Thursday 18 September 2014

DevCon News

This Saturday I'll be up in Plymouth for DevCon, with a Doctor Who theme going on. Which also features Colin Baker (the sixth Doctor) along with Sophie Aldred (Ace) from the old Doctor Who that I grew up watching.

Of course there will be other stuff going on to besides Dr. Who too. I will be releasing issue one of "A Shadow of Steel!", my self published comic title that I started last year with issue zero. It is a bit dark where I am now so can't take any photo's of my comic right now, but I can show you this awesome limited edition print that is exclusive to DevCon...

It'll be A3 in size and at about £5 per print, and you can get your hands on one at DevCon in Plymouth this Saturday.

If you want to find out more about this convention  click here to go to their facebook page.

I will post up some photo's of my comic tomorrow when there is light.



Tuesday 9 September 2014

22 Panels Comic Art Exhibition Poster

An image I have contributed to the 22 Panels Falmouth Comic Art Show's poster for this years exhibition, whose title is inspired by Silver Age comic artist Wally Wood. For those unfamiliar with Wally Wood he created a quintessential comic 'cheat sheet' known as '22 panels that always work', that contain various compositions of panels to make dialogue heavy scenes in comic books dynamic and engaging.

This leads onto the image I have done. The event organizer wanted exhibitors to create their own rendition of a panel, or more from Wally Wood's 22 panels sheet. These panels will be used to create the poster to help promote the show.

And so here is my panel...

Went for a 50's sci-fi-esque rendition as an homage to the type of comics Wally Wood drew back in the day, and the ones I adore most.

For this piece I decided to try something new, and went about inking this panel with a Rotring art nib pen. I have gotten very bored of using fine liners which often create dull lines, which is something I have known awhile and couldn't be bothered to try other things till now. I absolutely love this pen, and shall be trying it out more so I am more comfortable using it for my comic work.

Finally in case you are interested, other artists that have been working on this poster and will be exhibiting at the show are Lee O' ConnorJack TeagleTiernen TrevallionHenry FlintJohn SpellingPaul GristEdieOPSteve MayRob CrossPhil HarveyKeith Sparrow and Grayham P. Puttock.

Monday 4 August 2014

Another DnD character


Finally got round to start playing the game with friends from Uni, and got round to sorting out the last persons character. He decided to be a human cleric of Ioun called Abraxis...sounds like a cleaning detergent. In any case quite pleased with how he came out, especially the colours of his outfit. I like to think I succeeded in making him evoke an oriental quality to his appearance, as the friend that plays this character has a fascination for all things oriental. 



Wednesday 2 July 2014

Experimental Batman part 2



Decided to push what I did yesterday a bit further, with interesting results. There are a couple of failures, and they were due to using markers over pencils which is hard to control that led to them being ruined and unfinished. The rest however were done in a similar fashion as before though some are done a little differently. One example is that I used the markers as a base colour only, and then gone over it in polychromos pencils to add tone.

The third image on the top row shows a bit more what I am striving to achieve. Essentially I plan on doing a complete greyscale noir image of Batman without having to ink my line work. It has been refreshing and overly different to how I normally work, and I can see this being used again for future works so I will continue to push it further.

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Experimental Batman


Currently doing a bit of media experimentation with polychromos pencils and marker pens. I'm currently working on special noir styled piece for an upcoming event with my local comic book store, celebrating the 75th Anniversary of The Batman. Though scanning images done in pencil and markers has always come out very poorly, so I tried a higher resolution. It does look better than usual but it's not quite to my liking. 

The far right image is just pencil over marker blended with a marker pen. It didn't achieve the desired affect as the pencil didn't really blend or smooth out onto the marker.

The middle image is just pencil over markers in a near finished state just to give an overall idea of what the finished visual would look like. 

The last image is the same as the previous expect the use of pencil to add tone over the marker on the face and top of the cowl, via sansador on a tortillon. This is closer to the affect I wish to achieve, and aim to push it with further samples. 

Saturday 10 May 2014

D&D

So me and my friends decided we'll try play D&D which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time now, and to build up a bit more excitement I did a bit of character art to make the adventure more personal.

So here is my character, Karrathus The Morning Sword a Dragonborn Paladin with his hamster called Porkins. 


My friend's Tim character Thorian, and Elven Ranger. Although he is not in the drawing he does have a nameless pet crow.


And here is Diana's character Luinwe, and Eladrin Warlock with her pet snow fox called Tilly (yes we all seem to have pets in the party) who is by far the most elaborate looking character of the group. 

There are two other people in our group, but they have yet to make their own characters but I'll post those up once they get round to it.

I have never played this game before and nor has anyone else in our group so it'll be a fun experience I'm sure. 

Thursday 27 March 2014

Artist Hour


Hey folks, whilst I'm still working on issue 1 I thought I post this little sketch I did during artist hour.. For those of you who don't know, artist hour is an event held on twitter every Wednesday from 9pm - 10pm, with a random theme as a challenge. Last night there was no theme, so I decided to do an Indiana Jones sketch. 

Monday 17 March 2014

Return of the Silver Phantom!

Well I have been gone awhile, but here is a juicy glimpse of what I have been preoccupied with.


I am currently working away on issue one of my comic 'A Shadow of Steel!' featuring the Silver Phantom. The comic is due to be released on May 4th free comic book day and DevCon in Plymouth. I know that I said I would be more proactive on the blog this year, and I do intend be but right now between this and other projects and life its all time consuming. Rest assured though I will keep you updated with this comics progress. Until next time.

Monday 13 January 2014

A New Year


It's a new beginning to a new year and here is the cover piece for the 24 hour comic that I did last October. Still working on a title font but here is the image in its full splendor. With the beginning of a new year it is also a time of reflection. 2013 has not been as productive as I had initially hoped and that was due to other commitments and generally hitting a few creative road blocks. It has now been over a year since I graduated and I feel that as a creative I still have a ways to go to find myself, so to speak. But hopefully with 2014 I can continue in my journey and try to be more proactive in keeping this blog up to date.

So I've decided to do some short comics as a means to develop my storytelling through sequential imagery. In addition I will also be working on issue 1 of 'A Shadow of Steel!' and make some visual notes for an idea I have for a graphic novel. 

Stay tuned and watch this space as things progress.