Taormina Teaser

That's right, the next dazzling installment is ready for your viewing pleasure...



...and, as they say, the thick plottens!!

Rup and Matt, my good old pals, suggested a rock underneath Taormina's foot - they thought she looked like she was floating in mid air in the rough from my last post - I think it worked, so thanks guys, I appreciate your input!

Another Taormina Rough

This is the next panel and again this is only a really rough digital sketch.


I posted up my Judge Dredd pages over on the drawingboard and I've had some really good, constructive criticism which you can read here. I decided to try to practise some of the dynamic frame composition stuff that was lacking in the Dredd pages with this next episode of Taormina. I hope that's working in this panel - again I'm using the golden ratio, fibonacci or golden spiral in all my Taormina panels.


I think you'll need to 'mirror' this one to get the right orientation for the panel above.

Taormina Time...

Just about managed to get this out this week... by the skin of my teeth!!


I'm reasonably happy with how this episode turned out. Especially the stone head in the second illustration, see the sneak peek above! Then head on over to my Taormina blog for the full episode!

I noticed really early on that the format of the blog really doesn't work with how you'd naturally read the story (if you're reading it for the first time) but until I do a dedicated website for it, it'll have to do!

Taormina - work in progress

It's been a criminally long time since I managed to get an episode of Taormina posted...
So, just so the three of you out there who're following her adventures don't think I've let her fall by the wayside. I thought I'd post a bit of work in progress.


This is the first panel, without line-work for now. There are some details to tighten up but the main thing I'm not happy with is the arm holding the log. Her whole pose is supposed to be a bit Boudicca. She is not worried about the haima-vulture and I want to maintain that confidence in her. Perhaps I can just lose the log from the last episode, not worry about that level of continuity and just have her hold on with both hands?

Anyway, this is just a taster and I hope to get the episode finished and posted this week.

Both the creatures in this are fierce too!

Illustration Friday - "Heavy"

This week Illustration Friday had a kind of appropriate theme for me. HEAVY... I'd been drawing this guy all week as part of my Taormina project.
He's supposed to weigh several hundred pounds... if you take a journey over to The Adventures Of Taormina you'll be able to see this guy in his full glory and read about the peril he represents for our foxy heroine!


I hope you will enjoy the brief tale I have put together... there will be more episodes in the coming weeks!

Honey Rider

This was another piece I did for a meeting with a publisher.
The company I was meeting was interested in beasts, but I had already done the Merilla (see previous post below) and felt that as I also had 18 PODZ creatures to show them... another creature alone would be overkill.

For this piece, I had Honey Rider from the Bond film Dr.No in the back of my mind. Now set in a fantasy style world, where she would collect shells and have adventures with her trusty steed. I deliberately made her a brunette, to distinguish her from the associations with Ursula Andress. I just wanted to hint at a number of possible stories... I hope you're imagining them now!


This piece almost exactly fits the rules for the golden section, for those who are interested in that kind of thing:



If this is an alien concept to you, by searching about on the net for Golden Section/Ratio, Fibonacci numbers or Fibonacci Spiral you'll see what the above diagram means and leading on from that, if you search for Divine Proportions you'll learn some fairly interesting things about human proportions too.