of his helm’s nose though.
I like JQ Hammer’s aesthetic, even though the color scheme of that design doesn’t read as Nova. The cyclopean eye especially moves it away from the Nova Corps look. I really like that high-contrast inking style though (very prevalent in underground comics type of work).
Robert Steel’s helm design reminds me of the Guild Wars 2 Whisper Heavy Armor concept art or maybe something else. I keep thinking I’ve seen that helm before, but I can’t place it (that’s gonna itch my head all day). I really like it, but it seems incongruous with the rest of the costume’s lines.
The mood and graphic design of Tom Kelly’s submission is well done. I wish the image was taken further though (like his Iron Man Mandarin poster, which feels more complete). It’s an eye-catching start though.
I like what I see of Matthew Elser’s submission, but the pose obscures quite a bit of the costume design. There’s also a visual implication that Nova is wiping the surface of a large globe using a shredded orange rag, lol! Anyway, I like the helm design, and I wish the rest of the costume was more visible.
Alejandro Bruzzese’s design is great for a Nova Corps that originated on Earth. I don’t think it’s alien enough to have originated on Xandar. While I’ve been a fan of Bruzzese’s illustration style, I think this is the first of his costume designs that I actually like.
As far as something closer to comic canon, Todd Loessy’s image draws my eye the most. Something very romantic about seeing Nova navigating the upper reaches of the atmosphere, as the sun flashes from behind his palm. Sure that’s a standard trope, but Loessy drew it well.
Samatict
/ November 12, 2012Oh, also, I really like Andy MacDonald’s drawing style, even if the costume design is super generic. I like how MacDonald draws the details of the costume, as well as what he did to the helm. However, something about the resulting design has a feel of a service personnel (maybe mechanic), rather than a combatant.
Robert Curet
/ November 12, 2012My impaled Nova isnt out of Spite Samatict- I’ve actually always liked the character. I just thought that Comic Book Aliens have a way of handing “GREAT POWER” to selected people- and it’s always through some cool prop- A helmet- A glowing green ring- a blue scarab…
Why should that power transfer always be pretty? Why should the recipient of alien tech always look cool to human eyes? isnt it Alien tech?
I simply wanted to share an idea that the bonding of alien tech to human could be really odd. Yes he is impaled and bleeding but that is the cost of his Symbiosis , now he weilds “GREAT POWER” and looks odd to human eyes.
Thats my story and I’m sticking to it!
Kilgaen
/ November 13, 2012Jesus, Curet. Too soon, man. Too soon.
Edwin
/ November 13, 2012Curet’s doesn’t read Spiteful to me, just goofy cartoon violence. It’s dark funny and I love it for that, though it didn’t make the top of the list
And I totally got a Mazinger vibe too! I thought it was just me!
CWR
/ November 14, 2012A clearer, more finished version of my redesign is here:
http://cwrudy.deviantart.com/#/d5kywyd
The space restriction here at PR is horizontal – if I had been thinking clearly I would have stacked my pics rather than placing them side-by-side, squeezing the resolution down to where the red accents bordering the gold areas are no longer legible.
Andy MacDonald’s piece looks like a ‘what if Moebius redesigned Nova for a Marvel comic’, whereas Alejandro Bruzzese’s feels more as if ‘what if Moebius designed Nova originally for one of his own comics’ – these comparisons are very much intended as compliments.
Also like Matthew Elser’s design – there was something about it…it made me realize that Robert Kirkman’s Techjacket was basically an alternate version of Nova. Also what-if the Nova Corps was more like ROM’s Spaceknights…
Robert Steel’s version also impressed me, but I fear that once a top tier artist (like an Adi Granov) finished his run on a Nova series with this design then a lesser talent might revert to the original easy to draw costume. The helmet has a very slight hint of Kamen Rider to it, Samatict – is that what’s nagging at you?
Robert Curet’s is simply the MAX comics version of Nova.
Samatict
/ November 18, 2012Oh, I guess my “spite” comment didn’t come across properly. I didn’t mean to imply that Robert Curet harbored spite against Nova. I meant that the attitude conveyed by the image is spiteful.
That Nova comes across as someone who flies around with a chip on his shoulder, screaming, “Ya I have puncture wounds, AND WHAT?! EFF YOU!” I imagine him yanking out one of the stars, impaling his opponent, and then stabbing it back into his own chest. That’s what I meant by “inappropriate and spiteful”.
OMG yes! After reading some negative reactions to Bruzesse’s work in other threads, I’ve been trying to verbalize why I like his style. However, that is the most concise descriptor of why I like the jittery line work with flat colors: it’s like watercolor Moebius!
I looked up the various permutations of Kamen Rider, and a couple of the helms came close, but I don’t think that’s what was itching my brain. I do see the tokusatsu in that helm design, now that you’ve pointed it out. Regardless, I do like the look of the helm, and I wish its aesthetic carried through to the rest of the armor.
I don’t understand what this is referencing.
Edwin
/ December 9, 2012I would love to see other heroes filtered through the lens of tokusatsu