Okay, I'm totally posting these out of order, but I figured since I already posted so much of the build-up of this piece, I should get the finished article up here as soon as possible.

This is my take the Marvel Comics duo, Cloak & Dagger. It's the third of four paintings I did as submissions to Marvel to try and coax them into giving me some work as a cover painter. So far they haven't bitten yet, but the dream is still alive.

If you aren't familiar with these characters here's a little background:

Tyrone Johnson (Cloak), and Tandy Bowen (Dagger) were 2 teenage runaways that were captured by some unscrupulous men and used as human guinea pigs to test a new illegal street drug. The drug had killed all other test subjects, but for some reason it awakened supernatural powers within them.

Tyrone's body became what could best be defined as living portal to hell. He feels an emptiness deep within that can only be satisfied by consuming the souls of other people. Therefore he's forced to feed on the life-force of others, or risk being driven into madness by the hunger. He uses his cloak to define the boundaries of this portal... and also to just look all cool and moody.

Tandy became a conduit for that same kind of soul energy, and her body overflows with an abundance of her own renewing life-force. Not only can she use this amplified soul energy to create visible light, but she can focus it into projectiles she calls "daggers", hence her name. She probably wanted to call them “knives”, but “Cloak & Knife-Chick” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

The two of them can teleport by passing in and out of the portal created by Cloak’s body, and Dagger can use her light to shield herself, and others, from the twisted madness and evil that exists within that portal. I tried to illustrate the end of a teleportation as she emerges from Cloak’s body and you can see all of the twisted souls within him being turned away by Dagger’s light.

Anyway, I like it.

Strangely enough, the only powers I’ve ever been granted by testing illegal drugs, were the ability to entertain myself for hours by just staring at the back of my own hand, and the ability to piss myself while passed-out unconscious. Will I use them for good or evil? Only time will tell…

95% Acrylic painting on illustration board, with about 5% touch-ups and effects in Photoshop.

Edit: A desktop version of this piece for your computer can be found here [link]

Cloak & Dagger characters © copyright Marvel Comics
This image of Cloak & Dagger © copyright me (Walter O’Neal) 2005