Something for A Little Bit Bunny. Coloured version there.




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

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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?

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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, Nick Dyer, Dave Evans, Rich Clements, Matt Timson, Stacy Whittle, Jim Campbell, Dave Stokes, Vicky Stonebridge, Nick Wilkinson, Cy Dethan, Steven Downey, Chris Wildgoose, 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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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 was righteously grumpy having been informed that portfolio submissions were now closed... from many reports I read, it was oversubscribed and very few people actually ended up being seen anyway (I wasn't either).

Whilst Conor cornered Th

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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

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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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!

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