The Peacock

This is a piece I have done for another good friend's birthday. I was thinking of it as being a sort of companion piece for the illustration of Yggdrasil below.


I think peacocks are fascinating creatures... How they adapted such extreme plumage is one of those curious wonders of nature.

Despite how amazing they are, I developed a bit of a hatred of peacocks whilst my wife and I were looking for a place to get married. We looked at a place in Bigglewade where there was a beautiful ornamental garden that had a license. The gardens had a few resident peacocks and the weird calling noise they produce rang out all around in an other-worldly sort of way - I remember ground mist that day, but that could have been added in my mind for effect. There was path that you were supposed to follow around the gardens, but along the way, one of the peacocks took a bit of a dislike to us and hissed and rattled it's tail. We turned and fled (literally) and decided it was perhaps better to get married elsewhere!

We must attract them, as this is not the only time we've been accosted in a public garden by a strange old bird.

Yggdrasil - The World Tree

A good friend asked if I'd do a picture of the legendary tree Yggdrasil from the Norse legends for his birthday. I said I'd look into it - what I turned up on the international webbery sounded really cool, if somewhat involved...


After a small discussion, this is what I produced - a picture of a tree, slightly less epic in it's nature and proportions than Yggdrasil... I'm pretty happy with the Snake gnawing at the roots. In the Norse Legend the snake is called Nidhogg. There's plenty I've omitted from the entire legend - a host of inhabitants, a golden cock, four stags, a cheeky squirrel or something, then guarding the roots, there are three goddesses called the Norns who would all have featured but I thought that may distract from the tree, which was to be the main subject matter.
On reviewing the legend, it would appear that a fire giant called Surt burns the tree down during Ragnarok which I imagine, had I drawn that instead, would have looked not dissimilar to this piece I did earlier in the year.

Boldly Go...

The new Star Trek movie is out and DrawerGeeks is using the current topic to 'commemorate' the fact.


I'm trying out something a bit different style-wise on this quick sketch. I think Spock is pretty close but Kirk is way off.

Left and Right

A quick sketch to identify how I want Sinister Dexter to look in the sample script I'll be working on next. I think Ramone needs some work, but I'm happy with Finnigan.


I'm just finishing something up for Zarjaz the 2000AD fanzine published by the dudes at FutureQuake but I can't show any of that at the moment - I'm quite pleased with what I've done and it was a cool strip to be involved with...

Not much to report from Bristol over the weekend, other than that the faces were all extremely friendly and the pies were good!