This illustration was a first attempt at getting back in to the kind of art that I worked on in college. I didn't bring this style in to my studio projects, but rather kept it to something that I did in my personal time.

The concept of this project was brought on by an MSN group that follows the comic book artist Travis Charest who has been a long-time favorite of mine His style has changed quite a bit from when he started, and he quickly rose to become someone who's work I always looked forward to see. Anyway, the theme was to create a hero or villain from any one of the various comic universes out there (DC, Marvel, Image, Wildstorm, etc) and drop him in to an era anywhere from 1850 to 1950 and create a retro history for him/her. I chose Super Patriot - a man with powers not unlike Superman(minus heat vision, x-ray vision and all that other stuff) who was partially devoured by a foe. In modern time he lost his arms and legs and they were replaced with nano-powered robotic arms that could become a nearly unlimited arsenal of energy and ballistic weapnry.

My retro Patriot is the result of a different history where he was a WWI bi-plane pilot who was shot down and lost his limbs in his crash. He was declared dead and secreted away by the U.S. government and experimented on using the journals and notes of Dr. Victor Frankenstein. The result was a steam-powered soldier who carried the powerplant on his back and lumbered his way in to history as America's first super hero.