Roberto Duran in Ink!

A couple days after finishing some snazzy, new cartoons for East Coast boxing promoters, Boxing 360 (I'm their official boxing humor artist. Check out www.boxing360.com/blog and click on "Boxing Humor" to peep my work!), I decided to try something a little different by drawing a fully-inked portrait of a boxing legend. I wanted to do something comicky but not wacky like the Boxing 360 'toons. Something much like my Sergio Martinez vs. Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. piece from September of last year (http://www.coyoteduran.com/2012/09/sergio-martinez-vs-julio-cesar-chavez.html) but with more mood and depth.

Originally, I considered drawing Mexican featherweight legend Salvador Sanchez until I remembered I've never drawn my all-time boxing hero, "Manos de Piedra" ("Hands of Stone") Roberto Duran. (8 1/2" X 11", Sharpie archiving pen on sketch paper) By this time, I was fully overdosing on the Facebook photo albums of my pal, Cory Hamscher (a damn fine comic book artist and inker), and although I don't use a crow-quill pen like Cory (or even come close to this cat's inking skill), I was inspired to throw down with the darkness.

Bonus inspiration for this piece: one of my favorite artists, Charlie McGill. Odds are, you mightn't know the name but his art will look familiar. Bergen, New Jersey's McGill is a sports illustrator who has rendered some of boxing's most famous personalities (among many more sports icons), some whimsically, others in photorealistic splendor, all in the same inimitable, old-school style only McGill can deliver.

So, yeah, I think I'll do a few more in this style between paintings and cartoons! I hope you dig it!