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' Connor, Jack Teagle, Tiernen Trevallion, Henry Flint, John Spelling, Paul Grist, EdieOP, Steve May, Rob Cross, Phil Harvey, Keith Sparrow and Grayham P. Puttock.

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.

24 hour comic

Quite awhile ago I was invited by my University to partake in an event at Plymouth's City Museum, to do a 24 hour comic. Except we did it a little differently which was doing it over two days with each day only having 12 hours to do 12 pages. It was an exciting format and I decided to leave the twelfth page on a cliffhanger, and have a narration going along with it that harks back to the classic film serials of the 1920's-30's.
Unfortunately I didn't make it to 24 pages and only managed 16, but there were things from that experience that I will take on in future works.
On a final note, Plymouth University's Illustration course is setting up its own print press and will be aiming to print all the comics from the event as spot coloured, risograph printed comics next year.

You can view the comic below.

Blue Hamster

I haven't been very good with keeping this site up to date and whilst I am busy doing my own projects and work I decided to do a quick sketch just to keep things fresh. Lately I got into gouache paint for the first time and decided to give it a trial with this Space Hamster sketch. I was pleased with the results as the paint is similar to inks but gave a painterly quality to the my image. The paint wasn't 'washy' like ink either so when it came to tweaking on Photoshop it was easier for me to select and adjust the colour. 

I think that this new medium might become a replacement to the ink washes I am accustomed with when doing tonal images.

Character doodles

Idea's for a character for a sci-fi comic that me and Benj are planning. going for a strong yet fragile woman that has a forgotten past.

Other character sketches too.

Lost World

It's the return of me and Space Hamster. A little rusty and need to get back into the swing of things with my illustrations. Sorry I have been gone awhile but I am hoping to be posting on here more often. Though some good news to share is I am now working on two comic projects and could be doing an internship at a local art studio. So things are looking a little better then they were a few months ago. 

A story about freedom.

Below here are some pages from my sketchbook that have inspired a tale of sorts about surviving against the odds, freedom and finding a friend featuring the space hamster. More to come soon so stay tuned.

Tali

Today's daily sketch is of our beloved kooky engineer, Tali from the Mass Effect game series. Overall I quite like how I went about imagining her but I feel that I could have done better, maybe a little less cartoony. I hope you enjoy and I am happy that I am on a roll with the sketches for once.

Waltz in a gallery.

I am back once again to doing my daily sketches and today I had another go at doing a space hamster comic strip. You will have noticed that the item in the strip that becomes the target of destruction is in fact Marcel Duchamp's famous 'Fountain' during his time with the Dada art movement. 

Looking at this strip I wonder why or what it was that compelled me to draw a strip, destroying a famous piece of art. The only answer that I can think of is the simple task of communicating humour to the audience, much the same way as Duchamp did when he submitted a urinal to the Society of Independent Artists really as to make a joke about the preconceptions of what is art. Asking myself why I do a drawing is a question I sometimes feel I don't ask enough of and it is something to consider and exercise in future projects. I guess the tour guide radio was right, this was thought provoking.

Feeling blue.

Today I went with something that I find I waste a lot of time on, Mass Effect. I know EA screwed us fans over with the finale but it is still one of the most interesting and compelling sci-fi adventures in the gaming world. So I did a sketch of one of the most overlooked aliens in Citadel space (at least that is what they think) the Volus. I love the mystery underneath their enviro-suits, their ball like shape that makes you feel he would start rolling down a hill if you nudged him and they are greedy little pigs too.

Of course, I ended up turning to standard pose. Just draw a guy standing in empty space with little narrative. If this were a toy I would be a little disappointed that it didn't come with anything extra. I fail at adding extra little details to sketches, so something to think about for next time then.

Leviathan 24

Last week I took part in a 24 hour comic event at the Peninsula Arts gallery at the Plymouth University. The event tied in with a publishers event that surrounded 'The Big Read' event with Moby Dick. This interactive comic is my contribution to the event and there is a link here if you want to take a look at the other artists 24 comics such as Dave Smith and Jack Teagle.

Free comic book day

Today was a good day. I got asked by my local comic shop to showcase my work for the free comic book day, which I did and meet some really nice people that made the day all worthwhile. Also I initially had no plan of doing any commissions for people and just thought I would be drawing all day and just displaying my portfolio. So I sketched out Garrus from Mass Effect and suddenly people got interested and so I sold him for £2.50. Very modest pricing on my part, though I was very surprised someone wanted to buy a sketch off me. Afterwards I charged a fiver for a sketch and made quite a bit of money. So today was a really cool day to promote my work and have people look at it especially people I consider to be my audience who appreciated my work too, so it is a promising start.
Thank you Garrus! Always there when I can count on you!

Fireflash MkII

I took what I did from the Titanic poster and applied it to this new image featuring a ship I designed based on 50's retro rocket ships, though I have now redesigned it a little taking some inspiration from the Concorde jet.

Harbinger

Open publication - Free publishing - More 24

Hey folks it's been awhile since I had something up, but you are in for a treat.

Last weekend I did a 24 hour comic challenge, where you have to do a 24 page comic in 24 hours.

The story follows the journey of a warhead that misses it;s target and due to Sir Isaac Newton's law it just keeps on going till it hits something.

Hope you all enjoy reading this and tell me what you think.

Back in the Studio

I have now returned to the studio back here in Plymouth, and whilst rummaging through my desk I found an old drawing I had done awhile back. So here it is at last with Vader and crew on the prowl for rebel scums! Enjoy.

The Fireflash

After now completed an interesting little project about contexts, I am now getting back to drawing again, and has been a long time since I have posted any work up to the blog.
So here is something I did yesterday in my spare time; a visual motivation for my next project where I aim to tackle 3 or 4 genres of comics, and I aim to start doing more images like these to really immerse myself in these different stories I aim to tell.
So anyway, first up is this image for an idea to do, a sci-fi comic in the backdrop of a 50's style sci-fi world, with flying saucers, rockets, and robots.

The Centre Stage

Well the past couple of days, I have been scrambling the ol' lego boxes to create a custom spaceship for a comic idea i had in mind and to use this model as a reference for external shots, and also to map out character locations and see roughly where things are on the ship.

Cyber Scare

Hey folks, this image was supposed to have been earlier this week but I got a bit distracted with other things anyway here is another image that is gonna be part of my Dr Who series of images.
As you can see this time we have the Cybermen, as a scarecrow, with this version being reminiscent from 'Tomb of the Cybermen' though I changed it's eyes to be more menacing. I have enjoyed making this image and I hope you all likes.

Finally finished

It has taken 9 weeks or so, but finally finished this cover for Idoru, a sci-fi novel, which is absolutley boring...........