Kev Lev's Blog

Special Project

2012-01-16T12:03:00.003Z

Just before New Year, my lovely wife gave birth to this little bundle of joy.

Ted Sampson Levell
Needless to say, things may be a little quiet on the blogging front for a while...
Please do check in every once in a while though, as I do have some other exciting projects I will be working on this year and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible!

Season's Greetings

2011-12-16T12:10:00.006Z

It's that time of year again.

I've just sent out my e-card to (hopefully) all of my friends, family, clients and collaborators etc.

En-masse e-mail delivery paranoia demands that I state here that if you haven't received the card, feel you should have or would like to receive it next year... please do that which is necessary to alert me, fix your filters and/or notify your e-mail provider that I'm not spam!

It's a truly awful pun, but that is, in-keeping with festive or seasonal jokes found in crackers...

The initial idea was just a horrible cardigan made into a card, like so many 'Christmas jumpers' of my youth - after sketching a perplexed and generic 'every-man' holding up said offending garment, it occurred that the real joke was in the misunderstanding. Why it became Peter Parker and MJ is anybody's guess, but my guess would fall firmly in the camp of "because I like drawing girls".

The usual 'stages' stuff follows:

digital roughs

sketch-up lounge guide

final digital "pencils"

inks

All the very best of the season to you all, have a good one!

Dante Claus

2011-12-03T08:30:00.003Z

Yesterday was my turn to submit to the 2000ad virtual advent calendar.

A terrible, terrible pun drifted into my mind - but one that had to be done! Nikolai Dante is the swashbuckling lead character in the 2000ad saga of the same name, created by Robbie Morrison and Simon Fraser. For the uninitiated, Jena Makarov is his love interest (a frequently thwarted one).

here are the pencils and inks for those of you who are interested in the process.

I had a number of captions and dialogue options, some more smutty than others, and I even asked for some opinions, and they were as divided as my own... in the end I left the 'sack' jokes alone, despite the puerile joy of them. You are welcome to suggest any and all alternate options in the comments though!

2000ad Advent 2011

2011-12-02T08:30:00.001Z

For the past couple of years, Pete Wells, charming host of the 2000ad covers uncovered blog has run an online advent calendar on the 2000ad forum.

This year is no different, and once again, my effort is early doors number 2. For those who're interested, and haven't seen them before, here are my efforts for 2009 and 2010.

Not wanting to spoil any potential surprises, here's a crop of my rough.

The final version should be up on the forum already, but if not it will be soon!

You can keep up with the wonderful entries each day until the 24th by calling in to the forum topic here.

All round Comics' Geezer.

2011-12-01T09:49:00.005Z

Jim Campbell should need no introduction, as a letterer at least, but what a lot of people don't know is that he is also a talented artist too.

Jim did the above illustration in response to my Judge Kev photo (see previous post of me in a Planet Replica's Judge's helmet) that was taken by Bolt-01 at Thoughtbubble.

ThoughtBubble 2011

2011-11-21T17:07:00.009Z

I was at Thought bubble in Leeds over the weekend. Thanks, first of all to Dave Stokes for organising a pass for me.

I met up with other friends too, some old, some new and had some great chats with them. Thanks go to, Rich Clements, Dave Evans, Owen Watts and Jazz, Judge Burdis, Lee Langford, Dunk Nimmo, Eddie and Jon at Com.X, Lee Robson, John Burdis, Pye Parr, Luke Preece, Stephen Downey, Vicky Stonebridge, Emma Vieceli, Conor and Liz Boyle, Nick Dyer, Stacey Whittle and her two charming little girls, Pete Wells, Spirite 68, Matt Badham, Abby Ryder, Daniel Carey George, Guy (Large 48), Terry Martin, Alex, Matt Smith (Tharg), Mike Marshall, Nic Wilkinson, Mark Laming and Dan McDaid, sorry to any one I've forgotten in that list.

I also achieved a childhood dream thanks to Planet Replicas:

Judge Kev
There were some very interesting developments, but I want to wait to see how they pan out before blurting out what they might be!

The Badger

2011-10-31T13:40:00.003Z

Cripes! A month between posts...

This was done as a very quick entry for this month's A Little Bit Bunny, pop on over there to see this guy as I intended to present him...

I vaguely thought he could be Wolverine's dad!

When Doodles go...

2011-09-30T13:45:00.003+01:00

...awry?

I was doodling, this is what happened.

What the hell is it?

Yet Another Dredd

2011-09-21T12:21:00.003+01:00

This was quickly sketched out whilst on holiday last week... used it as inking warm-up over the last couple of days.

The Four Brick Judges

2011-09-12T12:00:00.001+01:00

Following the 2000ad Lego commission, Ian Leonard asked if I could expand the concept by doing cover recreations of classic 2000ad covers. He had a number in mind, but first up was Brian Bolland's brilliant cover to prog 225.

For ref, I've included the original Bolland version below.

I missed a trick though, I should have edited in a 'Legoland' price... if Ian asks for any more of these, I will add that into the price list somewhere!

Babble Project

2011-09-08T11:04:00.005+01:00

A little while ago, Lee Robson, asked me if I'd be interested in taking part in a project to help promote his (and Bryan Coyle's) upcoming Graphic Novel Babble, furthermore, it would mean doing my own take on BlueSpear for it! Naturally, I was coy, and simply said I'd be delighted. What was more, he'd squared the way with Andi Ewington and Com.X and they were happy for Lee to use my depiction of BlueSpear on his promotional project! Excited? Me? You betcha!

Lee has some other top characters and creators lined up and the project continues this week with Dave Evans' Whistler.

Boing Boing

2011-08-19T15:13:00.003+01:00

Here's something I did for Pete Wells of the 2000ad covers uncovered blog fame.

I'd owed him a sketch for a while, since HiEx 2010 in fact, where for some reason, I only did half a sketch for him.

Lesson is More, Moron Less.

2011-08-16T11:55:00.008+01:00

I've had this idea bumping around in my head for close to ten years now. Usually it would get paraded out when I heard about someone doing something stupid... the 'less/fewer' error was pointed out to me by my wife, Vicky, some time ago. Learning from the mistake (in the spirit of the comment itself) meant that I had to stop saying it, even though I still thought it was funny.

The blackboard and 'teacher's correction' idea hit me this morning and so I quickly put this together in photoshop. The idea, like me, is bettered by Vicky's input I think.

I doubt very much that the phrase was ever original to me but It's nice when an old idea finally comes to fruition and you don't see someone else who's made something of 'your' idea before you do.

2000ad Lego

2011-08-11T10:29:00.006+01:00

Another commission for Ian Leonard. Delighted to do this one after the Wizard of Oz one I did just a couple of months ago.

Hopefully it speaks for itself - I think it could really work as a series of Lego minifigures.

Here are my rough sketch sheets - yes, I cheated - I used a template figure printed a few out and drew all over the top them...

Oooh, Frosty!

2011-07-30T09:09:00.007+01:00

Recently did this illustration of Emma Frost for Andi Ewington, he of 'The 45' from Com.X fame. Watch out for 'Blue Spear' coming soon from Com.X by Andi, Eddie Deighton and Cosmo White.

She'll wrap you around her little finger, so it's no surprise that here's a picture of a happy looking Andi with my interpretation of Ms. Frost!

Resurrection

2011-07-21T07:45:00.000+01:00

Here then, as promised in yesterday's post: Johnny Alpha, back in the land of the living.

If you missed it yesterday over on Scotch Corner, here's my Durham red piece mocked up into a prog cover.

And The Johnny Alpha one too.

Scotch Corner is Two

2011-07-20T09:00:00.005+01:00

Well, last month I was delighted to be invited to contribute once again to Scotch Corner, the Caledonian Comic Artists Collective who're celebrating their blogging birthday this month with a series of guest slots. I'm am amongst some seriously talented folk contributing, too many cool people to name have already contributed - and there's more to come!

Previously, I've submitted Bat-world pieces to their guest slot: a Harley Quinn, a Joker, and a Catwoman, but no surprises, it is 2000ad that I have turned to on this special occasion. Specifically the world of Strontium Dog, and as is usual for me, I gravitated to the girl in the gang - Durham Red.

You can see the full coloured version of that over on Scotch Corner. Also note the edited hand... after I'd inked it, and saught the advice of trusted indivduals, I felt this version was too claw like.

If you like this, then please come back tomorrow as I'll be posting up a piece that celebrates the return of Johnny Alpha, in fact, the resurrection of Johnny Alpha and his imminent return to the prog - as trailered in prog 1742, see the prog or ECBT2000ad for the details!

Termight Motivation

2011-07-18T13:46:00.003+01:00

So a post on ECBT2000ad made me revisit something I did a couple of weeks ago.

Pretty simple as I had the graphics already sitting around on my computer. 30 minute spoof- lovely.

Kerchakk!

2011-07-17T10:57:00.003+01:00

Now that the new issues of Zarjaz and Dogbreath are out... (you'll have bought them already I take it!) I can share something more of the strip I did for the ABC Warriors special.

This is the first two pages as a taster.

As I mentioned in my "Black Hole" post, I was trying to get an essence of other artists, one of who was the BIZ... not sure I really like the finish to be honest, but when I showed it to Tharg at Kapow, he thought it had more energy...

Logo Designs

2011-07-14T08:45:00.006+01:00

Last year, as a result of a recommendation by my buddy Dave Stokes, I was asked to produce a logo for a gaming book by a company that produces wargame figurines. Miniature Design Studio produces 28mm figurines for what I'd describe as role playing games...

The brief was to create a logo with a 'calligraphy bias'. The name of the game was 'origin'. This was the design that was settled on:

Recently, I was approached to do a further two logos. This time, in b&w and colour.

Again, there was a strong 'calligraphic' bais to the letter forms.

It's always nice to mix up things a bit and I do enjoy working on something so different from my more usual illustration work. Different challenges keep things fresh I think because coming back to drawing after these has been a real joy as well.

Chewbacca's Bac

2011-07-12T17:41:00.004+01:00

Something for A Little Bit Bunny. Coloured version there.

Will Somebody Get This Big Walking Carpet Out of My Way?

SVK and the future of print.

2011-07-10T12:33:00.005+01:00

Usually I bang on about my own art, 2000ad and not much else here on my blog...

But I bought a copy of SVK last week and felt the urge to share my experience of it. If you've heard nothing about this comic, then where have you been?

Hopefully I haven't gone all pseudo review tone in the following.

SVK, Berg London, Warren Ellis and D'Israeli (Matt Brooker) have created something wonderful.
I ordered during the week, pretty soon after I saw that the comic was available - instinctively I knew here was something that was important. On Thursday, a beautiful package arrived, carefully considered and graphically pleasing, contained within was the high production value Comic and SVK device, or UV torch.

Not exactly a new reading experience, as I could liken certain aspects of it to '3D' comics with '3D' glasses of the 70s and 80s but it's certainly a different and intriguing concept. Intiguing enough to keep me engaged to the very end and had me scouring the pages over and over again to hopefully eek out those little secrets no one else had noticed.

The only criticism I can find is that perhaps the build quality of the torch could be a little better, as one bulb flickers slightly, but that didn't harm my reading experience in the slightest. I don't want to say too much about the story, it is short and punchy and perhaps for the money, I might be used to seeing twice the number of pages, but I think I'm entirely happy with the value for money.

The current trend for digital books has posed the question: is print dead? SVK answers that with an unequivocal NO. Reading a comic or book for that matter can be an immersive experience and when the reader is engaged in a way that SVK engaged me interactively, then I hope that print very much has a future. I also hope that others will be inspired to push the boundaries in similar ways that SVK does. I know I'm certainly thinking a little differently after reading it.

The first print run has sold out, but it looks like there will be a second printing coming soon. I strongly advise anyone with an interest in graphic media to get hold of a copy! For more details see the official SVK page.

Keep Calm and Carry On?

2011-07-07T16:49:00.004+01:00

You know this is what you'll really do:

I did this, this afternoon before the news broke about The News of the World ceasing publication... seems sort of more appropriate now.

*EDIT* Seen a lot of this on the interwebs after a double check search... in fact, just about everything but my permutation of words. oh well, no such thing as a new idea.

Surrender Dorothy!

2011-07-01T20:32:00.005+01:00

Now in Technicolor!

I'm just about done on the Wizard of Oz, Judge Dredd and Johnny Alpha cross-over commission.

There's still a decision to be made over the final dialogue though...

Mutants in Judy Garland Block

2011-06-30T08:39:00.006+01:00

I've been working on a commission for another member of the 2000ad forum.
Ian Leonard asked if he could have a Johnny Alpha and Judge Dredd team-up, where those two bad boys were surrounded by mutants and zombies etc, but also including characters from the Wizard of Oz!

These are the cleaned up inks ready to colour.

The raw scan shows through where I've printed out a 'blue-line' version of my digital 'pencils'.

Here's a few stages of development, including the proposed dialogue on the first.

I feel like Johnny and Dredd should be saying something smart arse too, but inspiration is lacking on that front.

Get With The Programme!

2011-06-27T15:03:00.005+01:00

This week's 2000ad, prog 1740, features all new stories. One of the occassional 'jumping on progs'. I trust you'll all be doing the sensible thing and getting re-aquainted, introduced or just plain staying with the programme!

This isn't the cover, sadly. This is a mock 2000AD cover based on a Tharg I did for the 2000ad twitter spoof I did with Rich Clements last year - I've spruced it up and added some other effects since then though.

Oh, and I'm now on tumblr too!

Second Psight

2011-06-25T14:21:00.003+01:00

Digging around, looking for something I else, I found a coloured version of the Judge Anderson piece I did way back in Sept 2010...

Nothing much else to say, but worth sharing I thought.

The Brothers Grimm

2011-06-23T14:47:00.005+01:00

I was contacted recently by Ryan Ballard, who is putting together a whole book of sketches based on the fantastic Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon series Preacher as a present for his Dad. How cool is that?
You can see all the contributions he's got so far at The Preacher Project.

He asked me for a Jody and TC - two of the worst brothers I think that have ever been cooked up.

I went for their flashback versions - as that's where we see what a pair of evil b*stards they really are... if you've read the story, you'll know what TC is up to here.

I showed the initial pencils to Ryan and he asked if I could revise the sketch more inline with the scene where Jesse's Dad get's shot. <<<-- highlight for spoiler. This moved from the implied humour of my initial concept, and would play up the emotional resonance - Ryan also asked if I could add in a young, upset but determined Jesse... TC's dialogue just didn't fit anymore.

I was chuffed to be invited to join the gang, and I was pretty pleased with the result too!

Action Packed

2011-06-23T11:44:00.007+01:00

Here's something a bit different from my usual stuff. My good friend Russ asked if I would do a spoof of the fabulous Traction Man is Here by Mini Grey, using him as the subject for his girlfriend Clare's birthday.

Emulating Mini Grey (to a certain extent) and trying to get enough of a likeness was a really enjoyable challenge.

If you haven't read Traction Man, please do follow the link above and invest in a copy - you won't regret having dazzle painted battle pants in your life!

Countdown

2011-06-10T17:26:00.005+01:00

Tick, tick, tick...

There simply isn't enough time in the day!

Quick sketch of Old Father Time, The Grim Reaper or Death. Done last night, whilst watching the hilarious Inbetweeners.

Here's another one done as a warm-up this morning, what a cheery soul I am eh?

Pepping It Up

2011-05-26T16:40:00.006+01:00

Final art then for the much pimped Tyranny Rex commission:

Sometimes I go to silly lengths for effect. Rob asked for an in joke - the script for Phase V of Zenith... Grant Morrison wrote four books of Zenith, so-called phases, but I doubt there will ever be a fifth. You can only just see it in the final piece, and it took about half an hour of fiddling to get it right - D'Oh! I'm not even going to mention how long it took to find reference for the Our Price bag.

Finally on this, for the process completists amongst you - here are the final inks too.

I'm available for commissions like this and the Dredd piece I did earlier in the year. please feel free to contact me via the e-mail address in the sidebar for a quote.

Mint Sauce

2011-05-22T15:29:00.005+01:00

Well on course for the final piece now.

If you missed the previous posts, you can see the progress up to this point here, here and here!

Blown Whale

2011-05-21T13:49:00.003+01:00

It's unfinished, it's probably not very funny, but there's no way I'll get something finished up in time... so here's a sketch of what I would have done for Blue Whale over on A Little Bit Bunny.

I'll say it again, Google Sketchup is a an incredible resource... for this piece, I wanted to do one of the classic size comparisons... so I popped along to the sketch-up warehouse and hey presto, some kind soul has already done 90% of the hard work... so thank you Chris for your routemaster bus model, very helpful.

Posing Tyranny

2011-05-18T09:44:00.006+01:00

Work in progress again, back on the Tyranny Rex commission. Rob wanted me to vary a few things from the interim layout but I wasn't quite happy with Tyranny anyway, so I tried a couple of extra poses out...

I got a bit carried away and then couldn't decide which one worked best... if in doubt, let the client decide!

Rob chose 'E'... and suggested I wrap her tail around a dancer's pole! Things are coming together nicely now, and I'll post up the rough pencils here in the next couple of days.

What's new Pussy Cat?

2011-05-16T10:08:00.011+01:00

Not much that I can talk about to be honest...

This weekend was a dash around extravaganza. Bristol Comic Expo on the Saturday and a family event on the Sunday. All in all a good weekend.

There were some fine chats had with some good folk, and as is usual with a convention, I missed loads of other friends I'd wanted to see. On this occasion, not at all surprising as I was buzzing around so much in the short time I was there.

Thanks to John Freeman, Brady Webb, Joel Meadows & Gary Marshall, Emma Hayley, Andi Ewington and Eddie Deighton for very kind words about my portfolio - I've got some good feedback to think about and there are some very interesting irons in the fire as a result of the dash around, but more on that as things pan out.

It was nice to meet a lot of the members of the 2000ad forum (some old and some new friends amongst them) and I had great (if brief) chats also with Dunk Nimmo, Mike Carroll and Leonie, John Higgins, Nick Dyer, Dave Evans, Rich Clements, Matt Timson, Stacy Whittle, Jim Campbell, Emma Vieceli, Dave Stokes, Vicky Stonebridge, Nick Wilkinson, Cy Dethan, Steven Downey, Matt Gibbs, Chris Wildgoose, Matthew Mclaughlin, Owen Watts, Dave Thompson, Conor Boyle, Liz Boyle, Kerrin Shaw and last but not least (and enigmatic even in person) The Emperor... apologies to anyone I've forgotten (please let me know and I'll add a link for you!).

I don't really have anything else I can show at the moment so, in the meantime, here's a piece I did for A Little Bit Bunny a while ago.

The creature was Owl, but hopefully it doesn't need too much more explanation. It was a nice distraction, and hopefully shows some other skills. Blue Whale is the next creature, if you felt like joining in!

Lapping it up

2011-05-12T16:06:00.000+01:00

After the rough sketches and some discussion, Rob decided that he'd like to include Zenith in the commission piece too.

I suggested that Tyranny could be a dancer at a club called Peppermint Dino... the joke is kind of obvious, but I thought it was funny enough to run with.

I've done a few options for Tyranny's final pose and there are a few other bits to address in the final pencils. Rob seems happy, so far and the final piece should work out quite well!

That's about it for now, I'm off to Bristol Comic Expo on Saturday - bit of a flying visit really, if you see me - stop me and say Hi!

Tyranny Pin-up

2011-05-08T11:06:00.007+01:00

I'm currently doing a Tyranny Rex commission. After Kapow, I was contacted by Rob Ellis, who is a bit of a Tyranny Rex fan.

Rob wanted me to do a commission for him, but asked if there was any way to break down the costs. I wanted to be as flexible as I could and so we agreed on a process that would involve him buying all the preparatory work as I do it.

These are my initial sketches, very loosely using 'Cheesecake' pin-ups as a starting point.

We've moved a little away from that initial concept now, to try tell more of a story... but I thought it was worth showing these quick process pieces.

I like the cheekiness of this final one, but hopefully we're working towards something that encompasses that and much more!

This week will be another slow one for the blog as I'll be preparing for Bristol Comic Convention - where hopefully there will be exciting developments - I'm only there on the Saturday, so if you see me streaking past in a blur, please stop me and say Hi!

Dependent upon what I can get sorted, I may post the next stage that Rob and I have agreed on before I dash out the door!

Toad in the hole

2011-04-22T10:49:00.003+01:00

Over on the A Little Bit Bunny Blog, I'm late in the month of the Toad...

Initially I was going to do a Sagbelly, from an Episode of the classic Judge Dredd epic "The Judge Child". I got pretty close to a finished piece in photoshop... I was trying out an all digital approach...

...but then I remembered, I'd already done a Judge Dredd piece over there very recently!

Then I experimented with the idea of those psychedelic Toads... but toads are such weird looking creatures anyway, doing any sort of twist was causing me a headache...

If in doubt, go with a joke.

So, if you wanna see what I sketched out really quickly this morning...you know what to do!

Kapow! (goes the weekend)

2011-04-11T12:29:00.010+01:00

This weekend was Kapow, I only went for the Saturday though.

I arrived bright (and what I thought was early) to the Business Design Centre in Islington... all the same, I spent a very happy half hour queuing with my good buddy (and cover artist extraordinaire) Neil Roberts. We happily chatted our way along the snaking path to the entrance in the glorious sunshine.

Upon entry I was handed the usual crap in a bag. After finding where to hand my portfolio in for a possible review slot and a brief circuit of the con I looked at the programme to discover that time had ticked on. The 2000ad panel was going to start in 15 minutes... where the hell it was it taking place?

I wanted to deliver John's commission to him before that began... With mobile 'assistance', I located John, at the front of the queue for the 2000ad panel (huzzahs!)... Then blushing from all the kind comments from members of the forum I shuffled into the auditorium and hid a bit.

It was interesting to hear some legends of 2000ad speak. The panel comprised of Dave Gibbons, Matt Smith, Al Ewing, Jock, Chris Weston, Steve Yeowell and Brendan McCarthy and for the most part it was as informative a previous such talks I've been to. It was also heartening to hear from Jock that the Dredd movie is on track and looking "really cool".

I'd been sitting with Matt Gibbs and after the panel, he showed me the lovely work that he and James Reekie have been doing on the Ionmonger's Daughter... I honestly hope they find a good home for it, as it looks very cool indeed.

My next port of call after a respectable break was to once again approach Matt Smith at the 2000ad booth with my portfolio... as always, Matt was generous with his time and succinct in his appraisal of my work. He preferred the work I've been doing more recently, particularly Who's Next and my Joe Pineapples strip, because he felt my inking had more "life" to it. He still felt some of my panels were a little stiff, and pointed out a couple of the ones I wasn't happy with anyway... He said to send the samples in for him to put on file and happily that means I'm still moving in the right direction!

I'd prepared a cheeky business card specially for Matt, please see below (photo courtesy of Strontium71 on the 2000ad forum).

It just struck me as funny when I thought about doing it and I hope Matt got a kick out of it. (for those of you who've not seen it before, I originally did this piece for Dirk Van Dom's 2000ad Christmas party themed game)

I bumped into my most excellent friend and co-Tharg-hassler Conor Boyle, who had just been informed that portfolio submissions were now closed... and so he'd missed the opportunity (such as it was). From a couple of reports I've read though, it was oversubscribed and very few people actually ended up being seen anyway (I wasn't either) so I'm not sure if "opportunity" is the correct word...

Whilst Conor cornered Tharg I chatted briefly to Seb Antoniou.

With tummies rumbling, Conor and I headed out to find some food, Liz and Alec Worley in Costa Coffee, via the perpetually jovial Kerrin Shaw.

Fed and watered, we returned to the event, I picked up a copy of the ABC Warriors Special, which I'm sure you've all now ordered here or here from the good folk at FutureQuake. John Burdis, dressed convincingly in a Judge's uniform loomed into view and informed me that someone had been looking for me, the person in question sadly never found me - if you're out there, all I can say is, sorry, see you at Bristol?

Dave Stokes emerged a while later from a crowd and we spoke about the benefits of our twitter accounts and the difficulties associated with getting a break in the comics' industry. We parted with a mutual assurance that we would show our work to at least one more person. Pat Mills was in my peripheral vision and so I approached him... he asked that I show him during his signing later and so I nipped off to buy something suitable, as I don't usually 'do' the whole signing thing.

There was just time to swing by a very busy and record breaking Jim Campbell before getting in line.

I did manage to show my portfolio to Pat, and although again, he said he liked my work, I think it was my 'Blackmailing Tharg' business card that he liked most.

Knackered from standing in the queue, I headed for the Slug and Lettuce, where thanks to Liz and Conor, a nice space had been reserved for the 2000ad forum gang to congregate.

I was glad to put faces to so many names and hopefully I'll see them all again at the next convention I go to. I did a few sketches had a good laugh and didn't drink nearly enough to feel a woozy as I did before running to catch my train home.

A final thanks, goes out to the lovely Pete Wells of the 2000ad covers uncovered blog for letting me into a little known secret I'd been missing... a little motion blur and the judicious use of red, can really add the finishing touch to a piece of work.

Who's Next?

2011-04-07T09:44:00.012+01:00

Amongst other bits and pieces and preparation for this weekend's Kapow, I've been doing a commission for John Burdis, I'd done something for The Cellar of Dredd before, a quick single illustration of Hondo-Cit's Inspector Inaba. I'd done that under my own steam following the fab time I had at the Hi-Ex Comicon, but this time, John had something in mind.

The following is all about the "process" for those of you who like to see the work in progress stuff.

I did an initial sketch based upon John's original brief:

"Dredd stood in the middle of a street with dead superheroes strewn all around him and Joe saying something along the lines of "Costumed vigilantes, leave the real crime fighting to me!"
The characters who would be dead would include Superman (head missing definitely), Batman, Wonderwoman, Captain America and all those other US bods."

One thought kept floating around my brain, a pile of dead super-heroes and something in Brian Bolland's classic cover to Prog 2000 kept nagging at me as well.

John liked the inital sketch but had a couple of requests for additions if I could manage them:

First up was a simple addition to the roster of the dispatched: "Green Arrow's arm with a broken bow"

Next was just a weapons' upgrade to the "Colt Widowmaker " instead of the Anti-Hero gun I'd been musing over as the reason why Dredd was now able to dispatch these super-heroes.

Finally, a nice way to really make the commission a personal one: " a large pristine BURDIS BLOCK and a couple of derelict smaller blocks with the names MARVEL and DC".

In Dredd's world, towering apartment Blocks are often named after famous people, sometimes for satirical reasons, sometimes equally as a tribute to that person. I felt that DC and MARVEL blocks could nicely be rolled into the one (albeit well beaten-up) DEE CEE MARVILLE block.

I wanted the blocks to say something about John and the two comic companies respectively... aside from the beaten-up aspect of DEE CEE MARVILLE, I wanted the block to hint at those companies' stock-in-trade - Super-heroes!

John's online forum name is COMMANDO FORCES, for reason's which are obvious to anyone who knows him. Hopefully my intentions for his 'block' shouldn't need much more explaining. For the DEE CEE MARVILLE block, I wanted it to look as much a possible like a cape flowing over the shoulders of a hero, almost immediately that dictated a very Art Deco style, evocative of old movie theatres.

By this point I've switched into Google Sketch-up to muck about with the architecture, mainly because if we decide to change the POV, I haven't got to reconstruct the difficult curvature on that art Deco styled block... but it wasn't there that my main problem would be!

I had inadvertently created, by virtue of the military style helmet, a very phallic looking building... "could you put some sort of roof sports complex/airport style thing somewhere around/on that part?". Thankfully we caught it and had a chance to make a suitable alteration.

The only other thing John wanted was "More gore on those bodies." I guess the super-hero fan in me was just subconsciously trying to limit the damage to all those "good guys", but, you've got to give the client what they want!

I'd been concerned over Dredd's footing and so I added in Reed Richards, utlising his 'rubbery' consistency to nicely fill in the space between Superman and WonderWoman.

After showing the last version to John, I couldn't help but think we'd lost the 'Military' in the styling of 'Burdis Block' in favour of Miners or worse still, Doozers!

The easiest way to show him some alternatives was a little fly-around movie taken out of Sketch-up. I can't advocate strongly enough the time saving aspects of this program for me, where previously (hours of projecting the perspective correctly) would have ended up making me want to stab myself in the head.

Throughout the process, there had been dissatisfaction on both our parts over the wording of Dredd's proclamation, neither of ours had been punchy enough. John had started a forum topic to ask for help and there had been some great and some very witty suggestions, but it wasn't until my good pal and Fractal Friction co-contributer Chris Askham suggested a short and sweet "When are you CREEPS gonna learn?", that either John or myself found a 'fit' for the illustration.

We we're all happy until John posted my initial sketch in the same forum topic...

PJ Holden (who has always been insightful and helpful to me from my very earliest foray into the comics business) suggested the even shorter and IMO 'sweeter' "WHO'S NEXT?". Sorry Chris, but you know when something's right.

With the final version okayed by John, I turned the 'pencils' into a 'blueline' ready to print out. Using another tip I'd picked up from PJ, I left the 'speech' to print out in Black for crispness in the final artwork.

I inked the dead super-heroes first because I knew there would be a lot of work in that part, in fact it took most of a morning to do, but after getting Dredd inked in, it was all fairly plain sailing and came together quite quickly!

I sent a scan of the final thing to John yesterday and I'm pleased to say he's very happy with it and looking forward to seeing it in the flesh at Kapow!

I guess that's it really, other than to ask: "WHO'S NEXT?"

The Black Hole

2011-03-23T19:43:00.006Z

I've just finished my strip for the upcoming ABC Warriors Special issue of the Eagle Awards nominated fanzine Zarjaz.

The strip is another creative partnership with my good friend Rich Clements. I was really chuffed because Rich's script included a few panels with all the ABC warriors as they appeared in the Black Hole story line.

Pat Mills' original story, which marked the comics' debut of Simon Bisley, had a massive effect on me as a child - one of the major things that made me want to be a comic artist all those years ago!

I made the somewhat foolish decision to try to ape a little of the Biz's style - I can say now, that I didn't quite achieve the dynamism that he seemed to so effortlessly inject into his ABC Warriors pages - but I did learn some stuff as a result and it was a fun strip to do!

When the issue is out, I will share a bit more than this one panel... because I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise!

Something Batty

2011-03-08T14:26:00.002Z

This month's chosen creature on A Little Bit Bunny is the Bat.

What the hell has this cruddy sketch of a snowspeeder got to do with it I hear you ask... well, you can see for yourself by clicking here!

The Un-dead

2011-02-22T09:37:00.007Z

A couple of friends have (jokingly) asked whether I was dead. Since it felt like I had dropped off the map.

No, I'm not dead... I'm not the living dead, or more appropriately for my specific sphere of interest - I'm not Judge Death either...

...I'm just busy on something that is taking a lot of time and not something I can show.

Normal service will (I hope) be resumed shortly!

Wasp Block

2011-01-11T10:26:00.004Z

A new post from me over on A Little Bit Bunny. Unfortunately, it's not as finished as I would like, but I've received some feedback I was waiting for on another project and suddenly, play-time is over again!

Here's a quick sketch-up model I made for the main design element... and yes, that's Judge Dredd's Lawmaster in there... not that you see much of it in the final piece!

Two Birthdays

2011-01-07T08:56:00.006Z

This post marks the third birthday of my blog. Weirdly, this is also post 333, does that make it 50% evil?!

A good pal said to me over the seasonal break that he would like to see my take on The Dude, from the Coen Bros. fabulous The Big Lebowski.
I've got a real soft spot for The Dude, His Dudeness or El Duderino (if you're not into the whole brevity thing).

Like the film itself, there was a nice syncronicity to events, my friend's birthday is tomorrow, my blog would be 3 today, it was a nice quick sketch that I knew he was after and that suited my current status of waiting for feedback on the project I'm working on. Nothing was f**cked, So I drew him a card!

I don't think I've quite captured what I was after, but Jeff Bridges is a tricky chap to depict, even trying to get an essence of The Dude is a tall order... the desire to include (clever) quote related 'in jokes' was definitely not satisfied and originally I intended to do a group shot including Walter and Donny too, but sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes... well, he eats you!

Happy Easter... oh!

2010-12-24T01:01:00.002Z

It's time to announce a little sideline project I've been doing with my good chums Matt Dawson and Phil Morgan...

It's called A Little Bit Bunny and the basic idea is that each month, we all do an illustration based upon a chosen creature. The brief is about as open as it can be, but with the stipulation that a 'twist' of some description is made to the creature in question...

There are quite a few on the blog already to search through and also a small number on each of our blogs from before we decided to try to make it a monthly thing with some rules.

Hope you enjoy the project, and Season's Greetings to you all.

2000AD Xmas Party

2010-12-22T13:30:00.005Z

The 2000adonline forum virtual advent calendar is still going strong. About a month ago, one of the board members, Dirk Van Dom, asked whether I'd be willing to contribute something to help illustrate a game he was trying to produce/write/organise!

Here's a cropped section from my illustration...

To find the full (cheeky) image you'll have to play the game!

I'll let Dirk explain the idea:

Quote from: Van Dom
Remember the old ‘choose your own adventure’ stories? Well, I’ve prepared one for you to read/play, that centres around a night at a 2000ad Christmas party, as you mingle with various characters, get involved in various situations, and just generally try to make it through the night. The rules are simple. DON’T get eaten by Zombo. DON’T send Slaine into a warp spasm. And, above all, DON’T piss off Judge Dredd. If you can manage all that, you MIGHT impress Tharg and be rewarded, you MAY score with a really hot chick (3 to choose from!), and you COULD foil a devious plot to sabotage the party and blow everyone to smithereens! Depending on the choices you make and the way you progress through the story, there are a number of different objectives you can be presented with. There are also quite a few sticky endings you can come to if you don’t choose carefully, so watch out!

PARTY CRASH! THE 2000AD CHRISTMAS BLOWOUT, 2010!

Early Festivities

2010-12-08T13:31:00.002Z

Just as early with this as I was with last year's e-card...

With all the snow we've been having and also because I'm feeling very seasonal (we just put up our tree this week) it seemed appropriate to get the festive season off to an early start!

Well, it's been pretty seasonal here for a while, what with the 2000ad advent calendar and my Cycle Lifestyle cover.

MERRY FESTIVENESSES TO ONE AND ALL!

Support 2000ad

2010-12-05T10:13:00.014Z

If you are a fan of 2000ad, run a blog or wordpress/live journal etc. please, include this nifty little gadget on your sidebar. The widget should, if clicked, lead you to the digital download of the current issue of 2000ad at their online shop.

Here's the code, for you to copy and paste. The prog will change as each new one becomes available for digital download.

Hopefully, even if it only helps to reawaken one lapsed reader, it will have been worth the effort. Thanks in advance.

Austerity Measures

2010-12-02T08:35:00.007Z

It's virtual advent Calendar time again over on the 2000ad forums.

Dirty Frank is one of my favourite characters from 2000ad at the moment. He's a long term undercover Judge who talks about himself in the third person and is named after a Pearl Jam song. He's part of the Lowlife strip written by Rob Williams. I showed Rob the inks for this and I'm thoroughly chuffed to say he like it... so, I showed it to Tharg, who thought Frank's left arm looked a little awkward... I can't see it myself, but I'll bear it in mind next time I'm asking him for work!

He needs to hire me soon though, or it'll be me picking through the bins for food scraps! (only joking)

If you're interested, last year's entry is here.

Cycle Lifestyle

2010-12-01T09:53:00.004Z

I was recently asked to provide cover art for Cycle Lifestyle, it's a free magazine that offers Londoners a positive alternative to the normal news-stand doom and gloom. A magazine designed to inspire more people to cycle...

Cycle Lifestyle’s editor, Ben Irvine, sums up the project in this way:
“If someone offered to pay you to start each working day feeling livelier, fitter and less stressed, of course you’d say ‘yes please’. We’re hoping that our magazine will let many more commuters in on the deal: reaping the rewards of free and stress-free travel in London”.

Given the current weather conditions this art seems somehow a lot more relevent than it did when I was producing it!

Karloff for Zuul

2010-11-30T16:52:00.006Z

I've just done an Artswap with a good pal and long time supporter of mine Graeme Neil Reid. A while ago, Graeme was doing a series of Ghostbuster illustrations and I asked if he was doing a Sigourney Weaver as Zuul, could I have the original in return for an illustration by me...

I'm chuffed to say he was up for it and chose a very broad topic of "Characters from Hammer and Universal Horror movies"... I have to confess to a soft spot for Frankenstein's monster (one of the first things I ever shared on this blog was a "Frankie"). So it was long over due to do another... this time I tried to capture Boris Karloff in his career defining role as the monster...

I hope Graeme likes the illustration when he finally receives it (weather permitting), and I look forward to the Gatekeeper arriving in due course!

Thanks Graeme!

The Interview

2010-11-27T14:33:00.004Z

You may remember I recently plugged John Freeman's book Sci-Fi Art Now.

As part of the promotion for the book he's been interviewing all the contributors... mine is now up on the Sci-Fi Art Now blog.

I hope it's of interest, and not pretentious... I am excited all the same to have been interviewed about my work!

Judge Dredd Movie Still

2010-11-20T10:51:00.004Z

So the first image of Karl Urban as Judge Dredd has been released and we're less than a week into filming...

There's been mainly a positive reaction, but I'm all kinds of excited about this, just great news for the comic.

This is a really quick and possibly wrong extrapolation of what I think we are looking at in the still.

I also think the respirator will pull down to create a fully enclosed helmet as per the inset... don't know about the mechanics of it, but it'll look pretty cool, certainly quite menacing if Dredd was striding out of some gas-filled underpass.

Thought I'd just share (again) my speculative concept from Feb 09... I think what we've got is a lot better than that... although there are lots of similarities.

Push Pineapple

2010-11-12T18:00:00.003Z

Joe Pineapples from the ABC Warriors.

Just a couple of quick sketches, trying to define how I want to depict him.

Very Complimentary

2010-11-09T16:40:00.006Z

Well, I've just received a couple of comp copies of two publications I've got work in...

As previously blogged, I've got 'The Squadron' in Sci-Fi Art Now, a thumping good coffee table style book crammed with fantastic pieces of art from some seriously impressive names. You can also read about my process for that piece here from earlier in the year.
Sci-Fi Art Now is available from all good bookshops and on amazon still for the bargain price of £13.99

The other illustration is for a story called 'Stone' by Neil Beynon in the British Fantasy Award winning anthology title Murky Depths.

Please order your copy of Murky Depths #14 here.

Icon Idiocy

2010-11-01T09:45:00.003Z

The icons/avatars for the twitter spoof were, for the most part, new and done far too large!

Hopefully they did their job.

2000AD Twitter

2010-10-24T20:42:00.003+01:00

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!

BICS 2010

2010-10-18T09:12:00.008+01:00

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.

One Cool Cat

2010-10-17T09:00:00.000+01:00

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.

Dredd Sans

2010-10-04T16:42:00.003+01:00

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.

Get Well Carlos Comic

2010-09-30T07:59:00.003+01:00

The public version of the Get Well Carlos Comic, aka Supersquirrel Undefeated aka The Secret Project is now available for download.

Two options for download, both are a 54Mb. These links will not work forever, so I would suggest you download sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment.

zshare

dropbox

I'd also like to suggest that you make a donation to a Cancer charity too, by way of payment for the comic.

SketchUp Overkill

2010-09-28T09:26:00.004+01:00

I may have gone a little bit overboard with this whole SketchUp preparation... hopefully it should make the resultant strip look a whole lot cooler though!

This is a (admittedly not very good) fly-through of the main locations within the mopad I'll be needing in the strip.

I've also made a lawgiver, based on the one I did in my most recent Dredd sketch, which my good pal Matt Soffe did a bang-up colouring job on here by the way.

I think, this lawgiver, with the lawmaster and the bonkers sized scene of Mega-City 1 from last week, rounds out the collection of reference models for Judge Dredd's world that I should need on this strip...

Modesty Blaise Sketch

2010-09-27T16:06:00.004+01:00

I've had a quick attempt at Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway's Modesty Blaise.

It's the result of a suggestion made by James Corcoran, who when we were doing the Art Swap included a little bonus sketch for each of us... I only found this fab little depiction of Dirty Frank by chance when I was clearing up, and I'm so glad I did.

Dirty Frank is one of my favourite characters from 2000ad's Low Life, a story about undercover Judges, written by Rob Williams.

Super Secret Squirrel

2010-09-25T10:00:00.008+01:00

About a month ago, the sad and sudden news that Carlos Ezquerra had been taken ill with Lung Cancer broke on the 2000ad forum. The good news was that it had been caught in time.

A short while later, I, and many others (including some professionals) were contacted by Mark Howard (The Legendary Shark) and asked if we would like to contribute something to a get well comic that would be given to Carlos. The importance of Carlos Ezquerra's work in 2000ad's history and it's meaning to hundreds of adoring fans cannot be understated. With John Wagner, he created both Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog, two of the comic's most enduring characters. His work was also something of an inspiration to me in my youth, so my answer to the question posed was a resounding yes, I want to contribute something!.

A quick e-mail to Rich Clements and Dave Evans to ask whether they'd like to collaborate on a special 'Teen Wulf' for the project and a simple suggestion that it involve Wulf's Dad, who would be a doppleganger for Carlos yeilded the swift and genius response from Rich, a script for 'Cucumber' (a favoured word of Wulf's in his dealings with Johnny Alpha) arrived in my in box. I had enormous fun illustrating the strip, and I'm sure I've not done Carlos justice, but it's the thought that counts, right? I'm not going to share Dave's lettering for the page here, because there will be a publicly available link to a download of the whole comic that I will share when the time comes.

With my contribution made, I thought nothing more of the project until I received an e-mail via Dave that Mark had secured a deal for printing the comic, the printer would do the job for a substantial discount if he could get a logo designed for his motorcycle club... could I help out? Well, again, it was an easy decision, of course, if I can help out - I will.

Luckily the illustration above, did the trick and with one happy printer, the project could go full steam ahead!

Again, I thought nothing more about the project until Mark posted on the 2000ad forum asking if anyone could help out with special duties... In the spirit of the project's secrecy I responded simply to ask what the problem was and if I could help again... Mark desperately needed a cover, had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted and needed it pretty swiftly - I should have been working on other things, but it felt like an important job to help out on, so again, I found myself contributing to the project.

Yesterday, the comic was received by Carlos and he expressed his gratitude to all involved through a message to Mark on facebook. It has meant a great deal to me to be involved in honouring a hero of mine and I only hope it helps speed his recovery.

To Mark the Shark, all who contributed and those who simply kept the secret, I salute you, it makes me proud to be a fan of 2000ad!

Mega, Mega City One

2010-09-22T20:14:00.007+01:00

To go along with the Lawmaster I made a while ago in Google Sketch-Up, I've built a section of Mega-City One. I've invested some time making vehicles and zooms and bits and pieces to help me frame my panels for a Judge Dredd strip by Lee Robson that I've blogged a little about before.

Click image for a huge, zoom-able version
This is still a work in progress and I'll probably use different views than the one shown here, but that's the beauty of a simple 3D package, I make this once, then I can move things around for the best framing of each panel without having to reconstruct, redraw and redo all those little details again and again. Admittedly, I will to some extent, because I will only be using the exported images as under-lays for each of the panels.

Other resolutions:
700 x 370
1600 x 846

An Emperor for The Emperor

2010-09-21T07:46:00.006+01:00

So here's a little sketch I did a while ago for the enigmatically named Emperor, a long time supporter and collaborator of mine.

Simply put, it was as part of the Art Swap that my cohorts on Fractal Friction and I were doing, I've just been notified that it's arrived at it's destination (and thanked) - so I can now share it with the world, well, those of you who visit here anyway!

Here's a quick reminder that I'll currently do an A4 sketch of this kind for £15 inc. P&P.

Judge Joe Dredd

2010-09-12T13:26:00.004+01:00

Here's another A3 inked illustration. A bit more work in this one, but willing to sell it for the bargain price of £65

I'll do this one and the Anderson as a bundle for a cool £100 though.

I'm also open to commissions, if you want something similar to this of your choice, please contact me via the e-mail address below for a quote:

PSi Judge Cassandra Anderson

2010-09-10T20:40:00.004+01:00

Here's an inked illustration of Judge Anderson I've just done as an inking test trying out some paper with a rougher surface.
It's all about getting those dry brush effects without the expense of losing higher level detail...

Well, I'm pretty happy with it, could see it working as a cover for the Megazine in fact, I'd be glad to hear what you think of it too...
Although I've offered out my services to do commissions before... I really haven't tried to sell anything that I've done off my own back. So as an experiment, I'll be more than happy to sell this to the first person who offers me £50 for it. It's A3, inked straight over the pencils (which is unusual for me as I normally scan and print out my pencils so I have a back-up) so this is a true original never to be available again type item. Oh, and that price will include recorded delivery!

Rogue Trooper Returns

2010-09-08T08:06:00.005+01:00

Yesterday, on facebook, Pat Mills broke the news that Gerry Finley-Day had written a Rogue Trooper script called 'Dead-Ringer' and had that accepted by the good folk at 2000ad.
This is significant for a number of reasons, Rogue had been 'officially retired' and Gerry, the original writer (who created Rogue with Dave Gibbons) hasn't written for comics in a very long time.

Needless to say, my relentless desire to work for the Galaxy's Greatest Comic was intensified by this... Rogue Trooper is one of the classic, iconic 2000ad characters.
I may have gone overboard by littering the internet with the news and my keenness to be the man in the ~~driving~~ drawing seat! I've hassled Tharg twice, (un-wiseley, I suspect) but last night, after I had contacted him with my most recent and secret strip work, I quickly sketched out my take on Rogue... I await a rigellian hotshot for my efforts!

***EDIT***
I've just heard back from his eminent green-ness and he thanked me for my interest, but the script is already with another artist. Although I didn't expect anything else, I'm still disappointed.

Moistened Bint

2010-09-07T11:27:00.003+01:00

Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.

Violent Actions!

2010-09-02T11:47:00.002+01:00

Free to download right now is issue #18 of Violent! There are some corking strips written and drawn by some amazing creative talents. As it's FREE surely it's worth checking out!

The man behind it all, Jay Eales asked me some time ago whether I'd be up for doing a cover - I jumped at the opportunity... not least because Violent! takes it's modus operandi from ACTION and that is the comic that 2000ad in many ways rose from the ashes of, but also because Violent! is a darn fine read.

ACTION's demise was in part as a fallout created by a cover for the strip 'Kids Rule OK' that garnered political attention. The cover had been illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra and in my discussions with Jay, we thought it would be nice to pay homage not only to the comic, but also to Carlos himself who has been seriously ill recently.

Hopefully, I've done it justice and Jay came up with a stonking strap line too... but you'll have to follow this link if you want to see the final cover!

Cambridge Corvus Crows

2010-09-01T20:18:00.003+01:00

Part of the reason behind a drought of posts is because I've (finally) got my head down on Corvus!

I don't want to show too much too soon, so here are some inked sketches of crows and or ravens... Done whilst at the second meet-up session for Cambridge based comic creators inaugurated by the hugely talented Emma Vieceli.

Refined Tattoo Design

2010-08-23T20:41:00.002+01:00

I am touched and humbled by the comments about my design, here, on facebook, twitter and on the 2000ad Forum.

I have tidied up the design a little to make it neater and hopefully just a little more effective before Mike finally takes the plunge.

The Dredagle Tattoo

2010-08-18T16:52:00.004+01:00

What do you see first?

Judge Dredd or an Eagle?

Last year, Mike from the 2000ad forum asked for someone to design him a Judge Dredd Eagle tattoo... I had a go at designing something for him and this was one he chose from several options I showed him:

He tweaked it a little from the originals:

All was well until recently. Before taking the plunge and permanently marking himself, he asked for some last minute opinions... a wise decision as it turns out!
As soon as the word Nazi was mention, I did a quick google image search for "Nazi Eagle" and was thoroughly shocked to discover that I had inadvertently designed something that was pretty close to one of their emblems... I immediately offered to design something else for Mike.

I began by sketching ideas out and very quickly hit on the Eagle-head & wings forming the visor section of Dredd's helmet (bottom right above). It was serendipity I reckon, to have created Dredd's visage and an Eagle in one emblem, I was pretty chuffed.
Before showing anything to Mike, I worked in photoshop and created the top left one below.

Mike asked for some alternatives, possibly with Dredd's badge or with the Eagle's legs (top middle and top right) but I didn't like that it made Dredd look like Chad and a bit beard-y respectively).

After this, Mike decided that he like to see some alternatives based upon my original again, but trying to work more of the Eagle's chest into the design. I showed Mike a few more variations than I've shown in the middle row above. There was a bit more discussion before I presented the final two in the bottom row. He selected the one at the top of the posting and we're gathering opinions now before Mike does actually go ahead and get himself branded!

The Red Dragon

2010-08-06T17:24:00.005+01:00

Page 33 of Fractal Friction is up.

It features a massive Red Dragon... you know what to do!

Judge Dredd Movie Poster

2010-08-05T14:37:00.004+01:00

A long time between posts... and I really can't remember what has kept me away so long! This post is my 300th, by the way!

This month's art competition on the 2000ad forum is to design a poster for the upcoming Dredd movie. I'm supposed to be working on a multitude of other things, and so this concept that I had been noodling with probably won't get finished more than this.

Art Swap: Angry Dredd

2010-07-14T08:22:00.004+01:00

Here's another of those art swaps, this time for Conor Boyle, who wanted "a suitably annoyed Dredd".

In return, he's done a fabulous version of Halo Jones - my all time favourite female 2000ad character!

If anyone out there would like a sketch similar to those I've done for my Fractal Friction buddies, you only need ask. I'll do A4 sketches of this kind for the bargain hunt price of £15*. Times are tight, paying jobs are scarce and the concept of an arts grant is laughable, so consider it a form of sponsorship, you could even commission me for something a bit bigger...

* inc p&p for UK, leave a comment or send me an e-mail with your request.

PS. I've had some lovely comments recently - I don't tend to comment on my own posts or other people's comments, but I do appreciate them, so I would just like to thank all those who've been here recently and left such encouraging remarks. You're all superstars, cheers!

Art Swap: Aimee Nixon

2010-07-13T08:54:00.005+01:00

This one was done for Chris Askham, who simply asked for a female 2000AD character... Who to choose? Halo Jones, DeMarco, Venus Bluegenes, Niamh? A plethora of sexy maidens were before me to choose from... so who did I choose? Yep, the hard nut resident of the lowlife and wally squad Judge, Aimee Nixon, who you'd want to be careful to ever describe as sexy, but is still one of my favourite female characters of recent years.

In return, Chris did this top notch piece of Judge Anderson for me.

Sketchup Lawmaster

2010-07-02T14:34:00.011+01:00

I've known about Google sketchup for a while and I've done nothing about learning how to use it, despite having heard pretty good things... that changed last week when I saw an amazing job that Richard Smith did using it to model a spaceship called the Terrapin (see Richard's website for more of his illustration work). The Terrapin is for a strip he is working on for a forthcoming issue of FutureQuake and looks awesome and I was inspired to learn more!

After asking Richard whether he thought it was worth learning how to use Sketchup, (a resounding yes), I decided I would spend a bit of time trying to get to grips with it. There are some limitations but I managed to build Judge Dredd's Lawmaster (his bike) and I'm not unhappy with the results... I will build a few other things and hopefully it will help greatly with that Dredd strip I'm doing for Zarjaz with Lee Robson.

I have to say, I'm thoroughly impressed with sketchup and for a FREE and EASY 3D package I can see no downside, especially when you can export animations that you can use to show others around the models you have built. So, can I recommend it? On Monday I had no idea how to create things in 3D that I could then use to plan scenes and things... and now I have a new and powerful tool in my skill set! So, I can strongly recommend it, well worth the time spent I think!

Art Swap: Bull's eye Belle

2010-06-27T10:36:00.004+01:00

The art swap continues, this one is simply a WWII inspired 'something'. I realise now that Bullseye Bombshell would have been a better name - oh well!

Done for Matt Soffe in return for this deliciously vampish Lulu Romanov. Lulu is the sister of the roguish Nikolai Dante, swashbuckling hero of the 2000ad epic tale of the same name.

Art Swap: The Spider

2010-06-23T13:58:00.005+01:00

My Fractal Friction chums are doing an Art Swap, simply put, each has asked the others for a sketch and in return, you guessed it, they get a sketch... see? Art Swap, simple innit?

First up for me is James Corcoran who asked for The Spider... I'll be honest, I only vaguely knew this character existed and so, I'm not 100% sure I've done him justice.
To me this looks like the Count from Sesame Street and there are a couple of obvious things wrong with it as well, but I set myself the task of doing each sketch within a quarter of an hour, I've done them all now and none took more than about 30-40 minutes. I'm pretty happy with them as sketches and I'll post them up as I receive each of my requests.

In return for The Spider, James has already done me this lovely rendition of Jenny Simmons from Caballistics, Inc. Caballistics, Inc. is a 2000ad strip, a fabulously dark paranormal and supernatural story written by Gordon Rennie and drawn by Dom Reardon... if you haven't read it, I can thoroughly recommend it as a sort of UK version of the Hellboy spin-off BPRD.

Fractal Friction Page 26

2010-06-18T10:54:00.003+01:00

It was my turn again on Fractal Friction this week. I actually finished the inks for this last thursday and colours on friday, but for obvious reasons couldn't share it until now... well, I sneaked that one edited panel out.

I knew this page was taking place in another dimension, so I thought I'd try a slightly different inking style... and as we were awakening the once and future King, I thought it needed some serious magic mood too. It was a bit of an experiment in using more black areas as well.
The colour palette I chose, again, was supposed to be a bit moody and magical, I was also trying to get a bit of a hint of the colour palette that John Higgins and Sally Hurst have been using in 2000ad... you can judge whether I achieved that here.

It was a really cool page to be doing, the major problem was getting Arthur to look regal and identifiable - 'cos I knew he would be nekkid, and without his crown. The concept for this page was also a real collabrative effort and took place across the e-mail with all of my Fractal Friction cohorts chipping in ideas for how we could 'grow' our new King Arthur!

Comic Sans: a Rebuke.

2010-06-17T08:26:00.009+01:00

My fabulous, multi-talented friend and lettering guru Jim Campbell posted a link on the 2000ad forum to an imagined monologue by the font Comic Sans... A fun piece of creative writing, in defense of the much criticised font. It struck a chord with me though and so I found myself constructing a rebuke on behalf of Dom Casual...

So, In answer to the imagined monologue of Comic Sans by Mike Lacher via Timothy McSweeney's website.

YEAH, YOU'RE COMIC SANS, WELL, I'M DOM CASUAL AND I'M NOT HAPPY.

Guess what, Comic Sans, turns out you are as stupid as you look. You can't compare your self to the likes of Univers... if I was a screwdriver, I wouldn't compare myself to a chisel would I? You need to frame your argument in context. You are at best merely an informal font.
You are not the straight talking man on the street of the font world. You are not a superhero rock star fighting the good fight for fun typography either.

But you're damn right, I don't like seeing you everywhere. You think everyone likes you but you're wrong. They're just using you because you're easy, available and free and that's rarely a good set of characteristics. It's not some elitist pretentious thing either, you're just ugly and not in an interesting way.

You say you're fun, with your multi-purpose uses, you're so wrong, back to my tool analogy - I wouldn't use a spanner to knock in a nail.

The thing is, there are a lot of other fonts out there that are just as much fun as you, myself included. Most of them, more qualified for the job and lets face it, a lot better looking too.

It's these other fonts you're putting out of work, not Helvetica or Futura who can hold their own. It's Challenge, Frankfurter, Hand Drawn and all the other quirky, informal fonts that just do a better job than you ever could. They're not getting the usage they deserve because of you. It's not the c**k-hat typographers you need to worry about you s**t-stick, it's us, the other fonts you think you're mightier than.

So Guess what? Yeah, that's right we've got a posse together, Balloon and Cooper are going to hold you down and then Flash and his brother Flash light are going to work you over a bit. When they're finished, we're just going to leave you alone with One Stroke Script, you've muscled in on his turf once too often.

Just because you're famous doesn't make you good, there is a fast food restaurant in every town, this is not a good thing either. Over saturation can breed contempt and that's the kindest thing I can say about you. Just because the general computer owning population can't see what's wrong with you and just because you're on every computer made since 1994 does not justify your over-use.
So f**k you Comic Sans, you're the fast food of fonts, no substance, no style and of absolutely no beneficial value.
I hope you die alone and penniless in a bin you arrogant, self important jerk.

And if you think of any comebacks, don't bother, I know a whole lot of real comic-book fonts that would just love to know where you live.

Right, I've got a date with Korinna and she comes in extra bold and multilingual, if you know what I mean.

Alas, Poor Yorick!

2010-06-11T16:13:00.004+01:00

Here's a panel from something I've been working on... I've edited it (a bit) so as not to give the game away too much (I hope).

I've tried to use black more on this... I was just experimenting really, but moody was the order of the day so, I wanted to at least have some hatching and areas of 'spotted' blacks.

Moore's Mini Me

2010-06-10T11:03:00.003+01:00

It's such a stupid little joke...

My sincere apologies to Alan Moore...

My Grimm Brother

2010-06-09T10:22:00.004+01:00

One of my cohorts on Fractal Friction, (the not so grimm) Matte Soffe has done me the honour of inking up some of my recent sketches, please read his full blog posting here.

One of the pieces was my recent Dredd sketch, which he also did some beautiful colouring on... and as if that weren't enough he's been universally lovely about promoting it all over the web too... Thanks Matt, you're a gent, a talented one too.

More of Dredd's Head

2010-06-04T11:26:00.003+01:00

I dunno if I've mentioned it, but I'm going to be doing a Judge Dredd strip for a future issue of Zarjaz, and very excited I am too!
It's a great little story involving Mopads, the mobile homes of the future... written by Lee Robson, it's got old school style and as a warm up I've just done this quick Dredd head.

I've still not settled on a look that I'm happy with, but this has that gritty brooding quality I've been after for a while, if not exactly the style of previous attempts.

Kev Lev Block

2010-05-30T11:19:00.004+01:00

A few months ago, the awesome Dylan Teague asked me how I got textures into my artwork as I was colouring my stuff in photoshop... I shared some of my stock textures for overlaying etc. and my reward was that he snuck my name into a panel on a Mega-City block! (see panel below).

The episode of Judge Dredd that this comes from (Meat) is in this month's Judge Dredd Megazine and is written by Rob Williams, this is a great little story, one of my favourite one-offs for a while - and no, not just because my name is on a block... truly, it's a good little story (with sumptuous art) from two of the best creators in the business.

There has been a long tradition of names appearing on City-Blocks in Judge Dredd, and as a child I dreamt that one day my name would appear on one... so, that's another personal goal I can tick off!

To recap then, where the prog is concerned, in the last couple of years I have had a letter published, I got an associated mention in the Nerve Centre and now, I've got my name on a block... the next goals are the really big ones, but ones I feel I'm man enough to attempt now - people tell me I'm good enough and that it's only a matter of time... I think I'm starting to believe*!

* maybe, from afar, whilst wearing a disguise.

'Her' Again

2010-05-28T14:23:00.007+01:00

Rough pencils:

Rougher still:

Rough as a bag of sand paper:

I was running out of time when I was working on the pencils and had to rush these roughs somewhat... I doubt anyone would have been able to ink these for me, there was a substantial amount of tightening up before I went to inks.

There was a slight change of plan with page one, panel four, after the Emperor made a suggestion about the two "heroes" perhaps falling together. Originally I'd conceived of a situation where the beheaded guy's head was resting between his legs, but I think the reworked version is so much more successful as it allowed for the head to still be looking at Her... even in death, he is besotted with Her!

Inks:

There is much to be happy about with these pages, although one thing stands out to me as needing some work, page two, panel one, is a little unclear what is going on, scale is also an issue - if I'm honest this was a problem panel. If I was tackling it again I would probably eliminate the whale, it's not really earning its keep and in a creature heavy page, some sort of funky raft might be funnier...

It was a pretty quick turnaround, I completed all the art in pretty quick time, so I won't beat myself up too much over one slightly dodgy panel and a couple of inconsistencies.

Something Big is Coming

2010-05-20T20:40:00.002+01:00

This is panel 1 from a strip I've just finished working on...

*EDIT - I was in a hurry yesterday*
The strip was written by the magnificent and omnipresent Emperor and lettered by the ever fantastic Mr. Jim Campbell, and it's all about Her!
The full strip should be viewable later today over on this topic on the MillarWorld forum... fingers crossed for me eh?

Right, off to Bristol I go!

Fractal Friction Page 21

2010-05-18T17:39:00.004+01:00

Cor! Can you believe we are up to page 21?!?!!
For those of you interested in this sort of thing... Here are the original pencils, including the panel that was revised.

And here are the inks.

If you want to see what a spot of colour did to these inks, head on over to Fractal Friction to see the finished page...

The General's Gaze

2010-05-10T09:17:00.003+01:00

There's more to this chap than meets the eye... I'm still not gonna say any more, but on Friday, all will be revealed!

This is from a panel that got axed after the pencils stage, it was rightly decided (by my collaborators and myself) that the pacing was wrong on the page and so there was a panel change made to improve the flow.

Inaba Katana

2010-04-30T11:03:00.006+01:00

Judge Inspector Inaba, one of the Judges from another City in Judge Dredd's world, in this case, Hondo-City. This is a 'sketch' that I had promised for John who runs the Cellar of Dredd Blog.

I've been having real problems with my drawing, for the last week and a half, so yesterday I took a break and sketched this up, I've spent a little while fiddling with it in photoshop and I've finally managed to produce something I'm happy with.
I think it could stand being cropped differently, but it was drawn at A4 so I thought I would leave it at those proportions.

Sci-Fi Art Now Update

2010-04-27T10:13:00.006+01:00

Well, I had confirmation that one of the pieces I submitted for John Freeman's Sci-Fi Art Now book is to be included! The piece is called The Squadron and I blogged about the process/journey that resulted in the finished piece earlier in the year.

The really cool bit about all this is that some of my art will be in a bona-fide hardback art book that you will be able to order:
amazon.co.uk
amazon.com
More details about the book are available from HarperCollins and John has started a blog about Sci-Fi Art Now to help promote it too... but with all the quality artists involved, it will be worth owning anyway, please help make this book a success by pre-ordering it!

For now, I'm not going to show the piece that will be included, instead I'll show the other piece I submitted. Regular visitors to my blog will recognise this (I assume) from when I reworked it recently as a 2000AD prog one redux.

I had already posted the very rough sketch for the Alien Blob and Space girl as well... there was even a teaser.

I'm very chuffed that my art will make it into Sci-Fi Art Now as it's going to be exactly the sort of book that I used to pour over as a child... this is another big tick in the personal goals chart!

A Little Trouble in Dublin

2010-04-26T10:18:00.009+01:00

I've just had my comp copy of another book I've illustrated for Cambridge University Press, like the ones I did last year it was done for the Discovery Readers range.

This one, A Little Trouble in Dublin was 25 illustrations in all, and after the approval of my rough pencils it was pretty much an illustration a day schedule.

Precocious teenage twins Andy and Mary get into a scrape with some criminals who run a forged euros racket in Dublin. Here, they've ended up at the Garda station where I designed a "watch out" poster, that gets mostly obscured... it was too visually distracting when it was where the map of Ireland is now, so I sacrificed it, the effort wasn't wasted though as it helped continuity in the next image where the twins had changed their clothes...

Four merit points for anyone who spots the two "in" gags I've included in the previous images and a gold star for anyone who gets the gag in the following one.

Don't ask if you're right though, I'll never tell!

The General

2010-04-23T08:54:00.003+01:00

Here is a character design for something that's coming up soon. I don't want to say more than that as it'll spoil the surprise! In fact, so much so, that I've edited the art as the old general here was holding something that might have given the game away - please forgive the shoddily drawn insertion of Grandpa's old service revolver as a replacement.

Stuff I can't really talk about has rendered this blog a bit inactive of late, but I'm hopefully going to get back to laying out the rough pencils for Corvus in the next couple of days and I think there'll be some bits I can show from that.

Tharg Touts Teen Wulf

2010-04-19T00:00:00.003+01:00

Check it out... Zarjaz and Dogbreath get promoted in the Nerve Centre in this weeks' prog (1681) with a special mention for Teen Wulf written by Rich Clements, centre spread colours by Vicky Stonebridge and lettered by Dave Evans (and drawn by me, as if you didn't know already!).

I consider it the highest praise indeed that his majestic greenness chose to mention our strip and if you haven't already, I suggest you do as The Mighty One says and visit The Quaequam Blog for all the info!

Kerayzee G-Raff

2010-04-12T09:34:00.004+01:00

Matt and Phil have done their versions of the Giraffe in our not-so-regular warping of various creatures.
Here's my effort - a quick sketch with an almost alien vibe, but it feels too similar to our existing Earth species to really qualify as 'twisted'... Giraffe, or JarJar, you decide...

In other news, a thread was started about me on the 2000ad forum... I'm touched and humbled by some very kind comments that I shall endeavour to deserve!

Tax Man

2010-04-09T14:48:00.006+01:00

I've just finished my first paid gig doing comic art, yes, that's right, paid comic art, sounds unusual, I know, but it's true! Not to do the other comic stuff I'm doing a disservice you understand, I'm doing that for the love of it! But cold, hard currency certainly helps to pay the bills and keep you motivated... it's the icing on the cake when you're having fun anyway!

The strip is a nice little 5 page story to help a firm of accountants showcase some of the services they offer their clients. I got the business via a friend on the 2000AD forum, the job it's self is through a cool design agency called eatsleepthink.

I think the thing I enjoyed most was designing the villains, essentially they were to be Superpowered-Tax-Collectors - YIKES! One was to be a calculator, one was a standard supervillian (with a pulled-down bowler hat) and the last was a "big boss" style bowler hat with legs.

It's pretty appropriate given the start of the new tax year this week! Hopefully, it's also the beginning of a trend!