Judge Dredd Figure Inked

Inks for the Dredd I've been working on.
Experimenting with this currently - I may end up inking the background... depends on how some colour roughs go.

Dredd's Got A Second Sight

My old pal PJ has come up with more pearls of wisdom for aspiring comic artist everywhere... not only that but he sent me some suggestions for my Dredd Pin-up.

 
tightened pencils  •  and tonal values
He kindly made some modifications to yesterday's sketch and was very encouraging with it.
• He enlarged the left hand, pushing the foreshortening further has added slightly more dynamism to the overall pose.
• He also reduced the size of Dredd's helmet to make it part and parcel of the overall head - I think he was right to.

I've adjusted those things in Photoshop to my own file. I've also tightened up the pencils, added background details and some tonal values to check my forms are working ok.

Another Dredd

For the last couple of days I've been feeling a bit down on my drawing. I just don't feel like I can clearly identify my style and say I'm 100% happy with it - it's a touch too dependent upon a clean clear line and that can be time consuming.

There's a lot to be said for a quick expressive style both from a economic and a dynamic point of view. I see such breathtaking results in other artists' work that benefits from quick, expressive penmanship - but when I come to try that myself, even when at my most confident, I am just not happy with the result.


Here are some rough pencils for a Judge Dredd pin-up type image I am working on. Right now there are some nice things going on in those sketchy lines but I know as soon as I start to ink, it'll lose that spontaneity.

Judge Dredd © 2009 Rebellion Developments/2000AD

Tales of the Unexpected

The Cambridge University Press books I did illustrations for earlier in the year are going to be published soon and I received my complementary copies last week...


I thought I'd share a couple more illustrations from Tales of Terror and Tasty Tales here too.

  
I'm pretty chuffed with them, 26 illustrations in total and the reproduction on all of them is damn near spot-on!

Freaked Me Out, Man

Prog 1639 dropped through my door this morning... and what was on the cover? Yes, that's right a recreation of that classic prog 310 cover that I had myself done homage to earlier in the week.
One has to ask whether there is something in the cosmos... a weird psychoactive something or... possibly a result of a hive mind thing. which ever way you look at it - it's definitely unsettling when coincidences like this occur!

There are definite parallels that can be drawn between the two Dredd tales "The Starborn Thing" and "It Came from Bea Arthur Block" and so it would seem a natural thing to pay respect to the former, a classic from the 2000AD vault.

I have to admit that I did have prior warning of this potentially mind-bending coincidence before my prog arrived today. Shortly after I posted it on the 2000AD online forum, my old pal PJHolden sent me this sneak preview. He had this to say about it:

"...the idea of using the McMahon cover occured to me while talking to Gordon on the phone about the wigs story (probably before the first script was even written). I just thought it'd be hilarious. (attached is the cover sketches I sent to Matt - cover 1 was a half hearted attempted to give an alternative...)


Tried my best to evoke McMahon without mimicking him, did that by using strokes instead of solid black, using the same pose (obviously - though drawn to fit how I normally draw DREDD) and colouring the artwork in the style I remember from when McMahon would do coloured work in the Annuals."

For me, I think this is a really interesting opportunity to observe how three very well respected artists have interpreted the same scene.

Here then, as a comparison sort of thing... Ezquerra's original from the actual strip (actually taken from the double page spread in prog 311) and McMahon's re-interpretation of that for the cover to prog 310.


There is a real continuity that I had not expected to see - four very different artists all depicting the same thing in their own way. From a story telling point of view the impact can only truly be acheived with a first person perspective - it's the attention grabbing aspect you are after. I can only hope that mine holds up in such illustrious company!

I'm going to be interested to hear what's said about this on the forum!

*EDIT* PJ has also put a posting about his first 2000AD cover on the wonderful Eclectic Micks blog.*EDIT*

Helliphant

My good pal Phil has reminded me of a game we used to play. A sort of show and tell with illustration. Pick a creature/animal and then warp, twist, mutate it in a way that seems amusing/disturbing or similar. The game has begun afresh with elephants, here is Phil's octophant and here is Matt's caterpachyderm.

Elephants seem such nice creatures, full of kindness - so my distortion is less a splicing with another creature, more a warped demonic re-working - the Helliphant.



It really reminds me of the Podz creatures I was working on oh, so long ago!

Cover Recreation

On the 2000ADonline forum over the last couple of weeks there have been a couple of inspiring cover recreations from old 2000ADs.
Firstly there was Matt Soffe's tribute to Mick McMahon's 1985 annual cover
and secondly there was Steve Millar's Patrick Goddard commission to recreate prog 199's cover.


I decided to have a crack at my own recreation. For a number of reasons I chose prog 310, great Mick McMahon cover for the Carlos Ezquerra illustrated story Starborn Thing.


I went with the current logo as I didn't want to too closely recreate the same cover. I tried to inject some of the original artists' styles into my piece, but unfortunately, I don't think it's all quite worked how I wanted it to.



Here for reference are the initial stages before all the glossy rendering and graphics got slapped on. If anyone wants it, I'll happily swap or sell the original inks to this piece.

The Peacock

This is a piece I have done for another good friend's birthday. I was thinking of it as being a sort of companion piece for the illustration of Yggdrasil below.


I think peacocks are fascinating creatures... How they adapted such extreme plumage is one of those curious wonders of nature.

Despite how amazing they are, I developed a bit of a hatred of peacocks whilst my wife and I were looking for a place to get married. We looked at a place in Bigglewade where there was a beautiful ornamental garden that had a license. The gardens had a few resident peacocks and the weird calling noise they produce rang out all around in an other-worldly sort of way - I remember ground mist that day, but that could have been added in my mind for effect. There was path that you were supposed to follow around the gardens, but along the way, one of the peacocks took a bit of a dislike to us and hissed and rattled it's tail. We turned and fled (literally) and decided it was perhaps better to get married elsewhere!

We must attract them, as this is not the only time we've been accosted in a public garden by a strange old bird.

Yggdrasil - The World Tree

A good friend asked if I'd do a picture of the legendary tree Yggdrasil from the Norse legends for his birthday. I said I'd look into it - what I turned up on the international webbery sounded really cool, if somewhat involved...


After a small discussion, this is what I produced - a picture of a tree, slightly less epic in it's nature and proportions than Yggdrasil... I'm pretty happy with the Snake gnawing at the roots. In the Norse Legend the snake is called Nidhogg. There's plenty I've omitted from the entire legend - a host of inhabitants, a golden cock, four stags, a cheeky squirrel or something, then guarding the roots, there are three goddesses called the Norns who would all have featured but I thought that may distract from the tree, which was to be the main subject matter.
On reviewing the legend, it would appear that a fire giant called Surt burns the tree down during Ragnarok which I imagine, had I drawn that instead, would have looked not dissimilar to this piece I did earlier in the year.

Boldly Go...

The new Star Trek movie is out and DrawerGeeks is using the current topic to 'commemorate' the fact.


I'm trying out something a bit different style-wise on this quick sketch. I think Spock is pretty close but Kirk is way off.

Left and Right

A quick sketch to identify how I want Sinister Dexter to look in the sample script I'll be working on next. I think Ramone needs some work, but I'm happy with Finnigan.


I'm just finishing something up for Zarjaz the 2000AD fanzine published by the dudes at FutureQuake but I can't show any of that at the moment - I'm quite pleased with what I've done and it was a cool strip to be involved with...

Not much to report from Bristol over the weekend, other than that the faces were all extremely friendly and the pies were good!

Science Fiction Theatre

I'm truly finding it hard to be productive and efficient at the moment.


I've got plenty to do - mainly preparation for the upcoming Bristol Comic Convention so heaven knows why I've been fiddling around with this piece this afternoon!

Under the Bridge

Well, I'm nearly settled in the new abode but I'm struggling to find my stride with regard to getting back to work properly... I need to focus rapidly as deadlines are starting to loom like mountains on the horizon now!
What I could do with is a "no pressure, no ties" sort of thing, something small, where it doesn't matter what the final piece looks like, just a deadline of some sort...

...the new topic for DrawerGeeks is TROLL.



The thought process behind this one was simply: There is no way something as evil and conniving as a troll is going to be outwitted by something as bone-headed as a goat.
I vote for an alternative ending for 'The Three Billy Goats Gruff' when the third and oldest goat happens upon the bridge the Troll thinks that this goat, although bigger, looks a bit stringy. The Troll decides to saddle this goat up, ride into the field where the other littler goats went and have himself a nice feast. Then it's off to market to sell the big dumb animal he's riding.

Pick Up Sticks

My good lady wife and I are finally moving. No access to internet until we're settled again in the new place.


I'm a white van man again - the power has gone to my head so all you other road users beware. Actually, better to keep off the roads completely.
TTFN - NORMAL SERVICE WILL RESUME SHORTLY...