Here’s an advance peek at my contribution to the pinups in the upcoming issue of Doc Talos Magazine.
The Doc Talos stories take a more realistic approach to the classic Doc Savage characters, but interestingly, it is only post-pulp that Pat began to be depicted in the Bama-esque “Doc Savage costume”, so when creating images of Rickie I have plenty of period inspiration from the pulp covers, where she was a stylish, beautiful, but not super-hero-ish character. I love portraying her in what are now of course, vintage 1940-or-so fashions…ah, that was an era of style!
She is described in the pulps as having bronze skin, like her cousin, with hair slightly darker in color. One of my favorite Lester Dent descriptions of her (from the 1946 issue “Death is a Round Black Spot”), is as a “bronzey-blonde”. Her eyes are described in varying ways (which, as I recall, prompted Phil Farmer to muse that she perhaps wears colored contacts)…but most often with the Savage gold flecks. Pure gold eyes look more than a little spooky, so I’ve made Rickie’s a bit more brown, with some gold tones in her always-arresting gaze.
Images created using pre-AI Poser 3D, Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and hand painting.
Rickie’s special issue of the magazine, coming this month, has no less than FOUR pinup sections, with artwork by Iason Ragnar Bellerophon, R. Paul Sardanas, Steff Murschetz, and a sketch gallery of stellar artists.
Doc Talos 