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!

A Little Trouble in Dublin

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

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

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

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

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!

Time Bomb!

I inked up that sketch for someone on the 2000ad forum.


Pretty happy with how it's turned out.

HiEx 2010

What can I say about HiEx that hasn't already been said elsewhere? What superlatives are left? The answers are not much and none, HiEx was a great experience and although it was over almost a whole week ago, it's still fresh in my mind as being one of the best conventions I've had the pleasure of attending. Thanks to Rich and Vicky for organizing such a great event!
As a result of going, there are some interesting pots of goop bubbling away nicely that I might be asked to taste if I'm lucky. But more about those culinary delights as they reach the table.


I still don't have anything much I can show, but here's a rough for a sketch of Johnny Alpha and Wulf Sternhammer.
In other news, I have been nominated for an Eagle Award in the best newcomer category! Seriously! I know! Thanks then go to the very kind soul who did that for me!
Fractal Friction, Jim Campbell and Rich Clements have also all been nominated in various other categories! I'll be sure to let you all know if I win, but let's face it, the opposition is mightily impressive!

HiEx Packing and Portfolio

Been pretty busy in the last few weeks, still settling into the new home (and art office studio workspace thing)...
...so there has been a distinct lack of posts.


All I have that I can show currently is the work I did on Teen Wulf and this is pretty much my favourite page from the whole strip. Fingers crossed this one page won't give too much away, but will whet your appetite for the rest!
Hopefully all my pre printing pimping means that you've already ordered this from the wonderful chaps at FutureQuake. I also hope you will enjoy it, it was a lot of fun to do!

Been preparing and packing this week for a long trek north to the HiEx Comic Convention (this coming weekend). I struggled to get my portfolio sorted until I entered the mindset "what if someone asked me what to include in a portfolio?".

Ruthlessly, I stripped out everything but my strongest sequential pages... now everyone says don't include pin-ups, but you know, I've had pretty good responses to this piece in the past and I think a pin-up can be something that sticks in a editor's mind, helping them to identify you. (WARNING: possibly slightly naughty for work and/or minors).
So I'm starting with that and then moving onto 6 pages of sequential work inc. a double page spread. Then I've got an illustration that will be printed in a book later in the year and a few other pieces of coloured work I'm particularly happy with. All in that's 10 folio sleeves, possibly a little more than I need but the order is such that hopefully by the point they get through the sequential stuff they'll be interested enough to see the rest.

Wish me luck, as I am driving all the way to Inverness, admittedly with a stop off in the Lakes courtesy of a very kind friend, but nevertheless, that's a long old drive. I'll be back soon, hopefully with some more stuff I can share!

2000AD Prog 1 Redux

Warren Ellis is running a fun competition over on his web forum.


The brief:
You are an artist/designer. You have to put together the cover for the first issue of a weekly science-fiction anthology comic called 2000AD. You don't know much about what's in it. You've been given the following pieces of information to include on the cover somehow:
"featuring the new DAN DARE"
"M.A.C.H. 1 - his incredible hyperpower will amaze you!"
"SPACE-AGE DINOSAURS! Read 'FLESH' "
"STOP PRESS! GREAT BRITAIN INVADED!"
The cover must include a logo and the numbering, which you've been told is not the usual "issue one," but "Programme 1."

I thought it would be funny if Dan Dare had been a girl for the relaunch... The image is from something I did previously, but didn't want to show here at the time.

Wulf Whistle

I'm back! This post has nothing to do with Whistling however! Unless a 'Phew', counts!


PHEW! I've just finished up the last pages for the Teen Wulf strip for Dogbreath.
In total it's a whopping thirteen page strip written by the wonderful Rich Clements, lettered by the immensely underappreciated Bolt-01 and has another logo designed by me.


Yes it's (in part) trying to mimic the 'Teen Wolf' logo from the Michael J Fox film... but the 'Wulf' lettering is all my own!

Strip will be published in issue 22 of Dogbreath and is launching at the HiEx Comic Convention in Inverness in just over a fortnight!

Leap of Faith

Once again my good lady and I are moving, this time hopefully though will be the last move for a long, long time! Internet will not be hooked up for a couple of days and so, this might be the last post for a while!
To tide the old blog over then, here's another teaser for that Teen Wulf strip.


The page this comes from was an absolute joy to do, I'd devised an interesting panel layout and I think it really worked.
I've just seen Vicky's final version of the colours for the double page spread too... it's gonna be pretty special when that issue of Dogbreath is released at HiEx...

Teen Wulf Teaser

Busy, busy, busy. Here's a sneak peak at a panel from a rather funky double-page-spread that's being planned for the next issue of Dogbreath... It will be my first collaboration in print too as it's being coloured by the incredibly talented artist and busy HiEx organising firefighter Vicky Stonebridge.


You know, you really could do worse than to order some of the FutureQuakePress titles such as Dogbreath and Zarjaz. What's that, you've just ordered some today?... Good!