Incredible Hulk v2

I've just become a member over on the drawing board, where I posted my Hulk for some more comments...



Thanks to a number of board members who made suggestions, including the multi-talented Euan Mactavish, I think I have improved upon my original Hulk with a shadow and some extra, subtle, chest details...

I just saw some pics of the new hulk movie in this month's Empire magazine... Ed Norton and Liv Tyler could make it worth a look, maybe?

Illustration Friday - "Primitive"

I was going to do something with a caveman for this topic, but I saw a few of those appearing on the link viewer...



I've been looking for an excuse to do a illustration of the HULK. So, to relate it to the topic... I think his anger comes from the primitive/primeval part of his brain, the animal instincts.

I'm sure it'll come as no surprise to those of you who know me and those of you who've been following my blog for a while that I loved the 70's series of the HULK starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno.

"Don't make me angry, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry..."

GENIUS!

I wanted my Hulk to be as ridiculously proportioned as I felt possible - that's where the fun of the character is for me!

Robin Hood

Last summer, when I first took time to try to develop my freelance career I started with this piece. Robin Hood. My concept was that Robin would be in touch with the forest, he would love the trees and would climb them like Tarzan does - hence the large hands. I also thought about the merry men being a group of trees that he frequently stayed near, a favourite spot! Obviously Little John would be a huge old oak tree! I hadn't really got how the Maid Marion element would work...

After working digitally on all the PODZ creatures, I wanted to use some proper paints again. So, using my old favourites, acrylics, I painted a sketch I had done of Robin... I didn't like the background I had painted with him so, I painted another background separately and composited the two digitally.

It didn't turn out quite as I'd have liked, but I felt under a lot of pressure to develop a new portfolio as I had very little work I was totally happy with. So I moved onto another project in order to keep up my momentum.



As a kid I'd loved the old ITV 'Robin of Sherwood' with Michael Praed as Robin. I really liked the mystical element they gave to the legend. I don't think I've ever really liked any of the other Robin Hoods since... Although Alan Rickman's performance as the sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (despite the rest of the film being truly awful) stands out for me as being how the sheriff should be played!

At some point I'd like to revisit this concept for a new version of Robin, possibly as a storybook...

Snow Dragon - Rough!

This is something I've been playing with since yesterday afternoon. it's a bit rough at the moment but I thought I'd see if there was opinion in the blogging community...

After doing the Calvin and Hobbes 'All Grown Up' strip I was thinking about Calvin's Snowman art... would that have evolved too? Also, we had a lot of snow in the UK last week and that kind of inspired me.

I'm not sure if this is working - I like the background and might use that as a starting point for some Christmas cards.



The next step would be to get some line art in there to heighten the dragon's impact... but I might ditch the whole thing or rethink the Calvin's snowman art angle...

Illustration Friday - "Save"

ITV in the UK have been runnning a competition to create a creature for their brilliant drama Primeval. I've just submitted my entry, the deadline for entries is April 7th, so if you're interested you'll need to be very quick! Details on the competition can be found here (until the deadline at least).

If you're unfamiliar with Primeval, a rough guide to it would be Doctor Who meets The X-files, Jurassic Park, Stargate and The A Team but whatever it is exactly, it's definitely good fun!

Illustration Friday's theme this week is save... obviously if you were faced with the creature below, you'd be hoping that someone came to save you!


I'm calling it Hyenaman until a better or more suitable name occurs to me (or until a really good one is suggested to me).

On the subject of being saved... Taormina is in need of saving again and if you haven't already visited to see her most recent episode - please do and feel free to comment too! (plug, plug!)

Taormina's Next Episode

Well, due to other projects and website stuff, this has been a little longer in production than I had hoped...


In this episode Taormina encounters the haima vultures....

In the next episode we will meet Pardus, Taormina's huge winged companion - please keep coming back as there will be more Taormina soon!