Axel Pressbutton

Pedro Henry and Curt Viles' classic creation from 'Sounds' and later, with Steve Dillon/Mick Austin/Alan Davis, in 'Warrior'.
It's the 'Sounds' version that I liked best so that's the version I decided to draw, Steve Dillon's redesign was great but I just liked the quirky lo-fi charm.
This is the pic I decided to redo, there's not that much difference between the two versions, but enough to keep me happy!

Hellboy

Finally managed to get this pic uploaded, but it's not as sharp a scan as a result, I'll try and sort a better one out tomorrow.
Mike Mignola's a tough act to follow, but the nice thing about doing these pix is that I feel like I'm learning quite a bit from looking at the original works and then doing my own version, I certainly learnt a lot from this one.

Transformer?

It's a pram, it's a car seat, it's a push chair! Yes my new toy just stops short of turning into a large kick arse robot.
Nice having a pram in the house, what with Rebecca's belly-button becoming an 'outie' last night I things are moving forward baby-wise.

Strontium Dog

Not as much atempt of the old school 2000ad stylings for this one. I'm not actually a big fan of Johnny Alpha, I think his last decent story was the one where Wulf got killed off and he went off for revenge, but the early stories were great and he is a classic 2000ad character.
Think I'll try my hand at some non2000ad stuff next, although I do plan to do some more. Maybe I'll give Hellboy a go, Mr Zombie Dollars Nik Holmes' fine version has inspired me!

Ghost Rider rebelling against whadevah ya got

Back when I lived in london I was a regular at the excellent Gosh comic shop and when the staff decided to put together a Marvel pin up book they asked me and some of their other regulars to contribute, this meant getting fine pictures from the likes of D'israeli,Ilya, Woodrow Phoenix, Will Kane, Craig Conlan and Garry Leach.
IIRC I figured that it'd be fun to draw a goofy but cool character and when I thought of GH an image popped into my head so I did it. I stuck with the early Ghost Rider because the later versions with the big flashy bike look a bit embarrassing to me, bit too 'hair metal' instead of the rock 'n' roll of Mike Ploog's version.
Anyway, the basic drawing's not quite right, GH isn't sitting on the bike right, and so on. But I was really pleased with the inking and I think the pose and attitude worked despite the proportions being off.

Judge Dredd

And here's the finished version. Not as scratchy as my RoBusters pic a few posts back, but hopefully just as chunky looking.
Deliberated over whether or not to draw the original lawgiver or the new one and decided to not be such a old sod.
No new artwork for a few days as, like the previous post says, I'm going away, but I will dig out a Ghost Rider pic I did as I saw the trailer for the upcoming film and thought it looked pretty cool (or as cool as a seen it all before effects driven film can be)

London's calling

We're off to visit a friend in London tomorrow. Since we left five years ago we've been to London twice, read into that what you will.... as long as you read into 'London? Pah'.
We were at our weekly 'parentcraft' class last night and watched a two day old baby getting a bath, it was brilliant, can't believe it's taken me this long to see how amazing babies are.
I also learned a bit about Ventouse and Forceps birth..... ow. Respect to Mothers everywhere. There was a picture of a baby that had been delivered by the ventouse method, poor little thing! Basically this method involved using something that resembles a sink plunger (there's a a fancier looking one now but the principle's the same), sticking it on the unborn babies head and pulling (it might require a bit more finesse than that). Then end result of birth by this method is a healthy baby which will look like a conehead for about three days. Seriously, it's not a little bump on top it's like a pink bowler hat without the brim.
Forceps on the other hand require mum having,um, a snip in the lower regions to allow room to get the forceps and the baby out. Once again, respect to mums everywhere.
Olivia is under instructions to leap out not touching the sides.

Jobling made me do it

Here ya go Mr Bling, you asked for it.

Jackanory

There's something to read over on my writing blog if anyone feels like looking, go on, have a go.

Astrodog

Sorry about the ropey scans, had to do these using my digital camera so they're a touch fuzzy (my shaky hands) and the colours aren't quite right. There's another painting in between these but I just couldn't get a decent picture of it - I'll try later.
These are from my attempt at a picture book called 'Astrodog, I mocked up the full thing and did three finished pieces but only sent it to Walker Books (I knew someone there), they liked it, but not enough. I did the decent thing and gave up. Actually I find painting really hard (these are nearly two years old and the last that I've done, I just wasn't happy with the end results - annoyingly I did a couple of paintings a year before, cranked them out and am still far happier with them than my 'proper' attempts!) and writing picture books even harder, I'd love to try again, but not just yet.
As soon as I can muster up a better scan I'll post the middle pic, it's of Astro's space ship coming out the ground from underneath his kennel, very Thunderbirds.

Rojaws and Hammerstein

Long time 2000ad fans will know who these guys are. Did this a while a go, it was one of my occassional atempts at drawing in a different style, I felt like trying to capture a little of the look of yer classic 2000ad artdroids McMahon and O'Neill, both of them comic gods.

Batgirl Returns

A few people visited here lately to look at the pic I did for the Batgirl meme thingy back in January. So I thought I'd repost it as I'm not sure if the people who visit nowadays ever saw it. Apologies for the pixellation, neither me or the scanner are to blame this time around, when I coloured it on the shockingly basic art package I have it ended up all blocky and I don't have the original smooth scan on my hard drive anymore.

Drunken blogging, why?

Honestly, what made me think it was so important to tell people what I had on my ipod shuffle? No idea. And when I'm sober 'Working Class Hero' is good but embarrassingly 6th formy.
Now I think of it I reckon I might post a bit less drunk or sober, I'm stuggling for things to waffle about lately and deleting posts before I put them up. I'll just post art and stuff and reviews on t'other blog. With the odd ramble here and there just for good measure of course.

Danny's Doctor

As requested, by Danny by me, here's my go at The Second Doctor by the brilliant Pat Troughton. The cover design of the book (d'y' geddit?) he's reading is inspired/stolen (delete as applicable) by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli's fine comic adaptation of 'War of the Worlds' fact fans.

Save my brain

Okay, I feel like drawing stuff but I'm not sure what, so how about I get other people to do the thinking for me, pop something in the comments, keep it simple (please!) and keep it comics/monsters/films/cartoon characters/you get the idea, pin up stuff basically.
That's it really, I'll probably come up with something myself but any help assistance in not thinking for myself is greatly appreciated.

Another blog.

After the teaser of my last post, and a comment from Mr Bling on his blog, I unveil the new improved Jackanory
Now that I'm moving all my review type stuff to HappennyWorth I've decided Jackanory is where I'll put examples of what I'm writing. The first chapter of 'Simian Smith' is still there (it doesn't have the changes in it I made after fine suggestions from INJ, but that only counts for a few lines here and there) and I've also decided to post the first chapter of 'The Tale of The Turnip'. TTOTT is in fairly early stages at the moment with only four chapters written and this is very much in first draft stages, but for anyone who wants to read a warts an' all (ie spelling mistakes and grammatical gaffs and an' all) work in progress you might find it interesting. All comments are, as always, greatly appreciated.

You won't break me!

Bit of rough day today. Moving boxes went fine and my folks have been doing a spot of decorating for us, but work was an exercise in pain. I didn't realise practically every aspect of the place was under warranty, but it must be as they all seemed to expire today accompanied by many puffs of smoke. Computers crashing, tills jamming, orders going weird and staff sick, and that wasn't half of it.
To unwind I've posted more reviews on Happenny Worth and am just about to finish 'The Bullet Trick' by Louise Welsh, is it better than 'The Cutting Room'? Not sure, but frankly when your books are this good it doesn't matter.

Opinions, everybody's got 'em

After much faf I've revived my 'review' blog. It's called Happenny Worth and the links to the left. The first few reviews will be from my old review blog and Wazzock's Lantern but I'll be sneaking newer stuff in too. Reading it is not obligatory but if you want to agree/disagree please join in so I can tell you why I'M right and YOU'RE wrong!

We move house next week!

Picked up the keys yesterday after a lengthy but straightforward buying process. The sellers dawdled signing papers and agreeing times, we only found out we could get the keys on the 21st late on the 20th.
It'll be a rushed move but we're pretty handy at moving after wandering from house to house over the last 10 years.
A quick look around the place last night turned into a drama as the last people in (house sitter I think) decided to set the alarm and no one thought to tell us the code or how to use the thing. Half an hour of shrill ringing before we found someone who knew someone who knew the people who knew the code.
Once our ears stopped ringing and we were able to look past the left behind tat, dust, cobwebs and green stained sink with a beer can in it, it was nice to be looking at our first home.
It's not fancy but it's big enough to fit us all in, it's practically detached (the bedroom at the back is the only part of the place connected to next door) and is quite private, which is great for me as I like a house less like a castle and more like a cave away from civilization. For people on our measly wage we seem to have been really lucky.
And anyway, we've bought our first HOUSE!!! YAY!!!

Everyone's going zombie crazy

And so they should!



Check out Zombie Dollars for some seriously tasty flesh, uh, I mean artwork.