The Themed Art Blog are having a Harry Potter week. I'd been needing something to get me loosened up and relaxed. So here, are Hagrid and Harry, from the beginning of The Philosopher's Stone. I didn't refer to the book, but I know Hagrid delivers Harry to the Dursley's house on his motorbike, and I've a sneaky suspicion that Harry is in a basket or something...
...but I've been (unsurprisingly) paternal recently, and couldn't help going all whimsical with a caring cradling pose.
Recently did this illustration of Emma Frost for Andi Ewington, he of 'The 45' from Com.X fame. Watch out for 'Blue Spear' coming soon from Com.X by Andi, Eddie Deighton and Cosmo White.
She'll wrap you around her little finger, so it's no surprise that here's a picture of a happy looking Andi with my interpretation of Ms. Frost!
Well, last month I was delighted to be invited to contribute once again to Scotch Corner, the Caledonian Comic Artists Collective who're celebrating their blogging birthday this month with a series of guest slots. I'm am amongst some seriously talented folk contributing, too many cool people to name have already contributed - and there's more to come!
Previously, I've submitted Bat-world pieces to their guest slot: a Harley Quinn, a Joker, and a Catwoman, but no surprises, it is 2000ad that I have turned to on this special occasion. Specifically the world of Strontium Dog, and as is usual for me, I gravitated to the girl in the gang - Durham Red.
You can see the full coloured version of that over on Scotch Corner. Also note the edited hand... after I'd inked it, and saught the advice of trusted indivduals, I felt this version was too claw like.
If you like this, then please come back tomorrow as I'll be posting up a piece that celebrates the return of Johnny Alpha, in fact, the resurrection of Johnny Alpha and his imminent return to the prog - as trailered in prog 1742, see the prog or ECBT2000ad for the details!
I was contacted recently by Ryan Ballard, who is putting together a whole book of sketches based on the fantastic Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon series Preacher as a present for his Dad. How cool is that? You can see all the contributions he's got so far at The Preacher Project.
He asked me for a Jody and TC - two of the worst brothers I think that have ever been cooked up.
I went for their flashback versions - as that's where we see what a pair of evil b*stards they really are... if you've read the story, you'll know what TC is up to here.
I showed the initial pencils to Ryan and he asked if I could revise the sketch more inline with the scene where Jesse's Dad get's shot. <<<-- highlight for spoiler. This moved from the implied humour of my initial concept, and would play up the emotional resonance - Ryan also asked if I could add in a young, upset but determined Jesse... TC's dialogue just didn't fit anymore.
I was chuffed to be invited to join the gang, and I was pretty pleased with the result too!
Amongst other bits and pieces and preparation for this weekend's Kapow, I've been doing a commission for John Burdis, I'd done something for The Cellar of Dredd before, a quick single illustration of Hondo-Cit's Inspector Inaba. I'd done that under my own steam following the fab time I had at the Hi-Ex Comicon, but this time, John had something in mind.
The following is all about the "process" for those of you who like to see the work in progress stuff.
I did an initial sketch based upon John's original brief:
"Dredd stood in the middle of a street with dead superheroes strewn all around him and Joe saying something along the lines of "Costumed vigilantes, leave the real crime fighting to me!" The characters who would be dead would include Superman (head missing definitely), Batman, Wonderwoman, Captain America and all those other US bods."
One thought kept floating around my brain, a pile of dead super-heroes and something in Brian Bolland's classic cover to Prog 2000 kept nagging at me as well.
John liked the inital sketch but had a couple of requests for additions if I could manage them:
First up was a simple addition to the roster of the dispatched: "Green Arrow's arm with a broken bow"
Next was just a weapons' upgrade to the "Colt Widowmaker " instead of the Anti-Hero gun I'd been musing over as the reason why Dredd was now able to dispatch these super-heroes.
Finally, a nice way to really make the commission a personal one: " a large pristine BURDIS BLOCK and a couple of derelict smaller blocks with the names MARVEL and DC".
In Dredd's world, towering apartment Blocks are often named after famous people, sometimes for satirical reasons, sometimes equally as a tribute to that person. I felt that DC and MARVEL blocks could nicely be rolled into the one (albeit well beaten-up) DEE CEE MARVILLE block.
I wanted the blocks to say something about John and the two comic companies respectively... aside from the beaten-up aspect of DEE CEE MARVILLE, I wanted the block to hint at those companies' stock-in-trade - Super-heroes!
John's online forum name is COMMANDO FORCES, for reason's which are obvious to anyone who knows him. Hopefully my intentions for his 'block' shouldn't need much more explaining. For the DEE CEE MARVILLE block, I wanted it to look as much a possible like a cape flowing over the shoulders of a hero, almost immediately that dictated a very Art Deco style, evocative of old movie theatres.
By this point I've switched into Google Sketch-up to muck about with the architecture, mainly because if we decide to change the POV, I haven't got to reconstruct the difficult curvature on that art Deco styled block... but it wasn't there that my main problem would be!
I had inadvertently created, by virtue of the military style helmet, a very phallic looking building... "could you put some sort of roof sports complex/airport style thing somewhere around/on that part?". Thankfully we caught it and had a chance to make a suitable alteration.
The only other thing John wanted was "More gore on those bodies." I guess the super-hero fan in me was just subconsciously trying to limit the damage to all those "good guys", but, you've got to give the client what they want!
I'd been concerned over Dredd's footing and so I added in Reed Richards, utlising his 'rubbery' consistency to nicely fill in the space between Superman and WonderWoman.
After showing the last version to John, I couldn't help but think we'd lost the 'Military' in the styling of 'Burdis Block' in favour of Miners or worse still, Doozers!
The easiest way to show him some alternatives was a little fly-around movie taken out of Sketch-up. I can't advocate strongly enough the time saving aspects of this program for me, where previously (hours of projecting the perspective correctly) would have ended up making me want to stab myself in the head.
Throughout the process, there had been dissatisfaction on both our parts over the wording of Dredd's proclamation, neither of ours had been punchy enough. John had started a forum topic to ask for help and there had been some great and some very witty suggestions, but it wasn't until my good pal and Fractal Friction co-contributer Chris Askham suggested a short and sweet "When are you CREEPS gonna learn?", that either John or myself found a 'fit' for the illustration.
We we're all happy until John posted my initial sketch in the same forum topic...
PJ Holden (who has always been insightful and helpful to me from my very earliest foray into the comics business) suggested the even shorter and IMO 'sweeter' "WHO'S NEXT?". Sorry Chris, but you know when something's right.
With the final version okayed by John, I turned the 'pencils' into a 'blueline' ready to print out. Using another tip I'd picked up from PJ, I left the 'speech' to print out in Black for crispness in the final artwork.
I inked the dead super-heroes first because I knew there would be a lot of work in that part, in fact it took most of a morning to do, but after getting Dredd inked in, it was all fairly plain sailing and came together quite quickly!
I sent a scan of the final thing to John yesterday and I'm pleased to say he's very happy with it and looking forward to seeing it in the flesh at Kapow!
I guess that's it really, other than to ask: "WHO'S NEXT?"
This post marks the third birthday of my blog. Weirdly, this is also post 333, does that make it 50% evil?!
A good pal said to me over the seasonal break that he would like to see my take on The Dude, from the Coen Bros. fabulous The Big Lebowski. I've got a real soft spot for The Dude, His Dudeness or El Duderino (if you're not into the whole brevity thing).
Like the film itself, there was a nice syncronicity to events, my friend's birthday is tomorrow, my blog would be 3 today, it was a nice quick sketch that I knew he was after and that suited my current status of waiting for feedback on the project I'm working on. Nothing was f**cked, So I drew him a card!
I don't think I've quite captured what I was after, but Jeff Bridges is a tricky chap to depict, even trying to get an essence of The Dude is a tall order... the desire to include (clever) quote related 'in jokes' was definitely not satisfied and originally I intended to do a group shot including Walter and Donny too, but sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes... well, he eats you!
I've just done an Artswap with a good pal and long time supporter of mine Graeme Neil Reid. A while ago, Graeme was doing a series of Ghostbuster illustrations and I asked if he was doing a Sigourney Weaver as Zuul, could I have the original in return for an illustration by me...
I'm chuffed to say he was up for it and chose a very broad topic of "Characters from Hammer and Universal Horror movies"... I have to confess to a soft spot for Frankenstein's monster (one of the first things I ever shared on this blog was a "Frankie"). So it was long over due to do another... this time I tried to capture Boris Karloff in his career defining role as the monster...
I hope Graeme likes the illustration when he finally receives it (weather permitting), and I look forward to the Gatekeeper arriving in due course!
I've had a quick attempt at Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway's Modesty Blaise.
It's the result of a suggestion made by James Corcoran, who when we were doing the Art Swap included a little bonus sketch for each of us... I only found this fab little depiction of Dirty Frank by chance when I was clearing up, and I'm so glad I did.
Dirty Frank is one of my favourite characters from 2000ad's Low Life, a story about undercover Judges, written by Rob Williams.
Here's an inked illustration of Judge Anderson I've just done as an inking test trying out some paper with a rougher surface. It's all about getting those dry brush effects without the expense of losing higher level detail...
Well, I'm pretty happy with it, could see it working as a cover for the Megazine in fact, I'd be glad to hear what you think of it too... Although I've offered out my services to do commissions before... I really haven't tried to sell anything that I've done off my own back. So as an experiment, I'll be more than happy to sell this to the first person who offers me £50 for it. It's A3, inked straight over the pencils (which is unusual for me as I normally scan and print out my pencils so I have a back-up) so this is a true original never to be available again type item. Oh, and that price will include recorded delivery!
Yesterday, on facebook, Pat Mills broke the news that Gerry Finley-Day had written a Rogue Trooper script called 'Dead-Ringer' and had that accepted by the good folk at 2000ad. This is significant for a number of reasons, Rogue had been 'officially retired' and Gerry, the original writer (who created Rogue with Dave Gibbons) hasn't written for comics in a very long time.
Needless to say, my relentless desire to work for the Galaxy's Greatest Comic was intensified by this... Rogue Trooper is one of the classic, iconic 2000ad characters. I may have gone overboard by littering the internet with the news and my keenness to be the man in the driving drawing seat! I've hassled Tharg twice, (un-wiseley, I suspect) but last night, after I had contacted him with my most recent and secret strip work, I quickly sketched out my take on Rogue... I await a rigellian hotshot for my efforts!
***EDIT*** I've just heard back from his eminent green-ness and he thanked me for my interest, but the script is already with another artist. Although I didn't expect anything else, I'm still disappointed.
Part of the reason behind a drought of posts is because I've (finally) got my head down on Corvus!
I don't want to show too much too soon, so here are some inked sketches of crows and or ravens... Done whilst at the second meet-up session for Cambridge based comic creators inaugurated by the hugely talented Emma Vieceli.
Here's a panel from something I've been working on... I've edited it (a bit) so as not to give the game away too much (I hope).
I've tried to use black more on this... I was just experimenting really, but moody was the order of the day so, I wanted to at least have some hatching and areas of 'spotted' blacks.
One of my cohorts on Fractal Friction, (the not so grimm) Matte Soffe has done me the honour of inking up some of my recent sketches, please read his full blog posting here.
One of the pieces was my recent Dredd sketch, which he also did some beautiful colouring on... and as if that weren't enough he's been universally lovely about promoting it all over the web too... Thanks Matt, you're a gent, a talented one too.
Cor! Can you believe we are up to page 21?!?!! For those of you interested in this sort of thing... Here are the original pencils, including the panel that was revised.
And here are the inks.
If you want to see what a spot of colour did to these inks, head on over to Fractal Friction to see the finished page...
I did an initial sketch based upon John's original brief:
In Dredd's world, towering apartment Blocks are often named after famous people, sometimes for satirical reasons, sometimes equally as a tribute to that person. I felt that DC and MARVEL blocks could nicely be rolled into the one (albeit well beaten-up) DEE CEE MARVILLE block.
By this point I've switched into Google Sketch-up to muck about with the architecture, mainly because if we decide to change the POV, I haven't got to reconstruct the difficult curvature on that art Deco styled block... but it wasn't there that my main problem would be!
Throughout the process, there had been dissatisfaction on both our parts over the wording of Dredd's proclamation, neither of ours had been punchy enough. John had started a forum topic to ask for help and there had been some great and some very witty suggestions, but it wasn't until my good pal and Fractal Friction co-contributer Chris Askham suggested a short and sweet "When are you CREEPS gonna learn?", that either John or myself found a 'fit' for the illustration.
