Christmas

Hope you all had a great Christmas. Here's the card I did for my wife. It was a bit of a rush, but has been too well received by its audience for me to criticise it!

Hellboy..... and a dog.

I'm going to assume Mike Mignola won't be dropping by to be less than amused by my messing with his much loved (especially by me) character's often used catch-phrase. The dog attempting a poo is my own dog, Boo.

Octonauts, with added Olivia

Here's what I've drawn for my daughter for Christmas. She, no, WE, are all huge Octonauts fans in our house, the books and the cartoons, so hopefully this will go down well.

Superman process

For anyone interested. I've added an extra stage to my drawing process. Here's how it all goes -
Various sketches. Final pencils, and then inks.....Here's where I've changed my process. I used to ink (on watercolour paper) then scan and add colour and tones on the computer. I convert the linework layer to multiply and colour underneath, adding tones on a separate layer. As I try to maintain a fairly organic look I decided to do more of the tonal work by hand with coloured ink. I think it worked out quite well, even though I still did additional toning on the computer. Hopefully as I practice I'll get better at the hand toning and maybe try more washes to eliminate as much computer toning as possible, making for a more streamlined process for me, something which I've been working towards. The other handy thing about hand tones is I plan to do some masking (solid colour shapes without outlines) and that should make it easier.
And here's that final piece again, if you compare the two, you might notice I wasn't happy with the head, and shrank it down slightly - I try not to do too much altering on the computer, but sometimes you just have to! I might do a few more superhero pics, as I've had an idea for another.

Superman

Maybe it's because of Superman The Movie, maybe it's because I love straight up heroes, but there'll always be a place in my heart for Superman. Here's a pic I did, heavy on the Golden Age.

Hilda

There's a new Hilda book out by Luke Pearson from Nobrow. The first Hilda story was wonderful, and Pearson gets better all the time, so the latest will be amazing - I'll confirm this if my Christmas wish list becomes a reality! In the meantime, a few folk on twitter drew their version of Hilda, so I joined in the fun.

Asterix

....and Obelix, and Dogmatix. And some Roman. Here's another pic where I try and get a character out of my system.

The Wonderful thing about Tiggers....

....is there's only one. And it's A.A. Milne's & E. H. Shepard's.
Here's my humble attempt to draw Tigger, who is not my favourite character (although they're all great!) from the books, so that means there should really be another picture. As soon as I get round to drawing it.
Eagle eyed regulars to this blog may see a resemblance to another piece I posted, purely intentional, as I liked the green and blue palette and wanted to try it again, and as several drawings on this blog show, I really like drawing characters in the sky!

The Leopard of Lime Street

My updating of the UK classic, 'The Leopard of Lime Street'. One of things I loved about the strip was the working class grittiness, so I've pushed that a little further with use of council flats. From that it was easy to imagine a whole new 'Leopard' strip making used of parkour. I'd love to see that happen.
With me drawing it, of course:)

Copies of Nelson have arrived at Blank Slate, so you can buy them!
You probably know the drill by now, it's an anthology with each chapter produced by some of the best and brightest creators in the UK, and all the chapters tell a story from a year in the life of the main character. My gushing about this wonderful project knows no bounds, and you can support the homeless charity Shelter by buying it!
Here's another sneak peak of my chapter. It's a fairly low res scan, so.... why not just buy the book!
More info on Nelson, and buying power, here.
There's some events lined up too. I'll be at Thought Bubble, so say hello.
While I've got your attention I'm seriously considering doing commissions, but have no idea what level of interest there is out their, so let me know. Prints are a possibility too. See you at Thought Bubble!

Olivia the Witch

As I'd already used the flying on a 'balloon'stick pose, I opted for something else witch-like for this halloween drawing of my little girl in a costume she bought.
She likes the drawing, but wants to know why she isn't wearing a black dress. Sorry, Olivia, artistic license.
I've posted the pencils as I was pleased with how loose and simple they were, and it's rare that I ever ink anything as loose, hopefully I didn't lose the liveliness in the inking.

RIP my Dad

My dad died a few days ago. Very sudden, and I've not properly taken it in. No idea why I'm posting it here, but I wanted to mark it somehow.
Normal service will be resumed. Eventually.

Solipsistic Pop sneak peak

Have I mentioned that I'm contribution to the excellent anthology Solipsistic Pop? well, I am, a two page strip for issue 4.
All the SP books are beautifully designed and SP4 will be on cream paper with an addition green tone.
The theme for this issue is 'maps', and I must admit I stretched that theme to fit my strip. But as it's the story that popped into my head after thinking of the theme I figure it's fair enough.
As SP is so beautifully designed I decided to attempt something I rarely do nowadays, which is the 'fancy-pants layout'. As much as I admire the likes of Chris Ware, when it comes to my own stuff that kind of layout just isn't for me.
The panel here probably gives a clue as to how I decided to tackle the layout, and really, it's not all that fancy - in fact, I went to a lot of effort to make sure actually looks as straightforward as possible.
One interesting thing, for me at least, is that it's almost a companion piece to my Nelson contribution, but in this instance I've not masked the autobiography with a fictional character and I've recalled something more specific to me.

Nelson

As many of you may be aware Blank Slate will be publishing Nelson in November. Nelson is the brainchild of Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix. It's one story created Exquisite Corpse style by 54 creators. I've seen quite a bit of it, and it's amazing.
Nelson's mix of an amazing variety of talented creators not only manages to be cohesive, it shows us that one style is not 'better' than another, it shows us all are valid, and value of those styles is what they reveal about the creator. Nelson really is something far greater than the sum of it's individually incredible parts.
It's probably best if I don't say anything about the content of even my own contribution for now. I'll just say that I used nostalgia to attempt to tap into something that I hope many can relate. You shouldn't have to wait to long to see if I succeeded!
In the meantime here's two random panels, one of which will allow the eagle eyed 2000ad fan to pinpoint almost exactly when my contribution is set.

Cycling

My daughter recently started cycling without stabilizers, and I was amazed how well she took to it. So I drew this.

Dr Seuss' House of Horrors!

Oh, I may go to hell for these. Still, I absolutely adore Seuss, but, really, isn't the whole uninvited guest forces his way into a kid's house and causes chaos a wee bit.... odd? Also, shame on their folks for leaving them on their own. And.... and.... okay, I've run out of excuses.

Olivia's delivery service

Been so busy lately it seems like ages since I had a chance to draw. My little girl was obsessed with Kiki's Delivery Service for a while, and struck a flying pose with a balloon on a stick. Seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up.

One that got away

I recently pitched a comic called MCPD Blue (that's Monster City Police Department). Sadly the editor liked it, but didn't feel it was right. After a brief moment of panic where I thought all ideas had dried up and I'd never do anything, or find time for anything again, I came up with an idea that takes a lot of what I liked about MCPD Blue but hopefully presses the right buttons for the editor.
In the meantime, here's a couple of the MCPD Blue illustrations. Who knows, maybe I'll come back to it sometime.

Nelson

Have you heard about Nelson yet? It was finally announced a few days ago, and is, frankly, amazing. I know this, because I've seen a lot of it. I've seen a lot of it, because I'm in it.
As an anthology it's pretty unusual, I think the tagline pretty much sums it up - 'Fifty Creators, Forty Three years, One narrative'. That's right, a whole lot of people all working on one story. But, thanks to the hard work of Rob Davis, Woodrow Phoenix and Kayla Hillier, not only is it cohesive, it adds up to far more than the sum of it's parts. And what 'parts' they are, not matter what kind of comics you read, I guarantee you'll have heard of some of the people involved. I'm still pinching myself that my contribution sits in their with the work of so many people I hugely admire.
Read more about it here.
As soon as I'm able to show something, I will.... but only a little bit!

The Octonauts

The Octonauts is brilliant. Couldn't resist turning my daughter into Captain Barnacles.

Tom Hickathrift

Poor Tom. Jason and I worked really hard to produce something we hoped publishers would appreciate. Sadly, so far, despite some lovely feedback it hasn't happened yet. We hope Tom will find a chance to rise, and take his place next to Asterix, or Bone, but we need a publisher for that. If anyone wants to contact us, please do. In the meantime, here's the first 10 pages and a cover.

Big Lebowski/Sesame Street

Here's the pic I'll be giving to my wife for her birthday tomorrow.

Judge Death

You know who this guy is, right?

'cover'

Throwaway comment in a conversation and a friends asking for a picture combined in this picture.

Frankenfunnies

This was an itch that needed scratching. I first came up with the idea for this strip almost five years ago, and posted a couple designs. Since then it's just sat in a dusty drawer in my brain.
As I never forgot the idea, I thought it deserved to be put to paper. The paper itself is pretty big, almost A2 as I saw this looking like a Sunday Comics page and wanted to try and capture some of that feel.
I had another idea for a second strip, hopefully it won't take five years this time.