Oooh, Frosty!

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!

Second Psight

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.

Pepping It Up

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

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!

Posing Tyranny

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.

Lapping it up

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

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!

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.

PSi Judge Cassandra Anderson

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!

Moistened Bint

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.

Judge Dredd Movie Poster

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.

'Her' Again

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.

Inaba Katana

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

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!

Sexy Sci-Fi Siren

A quick sketch for today.


***EDIT*** It would appear that I owe some sort of credit to Dylan Teague here. I think I must have been indirectly or subconsciously influenced by a piece of his work... which can be seen here, and damn fine it is too.

Showing a Bit of Leg!

John Freeman (down the tubes and much more besides) has a book in the works called Sci-Fi Art Now and he has requested submissions for it. I decided it was worth taking my sketched concept from last week to a finished piece for this project.


Here is a little teaser (so to speak) for the final piece I have submitted. It's a great brief and I really enjoyed putting this together, I just hope John likes my submission!

Supergirl

Clue is in the title!


Quick sketch again today. I have decided to try to push forward with the Spacegirl in peril piece from yesterday... I'm struggling to find a suitable B-movie name for the imaginary feature, hopefully it'll come to me eventually!

Hubba Hubba Hubba!

Quick sketch for a project I'm thinking of submitting something to. It depends whether I can make this concept work as to whether I bother or not. What you've got here is a B-movie sci-fi spoof, a silly alien monster, and a sexy astronaut lady.


What more could you want? That's a rhetorical question by the way!

I'm thinking of having it as a B-Movie poster like this one from all the way back when I started this blog (my second ever post).

Frankenstein's Monster

The current topic for DrawerGeeks is Frankenstein's Monster.


Having done a version of the monster once or twice before, I was reluctant to tread the same ground.
Unfortunately as my idea arrived a bit late in the day yesterday, I've only partially finished it. I think it illustrates the concept though and I'm fairly happy with it - hopefully I'll get the chance to finish it up properly, but it's joining a long 'to do' list!

Pencil Pusher's Progress

Ye Gods! Nearly a week between posts...


I'm pretty chuffed though... six pages pencilled in less than three days - which I think is pretty quick and close to the necessary speed. Here's two panels from those pages as a taster - you'll have to wait a long time to see the final things as these are for a strip not scheduled to appear in Dogbreath until next spring!


I don't really want to say too much about these - as it might spoil a nice surprise...

When the pages are finished, I'll probably still post a panel or two more though...