Showdown cover sketches

So my current illustration project is Showdown - a game in development by Seth Ben-Ezra that started out as a silly thread game on a forum and turned into a full-fledged game. Currently, interior layout is still being figured out, so I've just been doing sketches for potential cover illustrations, which are to be as genre-bendy as possible.

So this was my first attempt. The poses are definitely kind of 'meh', I was more wrestling with the idea of having characters from two obviously different genres of fiction face off against each other. (Seth's initial request was for space marine, but I had too much difficulty with that so I turned him into a retro-future space man.)

The verdict: the character design is good, but the poses not so much. It needed to be more action-y! They need to be actually fighting, not just facing off. So I took another stab last night at rehearsal and came up with this:

Better, although there's definitely some pose weirdness. I'm not thrilled about the idea that it looks kind of static, despite that she's hauled off and slugged him. Also, her face was ugly. But whatever - just a sketch. Easy to fix.

Tonight I had another stab at it. I actually did two different drawings. I did one where I liked him but not her, and vice versa. So I scanned them and pieced the two good halves together - which is why the placement seems a bit odd.

So that's proceeding nicely.

Currently, in addition to working on Showdown, I'm also in a play as well as doing some freelance web design while continuing to look for a new job. It's making life very... interesting. So who knows how frequently I'll update here?