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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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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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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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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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Ever wish your life was more like a comic book? With Photoshop, you can turn your photo album into a graphic novel.

Using the YouTube tutorial embedded above, you can use Photoshop to turn your digital photos into black and white images that look like comic book sketches.

What type of stories would you tell with your graphic novel?

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Just as early with this as I was with last year's e-card...



With all the snow we've been having and also because I'm feeling very seasonal (we just put up our tree this week) it seemed appropriate to get the festive season off to an early start!

Well, it's been pretty seasonal here for a while, what with the 2000ad advent calendar and my Cycle Lifestyle cover.

MERRY FESTIVENESSES TO ONE AND ALL!

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If you are a fan of 2000ad, run a blog or wordpress/live journal etc. please, include this nifty little gadget on your sidebar. The widget should, if clicked, lead you to the digital download of the current issue of 2000ad at their online shop.

Here's the code, for you to copy and paste. The prog will change as each new one becomes available for digital download.


Hopefully, even if it only helps to reawaken one lapsed reader, it will have been worth the effort. Thanks in advance.

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It's virtual advent Calendar time again over on the 2000ad forums.


Dirty Frank is one of my favourite characters from 2000ad at the moment. He's a long term undercover Judge who talks about himself in the third person and is named after a Pearl Jam song. He's part of the Lowlife strip written by Rob Williams. I showed Rob the inks for this and I'm thoroughly chuffed to say he like it... so, I showed it to Tharg, who thought Frank's left arm looked a little awkward... I can't see it myself, but I'll bear it in mind next time I'm asking him for work!

He needs to hire me soon though, or it'll be me picking through the bins for food scraps! (only joking)

If you're interested, last year's entry is here.

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This year, I was pretty unprepared and not that confident about my portfolio, perverse then, that I was the most relaxed I have been at any of the three BICS I have attended.

It was really good to see old friends and make new ones, so, thanks to everyone for a great weekend!


The highlights for me, amongst many fabulous chats with too many cool people to mention here (for fear of missing anyone out) were:

1. I got to see a copy of Sci-Fi Art Now which I have the above illustration featured in, alongside some heavyweights of the genre. John Freeman has put together a cracking coffee table book, the kind I would have poured over as a child. The book is currently only £13.99 so please go buy a copy!

2. The slightly awe inspiring incident when I decided to ask Dave Gibbons whether he'd mind looking at my portfolio.
He really liked my work and felt that on the whole it was nice stuff particularly facial expressions, it was just there were a few small things letting me down, one of which I had done repeatedly.
Tangents.

So, what is a tangent with respect to comic art and why is this bad?

It's a situation where a line in your panel creates a tangent to the border or another feature or line in your panel as with this example here.

The problem is that it can flatten a panel because you lose depth when a line runs into another that should look like it is in another plane of the image.

Forget for a moment that the arm is a little anatomically dodgy, the major factor spoiling the composition of the panel is at the shoulder where the inked line meets the border.

The slightly frustrating thing is, they are pretty easy to avoid in this instance by simply having the panel border crop the figure or alternatively allow enough space away from the panel edge.

It's pretty clear to see the massive improvement not only in how the eye is not drawn to the panel border, but in the composition also.

8 Comments on BICS 2010, last added: 10/20/2010

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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.

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The public version of the Get Well Carlos Comic, aka Supersquirrel Undefeated aka The Secret Project is now available for download.


Two options for download, both are a 54Mb. These links will not work forever, so I would suggest you download sooner rather than later to avoid disappointment.

zshare

dropbox

I'd also like to suggest that you make a donation to a Cancer charity too, by way of payment for the comic.

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I may have gone a little bit overboard with this whole SketchUp preparation... hopefully it should make the resultant strip look a whole lot cooler though!

This is a (admittedly not very good) fly-through of the main locations within the mopad I'll be needing in the strip.


I've also made a lawgiver, based on the one I did in my most recent Dredd sketch, which my good pal Matt Soffe did a bang-up colouring job on here by the way.

I think, this lawgiver, with the lawmaster and the bonkers sized scene of Mega-City 1 from last week, rounds out the collection of reference models for Judge Dredd's world that I should need on this strip...

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I've had a quick attempt at Peter O'Donnell and Jim Holdaway's Modesty Blaise.


It's the result of a suggestion made by James Corcoran, who when we were doing the Art Swap included a little bonus sketch for each of us... I only found this fab little depiction of Dirty Frank by chance when I was clearing up, and I'm so glad I did.


Dirty Frank is one of my favourite characters from 2000ad's Low Life, a story about undercover Judges, written by Rob Williams.

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To go along with the Lawmaster I made a while ago in Google Sketch-Up, I've built a section of Mega-City One. I've invested some time making vehicles and zooms and bits and pieces to help me frame my panels for a Judge Dredd strip by Lee Robson that I've blogged a little about before.

Click image for a huge, zoom-able version
This is still a work in progress and I'll probably use different views than the one shown here, but that's the beauty of a simple 3D package, I make this once, then I can move things around for the best framing of each panel without having to reconstruct, redraw and redo all those little details again and again. Admittedly, I will to some extent, because I will only be using the exported images as under-lays for each of the panels.

Other resolutions:
700 x 370
1600 x 846

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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.

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Free to download right now is issue #18 of Violent! There are some corking strips written and drawn by some amazing creative talents. As it's FREE surely it's worth checking out!


The man behind it all, Jay Eales asked me some time ago whether I'd be up for doing a cover - I jumped at the opportunity... not least because Violent! takes it's modus operandi from ACTION and that is the comic that 2000ad in many ways rose from the ashes of, but also because Violent! is a darn fine read.


ACTION's demise was in part as a fallout created by a cover for the strip 'Kids Rule OK' that garnered political attention. The cover had been illustrated by Carlos Ezquerra and in my discussions with Jay, we thought it would be nice to pay homage not only to the comic, but also to Carlos himself who has been seriously ill recently.


Hopefully, I've done it justice and Jay came up with a stonking strap line too... but you'll have to follow this link if you want to see the final cover!

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I am touched and humbled by the comments about my design, here, on facebook, twitter and on the 2000ad Forum.



I have tidied up the design a little to make it neater and hopefully just a little more effective before Mike finally takes the plunge.

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My Fractal Friction chums are doing an Art Swap, simply put, each has asked the others for a sketch and in return, you guessed it, they get a sketch... see? Art Swap, simple innit?

First up for me is James Corcoran who asked for The Spider... I'll be honest, I only vaguely knew this character existed and so, I'm not 100% sure I've done him justice.
To me this looks like the Count from Sesame Street and there are a couple of obvious things wrong with it as well, but I set myself the task of doing each sketch within a quarter of an hour, I've done them all now and none took more than about 30-40 minutes. I'm pretty happy with them as sketches and I'll post them up as I receive each of my requests.


In return for The Spider, James has already done me this lovely rendition of Jenny Simmons from Caballistics, Inc. Caballistics, Inc. is a 2000ad strip, a fabulously dark paranormal and supernatural story written by Gordon Rennie and drawn by Dom Reardon... if you haven't read it, I can thoroughly recommend it as a sort of UK version of the Hellboy spin-off BPRD.

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It was my turn again on Fractal Friction this week. I actually finished the inks for this last thursday and colours on friday, but for obvious reasons couldn't share it until now... well, I sneaked that one edited panel out.


I knew this page was taking place in another dimension, so I thought I'd try a slightly different inking style... and as we were awakening the once and future King, I thought it needed some serious magic mood too. It was a bit of an experiment in using more black areas as well.
The colour palette I chose, again, was supposed to be a bit moody and magical, I was also trying to get a bit of a hint of the colour palette that John Higgins and Sally Hurst have been using in 2000ad... you can judge whether I achieved that here.

It was a really cool page to be doing, the major problem was getting Arthur to look regal and identifiable - 'cos I knew he would be nekkid, and without his crown. The concept for this page was also a real collabrative effort and took place across the e-mail with all of my Fractal Friction cohorts chipping in ideas for how we could 'grow' our new King Arthur!

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A MacWorld article reprinted from Macworld UK has information about a newly released comic book adaptation of Ulysses, the epic by James Joyce, entitled Ulysses "Seen". It is available from the U.S. iTunes Store and has been rated 17+ by Apple. The original, uncensored version is available for download from the Ulysses "Seen" website.

It is described by Apple this way:

Robert Berry's comic adaptation of the 1922 edition of James Joyce's epic novel, ULYSSES accompanied by a page-by-page reader's guide, dramatis personae, and pop-up translations of non-english passages. The reader's guide is enhanced with discussion groups and links to online information sources, photos, videos, and other assorted bric a brac allowing you to dive as deep as you like into the world of Ulysses. If you've always wanted to read ULYSSES, but have been intimidated by its size and density, this is a great way in and is a great new way in its own right to experience literature.

Ulysses itself is on the banned and challenged list because of sexual content and language (The File Room and The Free Expression Policy Project have the details and trial results). Ulysses was a book whose trial began to change criteria for obscenity.

Ulysses "Seen," the comic novel was not made available until Apple's demand for cuts was met. All cartoon nudity had to be removed because of Apple's strict guidelines, something Rob Berry and Josh Levitas, the creators of the web comic had not counted on. They had expected to cover areas with "fig leaves" or pixelate certain areas but Apple's policy did not allow for that, so the images were cropped for the iPad.

Interesting....

Images from Rob Berry and Josh Levitas' comic adaptation of Ulysses.

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I dunno if I've mentioned it, but I'm going to be doing a Judge Dredd strip for a future issue of Zarjaz, and very excited I am too!
It's a great little story involving Mopads, the mobile homes of the future... written by Lee Robson, it's got old school style and as a warm up I've just done this quick Dredd head.


I've still not settled on a look that I'm happy with, but this has that gritty brooding quality I've been after for a while, if not exactly the style of previous attempts.

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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 eyes, 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, alt

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Back from the Bristol Comic Expo...
I caught up with a few very lovely people I'd met before and made some new lovely friends from previous internet associations!
I showed my stuff about and got some nice nods of appreciation - so not at all bad... just not any offers of work!

Before I left, I was working like a madman to finish a strip for submission for potential inclusion in a project being run by Mark Millar to produce a new mainstream anthology comic for the UK market, see my last post for the link.

But here, beautifully lettered by Jim Campbell, skillfully written by The Emperor and scrawled physically and digitally by me is the micro-epic 'Her'...




I'll probably show some of my workings out in the next few days... in the meantime, I hope you enjoy 'Her'!

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