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In the world of "Forts" there are a hundred doorways leading to a hundred different worlds. While I won't be able to visit them all over the course of the three books, I thought it might be fun to add to the mythology by sketching up a few alien races on the spot.

Here's the first.

Steve

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A tardy ticket for me on this. The twisted creatures that I've been doing with Phil and Matt have really taken a backseat recently - sorry fellas... Here's mine, a really quick biro doodle that I've fiddled with for about 5 minutes in photoshop.


Phil did his ages ago...
Matt has done his too.
Next up is the Giraffe... beautiful animals. They have prehensile tongues you know. It's anybody's guess when I'll have a chance to draw something though.

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Over on the 2000AD forums a really great idea was put forward by Pete Wells of the 2000AD covers uncovered blog fame - each day during December, one or more board member will post something into an "advent calendar" topic. Pete has already posted his 1st December Judge Dredd X-mas movie epic and I'm certainly excited to see what else is in store... here is my effort for today's door!


I thought I'd celebrate one of my favourite new stories of 2009 - the terrific Zombo created by Henry Flint and written by Al Ewing.

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Another one of those creatures I've been doing semi-occasionally with Matt and Phil...
My Salamander is not really twisted at all... I wanted to treat this one very graphically to see what would happen... possibly with a view to developing some T-Shirt designs.


Phil's already done his push-me-pull-you styled take on it, but Matt is very busy on some other projects right now - no pressure buddy, it'll keep!

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The current topic for DrawerGeeks is Frankenstein's Monster.


Having done a version of the monster once or twice before, I was reluctant to tread the same ground.
Unfortunately as my idea arrived a bit late in the day yesterday, I've only partially finished it. I think it illustrates the concept though and I'm fairly happy with it - hopefully I'll get the chance to finish it up properly, but it's joining a long 'to do' list!

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This weeks sketch... I decided to go for a creature/monster desguised as a Jack o Lantern.

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I've finished the inks and the tone for the first part of the story. I've mucked about briefly with a logo and the lettering too.

I was going to use something like DragonBones or Ales and Wenches from Blambot to letter this strip, but after doing only two balloons of text and trying both - I kind of knew that it was going to just look gimmicky...
I probably won't show anything more from this until it's due to be printed and I think that's likely to be around this time next year!

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Ye Gods! Nearly a week between posts...


I'm pretty chuffed though... six pages pencilled in less than three days - which I think is pretty quick and close to the necessary speed. Here's two panels from those pages as a taster - you'll have to wait a long time to see the final things as these are for a strip not scheduled to appear in Dogbreath until next spring!


I don't really want to say too much about these - as it might spoil a nice surprise...

When the pages are finished, I'll probably still post a panel or two more though...

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Been sketching Vikings all day today (for a strip I'm doing) and I strayed a little too far into Barbarian territory... Sláine - 2000AD's answer to Conan seemed to emerge on the page before me.


I was really chuffed with this quick 10 minute sketch, because there is something of the relationship between Sláine and his dwarf Ukko. I probably won't do anything with this but I think it's pretty much how I see Sláine.

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I've been off for a few days and I'm back a little more refreshed than when I left and definitely ready to get stuck into the pile of things I now have to catch up on.
The 'Twisted Creatures' or the examples of 'Darwin's Worst Evolutionary Nightmare' continue unabated with the current animal being the Hyena. Matt and Phil have both completed their wonderful versions already.


Matt has nominated the Camel for the next animal for our respective treatments. I hope Matt and Phil won't mind that this little cheat will modify the two creatures into one submission. It also fits Illustration Friday's current topic of modify.

Mixing the body of the Camel with the head of the Hyena has come up with something truly bizarre - but there is something I like about it. With a bit more work I think this could easily work as one of the 'genetically modified' Podz creatures I worked on before I was a freelancer.

I guess it falls to me to nominate the next animal - unless I've been disqualified!
Next creature: Salamander

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Well, more Monkey. I really shouldn't have found this brilliant topic as torturous as it has been.
I think it's a fairly common phenomenon. Given a job/topic that you'd love to do and do well - there is a tendency for the creativity to freeze up on you. A psychological road-block that gets in the way of you and the destination you'd hoped to arrive at. I think you need to keep going though - being a professional dictates that you can't just give up entirely. By taking a couple of detours, you might not end up where you thought you'd like to go, but the journey will have been interesting and you might end up somewhere just as good.



And with that word "journey" in mind. Sun Wukong is the traditional name for the character "Monkey" from 'Journey to the West', an old Chinese legend. Popularized in the 70s by the classic TV show "Monkey Magic" and then again in recent years by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett's stage adaptation.

I'm fairly happy with the treatment and approach to this, albeit a reasonably straight copy of the TV show's. My inked sketch, quickly coloured in photoshop would serve as a character design for a more dynamic martial art style action pose, but time has run out on me, so this will be my submission for DrawerGeeks this time round.

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DrawerGeeks' new topic is Monkey. I've had real problems with this - I was originally going to do a monkey killing two birds with one stone - but it didn't have the quirky quality I was looking for. Then I thought "Space Monkey" but something I've seen kept creeping into my mind...

I don't really like this Super-Monkey, conceptually I think it's a bit weak - no nice puns to be had with the name Clark Kent or Kal-El... I think at some low point in the Superman franchise there may have been a Super-Monkey. I thought about doing a strip where I just spoof Superman totally but I'm not that excited about it. If it's not working, move on. So here is the best of the aborted approaches.

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Two? TWO posts in one day? surely not!
Twisted Creatures again... a quickly coloured up ink sketch.


I had chosen the humble Donkey for this round, please follow the links to see Matt's and Phil's for very different, but wonderful takes on the theme.

Ever since I was small I've always mis-heard the pronunciation of Don Quixote... This idea wasn't going anywhere until I talked to my lovely wife the other day and she casually said "What about Donkey O'Tay and Sancho Panda?" - I swear, I nearly wet myself.

Phil has chosen the Hyena as the next victim creature.

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Over on the 2000AD forums, they have a monthly art competition. This month is cover-recreations or "cover versions"... Basically anything you want to do: a straight recreation or a mix up with 2000AD characters and albums, dvds or book covers - even other comics...
I've chosen to do a cover that never was - but potentially should have been... Fink Angel, one of my all time favourite Dredd-world villains first appeared in prog 193. The initial story ran for 4 progs, but Fink would return again...


In the story, a cover to a newspaper falls into Fink's hands alerting him that his estranged family have all been sentenced to death by Judge Dredd - well naturally, being the Cursed Earth homicical maniac that he is, he sets out to avenge his kin!

There has been some corking entries already and I've thrown last month's recreation of prog 310 into the mix already. Something rattled around my goldfish memory and reminded me that I'd done another (samle) cover for 2000AD...

Last July - very nearly a year to the day in fact... I presented this to the blogging fraternity.
That was when the light went on in my brain and I knew what I wanted to be for the first time in over a decade. Looking at this - I can see how much more accomplished the Fink cover is in comparison - nothing really wrong with this Dawn of the Dead spoof...
but I feel like I've come such a long way in what has surprisingly been only a year!

Oddly enough there are some pretty strong compositional similarities in these two pieces... a slight twist where the villain is the wide-stanced focus (although he shares some of those quirky zombie characteristics) and the "hero" is in the background - other wise there's not much to tell, which I think means that the basics of my approach aren't that different and I am just honing my skills.

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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!

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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!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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