Sunday 24 October 2010

2000AD Twitter

Over on the 2000ad forums, the monthly art comp is something I usually intend to contribute to... but I seldom find the time these days. This month, it's such a good theme - mash-ups/crossovers and I had what I thought was a pretty good idea. A twitter spoof!


So I enlisted the services of my good pal and frequent collaborator Rich Clements and made time!

For the uninitiated, twitter reads from the bottom up... so you'll need to click the image, zoom in and scroll to the bottom to start!

I really hope you enjoy reading this as much as Rich and I did producing it!

Monday 18 October 2010

BICS 2010

This year, I was pretty unprepared and not that confident about my portfolio, perverse then, that I was the most relaxed I have been at any of the three BICS I have attended.

It was really good to see old friends and make new ones, so, thanks to everyone for a great weekend!


The highlights for me, amongst many fabulous chats with too many cool people to mention here (for fear of missing anyone out) were:

1. I got to see a copy of Sci-Fi Art Now which I have the above illustration featured in, alongside some heavyweights of the genre. John Freeman has put together a cracking coffee table book, the kind I would have poured over as a child. The book is currently only £13.99 so please go buy a copy!

2. The slightly awe inspiring incident when I decided to ask Dave Gibbons whether he'd mind looking at my portfolio.
He really liked my work and felt that on the whole it was nice stuff particularly facial expressions, it was just there were a few small things letting me down, one of which I had done repeatedly.
Tangents.

So, what is a tangent with respect to comic art and why is this bad?

It's a situation where a line in your panel creates a tangent to the border or another feature or line in your panel as with this example here.

The problem is that it can flatten a panel because you lose depth when a line runs into another that should look like it is in another plane of the image.

Forget for a moment that the arm is a little anatomically dodgy, the major factor spoiling the composition of the panel is at the shoulder where the inked line meets the border.

The slightly frustrating thing is, they are pretty easy to avoid in this instance by simply having the panel border crop the figure or alternatively allow enough space away from the panel edge.

It's pretty clear to see the massive improvement not only in how the eye is not drawn to the panel border, but in the composition also.

Honestly, it's just a little careless. It was discussed elsewhere but is relevant here, as an artist, you instinctively know when something is wrong, you can see it even if you don't quite know what it is.

More often than not, it takes someone else to point it out, in my case Dave Gibbons pointed it out repeatedly within my portfolio, much to my embarrassment, but as he wisely said, "You'll never do it again, will you?" and I certainly hope not to.


Tangents can occur within the panel too, and it's a little tricky to describe in words, hopefully the quick sketches that Dave did for me to illustrate the concept will help any interested party to understand the potential pitfall.

There are a long and tough set of concepts that need to be bore in mind when laying out a page of sequential art, and it is easy to forget something you know, or should be proficient at.

Something as simple as the breaking down a panel into three planes.

My panel here is suffering from more than that but the fix is simple if we look at the quick sketch Dave did to remind me how I could have avoided most of the problems.

Black placement and line weight become much easier to decide upon when the panel is broken down in this way.

It's simple, logical and creates greater depth within the panel. Irritatingly it's something I've fallen foul of before, again, I hope to never make the same mistake again.

Finally Dave gave me a tip on how to hold my brush, there's no need for puerile or childish jokes, this is a serious matter and will give you greater control over your line for fine detail. very simply put, hold your brush upright.

It's a Chinese technique and the name Dave told me for it escapes me for the moment, as does the name of a classic EC cartoonist my work reminded Dave of.

Encouraged that Dave Gibbons, that's Dave Gibbons folks, liked my work I approached another couple of editors on the Sunday, one of whom told me that my portfolio was the best he'd seen all weekend. Humbled, chuffed etc. I left Birmingham far more confident, happy and inspired than when I arrived.

Sunday 17 October 2010

One Cool Cat

Jim Campbell has helped me out more times than I care to mention. He's lettered samples, collaborated on un-paid submissions and has recently worked with me on a tricky job to produce some poster sized comic pages.

Jim has just launched his own blog, Clint Flicker, where the man of letters will deal with his highly under-rated discipline's subtleties.

This weekend is the Birmingham Comcs Convention and hopefully I will have already managed to give Jim the original inks to the illustration of Catwoman below - small thanks for his efforts on my behalf.



This piece also figures as new porfolio piece for the convention and all things being well you can see a coloured version over on Scotch Corner today.

Monday 4 October 2010

Dredd Sans

A topic on the 2000ad forum, that I've mean to contribute for a long while is the you have 15 minutes to draw Dredd's Head - minus the helmet. Over the weekend, Staz Johnson posted a particularly gritty interpretation that brought the topic back to my attention.


Suitably inspired, I sketched this last night... I think this was just under the 15mins.