There's a contest for this?

Here’s the thing. Someone out there on the interwebs saw my sketch of Captain Canuck that I did for Canada Day and has invited me to compete in their Captain Canuck art contest. 

Kinda cool, right?

Of course, I’m not going to compete using the drawing they saw. It's just a silly little sketch I did for a lark because it was the most Canadian thing I could think of doing with my spare time on July 1. Fun, but not the kind of thing you'd enter in a contest. (It’s posted on my gallery page if you want to see it. It’s really, really Canadian, eh?)

Blue Fox ambushes Captain Canuck

For my competition piece, I wanted to go with something action-y and dramatic, so I’ll be drawing the moment when Captain Canuck realizes that his partner, Blue Fox, is a double-agent for the communists. (Hey, it’s from the 1970s. A lot of villains were communists.) I’ve got the rough layout done on 9x12 paper, and am pretty happy with the basic poses.

This week I'll be drawing the same layout onto full scale paper and planning the composition and environment around the poses.  I’ll use the other elements on the page to direct focus to the captain’s face, and hopefully will be able to draw an appropriate sense of betrayal and drama in his expression. We’ll see how it goes.

Check out the contest at DeviantArt. It’s open to entries until August 15.