Category Archives: Nick Chopper

The Gang, with Color

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I think I’ve mentioned once or twice that I don’t consider coloring to be one of my strong suits. I think I can do it well but it does require a lot of trial and error on my part for me to feel like I’ve done it well. I’m a noodler. I like gradients and detail. Just laying down flat colors and calling it good is hard for me.

Flat coloring is faster than gradient, layered color, however, and I’m trying to speed up my processes. For the current incarnation of Oz Squad I’m just doing flat colors. So, even though my fingers are itching to add shadows and highlights, I’m calling this done.

Urrrghh.

Some of the Gang

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I started this illustration a few years ago. With Oz-Squad.com getting put together I figured that now was a good time to finish it. I’d originally intended it as a promo illustration for the Oz Squad comic revival. Now I’ll be using it as the illustration on the intro page of the website. I did the last of the inking and scanned it in on Friday. If all goes well I’ll have it colored in time to post that version on Monday. If all goes really I’ll have the text of the introduction finished as well and they can both go up together.

Tin and Chrome

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Nick Chopper, the 1955 version. Drawing Nick is always a bit of a challenge. I’ve known a lot of artists who had an affinity for drawing cars, robots and other machines. My preferences are drawing organic objects – animals, plants and landscapes. So representing the Tin Man usually requires twice as much preliminary sketches as any of the other characters.

Terry Loh drew Nick with 1950s styling for that 1955 version of the Squad so I’ve tried to duplicate and preserve that.

One Tin Soldier

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Nick Chopper wasn’t a soldier. He was a woodcutter. Once his body had all become tin he remained a woodcutter. He continued to carry his axe less for utility than because it was the last remnant of his human life.

After the events of World War 2 he set his axe aside and built other weapons into his body. He used the latest technologies to make his bodies into mobile defense/assault systems.

There was a Tin Soldier in original Baum Oz books. I don’t know if he’s still around. If he is, he isn’t scheduled to appear in Oz Squad yet.

Body of Tin, Heart of Sawdust

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Spot illustration #6 for the Oz-Squad.com and Skookworks.com header designs.

Nick Chopper didn’t have a lot of choice over what his first tin body looked like but, as the twentieth century progressed and circumstances demanded it, he’s built and worn quite a few different forms. Some are big and scary. Some are almost graceful. Into each he puts the heart that the Wizard gave him. It’s just a thing of sawdust and silk but it feels nonetheless. 

Portrait of a Young Woodman, Unknowing of His Fate

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Spot illustration #5 for the Oz-Squad.com and Skookworks.com header designs.

Once upon a time, Nick Chopper was a young man in love. He cut wood for a living. He expected to get married, settle down and have kids. He expected a pretty normal life or least as normal a life as one can have in the Land of Oz.

Unfortunately he ran afoul of Rebecca, the Witch of the East. And she arranged him to run afoul of his axe. Several times.*

There aren’t a lot of depictions of Nick prior to his transformation into the Tin Woodman. The only one I’m aware of is by John R Neill for The Tin Woodman of Oz. And, chronologically, the illustration still takes place after Nick got chopped up. It’s in the chapter The Tin Woodman Talks to Himself. I love that chapter.

* See March of the Tin Soldiers for the details. And the 21st century aftermath. 

Coloring Oz – Nick 4

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I quite like how this turned out. As an individual illustration I think the color and the composition work well. I like the tin Nick in the foreground and Rebecca, Amy and meat Nick acting out their destinies in the background.

Unfortunately I’d intended this portrait (and those of Dorothy, Scarecrow and Lion) to be part of a composition on the back cover of a book and this illustration doesn’t work with the rest of the art at all. The portraits of the other characters work okay but this one is just too darned busy. There’s too much action and the red in it clashes with the reds in the rest of the cover.

It looks like I’ll need to do new versions of these portraits. Keeping them simple this time. And working with the colors already established. Sigh.

Coloring Oz – Nick 3

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It’s not that I don’t have anything to say about Nick and the process of coloring this illustration. It’s that I’ve got a lot of paperwork to fill out in order to make sure I get into the spring classes at Seattle Central Community College. The paperwork from the college itself is minor – it’s the financial aid forms that eat time and kill the brain.

Coloring Oz – Nick 1

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Nick Chopper could be considered a tragic figure. He’s a man who, piece by piece, had all his human parts replaced with tin substitutes. A witch enchanted his axe and it chopped off his parts. A tinsmith fashioned replacements for the missing limbs. Eventually all of Nick got excised and he became a completely tin man.

In the original Oz novels Nick is pretty satisfied with that. He felt the lack of a heart for a while but the Wizard gave him a suitable substitute. There’s no tragedy to that version of Nick. He and the Scarecrow hang out, often congratulating themselves that they aren’t subject to the need to eat or sleep or breathe like ordinary meat people.

The Nick in Oz Squad? He’s had a few more bumps than the Nick in the original novels. He doesn’t seem to miss being human much more than the earlier Nick did. At least not most of the time.