So simple.

Today I was wondering how does a colourist for Tim Sale bring colour to his grey ink wash images and seemingly replacing the grey with the colour without losing the texture. Well today I found out the answer and a rather simple one at that. Essentially all you need is a new layer in photoshop with either the color or overlay blend and then go crazy on it and then rocket, parmesan, done. I experimented with a page from my 'The Big Sleep' adaptation and compared it to how I orginally altered the inkwash colour. Now originally I made the inkwash into a solid new colour, wiping out any brush texture that was there originally and quite frankly it took a long time to do (I am sure there was a quicker way to achieve this).
With the experiment that I did today it only took a couple of seconds and it still looks great, so I feel had I known this other method I could have saved myself a lot of grief and time. Though I have to say I like both versions for their own merits but it will be interesting to try an inkwash image and then to render the colour digitally.

Chinstrap.

Hello fellow bloggers, Dave here with a selection of concepts for a comic book character that I am co-designing with a Sam from the comic shop. Essentially I am trying to create a 'cowl' like mask for this hero that incorporates the fedora hat. We also want to try and make him distinguished from other comic characters that have a similar design such as The Spirit, Green Hornet, The Shadow etc. At one point I even applied an old fashioned motor cycle cap to be used as part of his disguise. 

So far it has been an engaging exercise to push the boundaries a little on concept and design and I hope I get to see this project through to the end, and maybe illustrate his first outing maybe. Who knows.

Tribute to an inspiration.

 

As I am sure many of you are aware, the creator of children's classics Stingray and Thunderbirds, Gerry Anderson passed away yesterday. I remember as a kid watching the reruns of the great shows that were Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, UFO and Space 1999 that in-thrilled my morning TV escapades. In fact I still watch those great shows and all of a sudden I'm 5 years old again being amazed with what I saw and wondering how International Rescue were gonna save the day and whether Troy Tempest would ever get the courage to admit his feelings to Marina. 

The shows fueled my creative imagination from those early stages in my life and I thank the brilliant mind behind them all and to him I say...FAB!   

I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure.

Friday past, I have seen 'The Hobbit' and was absolutely amazed by Peter Jackson's adaptation of the classic children's novel that most of us adore. Though of course they have altered some scenes that I felt were key in the development of Bilbo becoming the hero. I digress this is not a film review. I decided instead of doing normal Christmas cards for my friends and family I have instead decided to something different for each of them. Case in point here is this illustration of Bilbo meeting Gandalf in 'The Hobbit' which has been appropriated as a Christmas card. This has become my second illustration from the book 'The Hobbit' and I have to say its a story I would love to illustrate fully just like Tolkien and other illustrators after him. 

Birthday

Birthday card design featuring the space hamster character. 

We'll always have Paris...

A small comic strip that was also created for me and my girlfriend's anniversary with it being a little nostalgic reminder of our trip to Paris last year. 

Anni

I can now at last unveil some of my recent work to all you great people out there. This image was designed for an anniversary card for my girlfriend which has just past and needless to say she was delighted with the portrayal of us which I think is pretty spot on. As you can see I have been continuing practicing my colour theory and am pleased that its getting better than how it used to be before. 

Thunder Xmas.

Hey people, been experimenting with my art of late particularly with colour. When it comes to colour I normally go for the one colour approach, something I picked up from with reading old comic strips. In the past I would have done a full coloured image but I was never that good or at least I didn't think it was, but now I have been having a stab at it by practicing and here above is the finished article.  

I am pleased with the result but I am well aware that there is still room for improvement, something that will come with continued practice. I also decided to do the same image but finished in the usual one colour tone. I do still like one colour tones and I will still keep using because I feel it is integral to the style of my work but I am hoping that having a better understanding of colouring that it may better inform my work when I do use one tone colouring. Hope you all enjoy the pieces.

Romanian Girl.

I initially did this drawing of Diana from our trip to Romania this summer. This was practice to see if I could draw someone but rendered in my own visual style, and I felt that is had its successes. Then an idea struck me. Bruce Timm is one of my major sources of visual inspiration especially his women and he often does images where he has a black and white visual that he then makes a fully coloured version. So I figured it might be an interesting experiment to try out.

Here is the result of my experiment. The scan does not do the original justice and even with the tweaks from Photoshop it is still an imperfect reproduction. This version is completed mostly with a combination of watercolour pencils and markers. Bruce Timm's colouring has that film noir poster flavour to it, which I did not successfully replicate. Instead I went for a more painterly approach utilizing my old life drawing class techniques. The end result I am particularly pleased with and I will be very open to trying this out again.

Finally I did a quick little additional experiment by overlaying the two images just to see what the outcome would be. Again I think this is another success and perhaps maybe stick to traditional methods for perhaps a full colour comic.

FML

Hey guys, I bring yet another image to my daily sketch. Though this time I decided to colour an image this time in full colour too. It has been awhile since I last used watercolours and it was fun, but a part of me feels this image doesn't show me at my best and maybe that I need to practice again using watercolours. So a bit of a downer on today's image but I think it was a good practice and addressed some technical issues that I will fix later on.

King of the Rocketmen!

Just a quick one for today, a little sketch from a classic film serial from the 40's The King of the Rocketmen' that I recently watched and loved. I am a sucker for classic, goofy, retro sci-fi.

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.

Retro Power!

Today's daily sketch is the classic look of the Iron Man from Marvel comics. It's been awhile since I have done a superhero drawing, so it was a nice change from the regular space hamster.

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.

The Specter!

Hey guys it’s been awhile since I last posted something up on the blog, needless to say I have been busy working on a few projects. Today I can finally unveil a piece of work that I collaboratively made with another artist, Steve May. The piece was an interesting challenge to integrate two separate styles that are to be displayed on the same plain as each other. The piece will be displayed at the Armadacon in Plymouth and will be up for auction with the proceeds going towards a charity.

I am also currently working on a 4 page narrative with a story that ties in with my family history specifically in WWII and doing a comic anthology with a local group based in the South West region too, so exciting little things happening that may turn into something later on. 

Have you seen the muffin man?

Thought I shake up the daily sketch routine this time, with a sequential piece. I got pretty cheesed off (yes I am allowed to say that) with some people yesterday so I decided to vent said frustration in a creative manner. Again I have called upon the great 'Space Hamster' to aide this cause and the age old nursery rhyme of 'The Muffin Man'. Now I have to apologize for misspelling Drury in this strip but I hope it is still clear enough that it ties in with the 'Muffin Man'.

I had a lot of fun putting this little piece together and has made me think that I ought to do more sequential imagery than just 'pin-up' illustrations so that I may continue to get better at telling narratives sequential which is essentially what I want to do rather than just do one off drawings.

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.

Tribal Cat Warrior

I was having a hard time coming up with an idea for today's sketch so went with something random and did a cat warrior. Not the most original of ideas but it was amusing to draw.

Doodles and oodles

A sketch I found that I did in Romania of Thunder. I had recently at that point read Darwyn Cooke's adaptation of Richard Stark's novel 'The Score' and liked the use of negative space when the main character confronted a stalker which I tried out using my character. Looking at it anew the attacker looks smaller than he ought to in the foreground and should be much bigger and the lightning could have been better to make it more coherent. Little lessons to learn for next time.

These pages are sketches that me and Diana did whilst at an evening service. The cat wizard is a character I have in mind for a graphic novel and appeared briefly in the 24 hour comic. Diana sketched Harold who plays the keyboard for the songs at the service.

Finally a sample of my poor attempt at life drawing. Though it was challenging to draw them in my illustrative style rather than the usual academic way I would normally go about drawing from life. I hope that if I continue to try and do this it may inform my visual style to be coherent and anatomically correct.

Dangerous streets

Today's sketch was originally just this nice young lady and then the background and the shadowy guy came later. I felt I haven't done a gangster/film noir image in a good while so it was nice to come back to it. Also I think the time has come to try a different colour now...orange has been used enough.

I see you!

I seem to have gone back to Tolkien again this time with the tower of Barad Dur. I have to say my pens were dying whilst making this image so the orange gets a little faded round the eye of Sauron. Other than that it was incredibly fun to create my own rendition of something from Tolkien's work and not be based on the Peter Jackson visual which has tainted the imagination of how we perceive Middle Earth.

Tell your friends we're coming for you!

Started doing some daily sketches just to keep the flow of drawing going. And today I started off with a mass effect showdown on Rannoch. With this piece I experimented using 'Kirby spots' for the Reaper laser making it all crazy, but I feel that makes it visually unclear. Saying that though I had fun making Shepard sweat trying to take out a Reaper.

Go back to the shadow...

I found a couple more sketches from Romania, this one here depicting the epic confrontation with the Fellowship and Durin's Bane. This composition is based off a sketch from artist Skottie Young but my own take of it, so it's not an original sketch in that sense. By trying to draw a little like him I found a way of drawing subjects in the fantastical context which is easier or more natural.

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.

The Forgotten Corner...

Hey folks, it's been awhile, I have been looking for prospecting jobs and sorting out my life. I finally got a chance to do a piece of Illustration.

Also some friends of mine from Uni have formed a collective so we can help each other find work as illustrators and to be encouraging to one another in creating some beautiful imagery.

We agreed on calling ourselves 'The Forgotten Corner' affectionately named after our work space at the studio. Our first brief was to create images relating to the name of our collective, whether it be vague or as literate to it. 

Here is my contribution to the brief, which materialized into a small insight into my subconscious thoughts and my imaginings, so it’s quite a personal piece to me at least. 

Please do visit the other members of the collectives sites: Ondrej, Benj, Nick, Tom, Chris, Tim and Chris Courage (sorry don't know his site) Stay smooth guys!

Naughty...

I thought that I try a provocative vignette of 'Thunder' playing on the sexual overtones that is quite rich in a film noir story. I guess I wanted to showcase here in this image that the hero isn't a goody two shoes, that he is flawed, is loose with women, and might be with other things. I also like that as a viewer it seems wrong to see a moment like this adding to the intrusion, it's something that I quite liked when I created this image. Hope you all enjoyed this.

Curves

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This great dame is for a joined project with Steve May local artist at Plymouth for a joined image that will be showcased at the armada sci fi convention in Plymouth on November. The final piece will also be up for auction and will go towards a charity for blind children in the UK. The final imagined piece will be a film noir esque pulp comic book cover featuring Steve's character and this little lady. Shall post the final image up when it is ready.

He Rises!

Hey all been awhile but here's a full colour piece of The Bat-Man for Mr Neal's Knights Of The Round blog on tumblr.

The Hobbit

I recently finished reading 'The Hobbit' and remembered how much fun and rich of a story the book really was. So whilst on my trip I took to recreating a scene where Bilbo converses with Smaug. I tried to base it a little to the original Tolkien illustration in the original book, though I added an atmospheric twist to it and have Smaug's glow create a very light contrasting space and to have the treasure all a glow too. Looking forward to the film's release though I now hear it is now to be a trilogy so have to wait awhile to see the whole thing.

Strikes his foes like a cobra...

Hey folks! I have returned from my trip to Romania and the country and food and sights were wonderful and I really enjoyed my time there. But I also kept myself busy with illustration work too and here is another vignette of 'Thunder' though this time I tried a limited colour palette with him and it seems to work well for him, so I think I will stick to it for the time being (I got obsessed with this orange colour whilst away).

The story for him is now nearly finished I am pleased to say and may have already a small comic book press that could become his home so exciting times for now and shall keep you guys posted on this development.

One more thing!

Open publication - Free publishing - More adaptation  Remembered that I made some digital comic versions of my previous projects, so thought I post them up just before I head off to Romania. The top one is the 'Jack and Jill' comic which for those who don't know it, is a film noir adaptation to the classic nursery rhyme. Below is a story that was part of a collaborative effort in making three different stories that cross over at specific points. This one is my story of tragic love in the backdrop of 30's Chicago.

Open publication - Free publishing - More 1930s

Off on an adventure!

It's been awhile since my last post on the blog and sad to say I will not be able to keep it up to date for awhile as I am off on holiday to Romania for the summer! It's the first proper vacation for the summer I have ever had in a long while. But do not despair I have a few new projects I will be working on that I shall share on here very soon. So keep tuning in. Laters.

The Big Sleep chapter 26

Open publication - Free publishing - More chapter 26

Hey folks, I have now uploaded the complete adaptation of a chapter from Raymond Chandler's novel 'The Big Sleep'. It has been a thrill working from the words of Chandler into a comic format and it has truly been a learning curve in how I create narratives. From this project I feel I truly have come into my own and have found a style I am comfortable to utilize in future works. And finally I have found the will to work with a different colour now huzzah.

Where's Agnes?

Hey folks, it has been awhile since I lasted posted up anything but this past month has been super busy. Now finally I have finished adapting a single chapter from Raymond Chandler's novel 'The Big Sleep' into a graphic novel format. I feel that my work has progressed in the direction that I wanted it to and have found a style of narrative that I wish to take to a professional level. Anyways here is a page from the chapter that I adapted, hope you enjoy.

The Final Frontier

A commissioned piece for the guys at the Final Frontier comic store with the two guys running it imagined as costumed heroes ready to serve the world with their comic book goods! Originally planned to be a quick black and blue image I decided to surprise them with a full colour image. Having done this piece I feel like I ought to do more coloured work not just in vignette images but also with my comics. I think my next comic I will try out watercolours so that will be awesome.

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.

Another Poster

Hey all, I managed to squeeze this image in my dissertation schedule. Taking what I learnt from the Titanic poster, I added some textures to my visuals to give a finished look to them and also to make it look a bit like a poster with a Film Noir flair to it. 

Titanic 100th anniversary poster

For the upcoming anniversary date commemorating the Titanic disaster now 100 years ago. I tried making it look like a screen print which I feel has been successful and really enjoyed making a poster that evokes the style and energy of the art deco period. 

In continued tribute to the late artist Ralph McQuarrie here is another rendition of his character drawings. This is based upon the Luke Skywalker image that featured in the same image that I based my Vader image from.

Tribute to the master...

Concept artist Ralph McQuarrie was the artistic force behind the look of the Star Wars universe who past away sadly on March 3rd.

So though it is late I am putting up my tribute to this great artist who shaped the world that I and many more have to come to appreciate. He is a great loss to this world but his works shall forever be greatly admired.

On the street.

New sketch of Thunder, though it was done on the trip to Exeter comic con. Again experimenting with markers again and the dried out fade you get from a dying pen makes for some good tonal effects, so perhaps something to consider in future images. 

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.

Bane

On my way to the Exeter comic expo, I did a sketch of Bane from the upcoming film Dark Knight Rises, inspired from a piece of the latest trailer.

Exeter Comic Expo 2012

Hey people, realised it has been awhile since I last posted something up, but I have been busy with a few projects on the go.

Anyways last Sunday, I went up to Exeter with a couple of friends to go visit the Exeter Comic Expo. Now I have never been to an event like comic con before, so I was not sure what I would expect and what there was to do and so forth. However I found the experience to be enjoyable and was nice to see something that I hope one day I will be a part of, though the highlight for me was to meet the artist Jock aka Mark Simpson, who I had a wonderful chat with about the comic world and the rigours of getting a place in the industry.

He was also kind enough to critique my 'Jack and Jill' comic too, and then finished it all off with a nice Joker sketch.

Made my day.

Break the Glass

Here is another splash page image featuring LT Thunder giving another crook a hard time, though I have yet to create an interesting story round this character, but I am having more fun with doing this little poster images of him, though I still have that short comic of him that needs to be more finalized.

In case you are wondering what I am now up to I am going about adapting the Raymond Chandler novel 'The Big Sleep' into a graphic novel. Might have some character images to show as I progress. Enjoy.

Dragon!!!

Here is a little doodle in celebration to the year of the dragon with King Ghidorah!

Thunder's First Outing!

At last I have done a comic story of Thunder, though tis a short one and by no means is this the finished product. Going through it there are clear mistakes, errors and some sloppy panelling techniques such example would be the 3 panels with the gun firing, which slows down the pacing of the story though it had reached its natural conclusion, at least to me it did.
Also it was supposed to indicate him firing it three times, but as that wasn't clear I have failed to show it. In addition continuity errors too, such as the fire exit door changing ends and the height of the ledges too.
Finally the last page is quite a cheesy typical splash look at me type of page, which I don't really want looking at it now, though at the time it seemed great.
Depressing this post so far but, I take it as a positive one. I am still learning and making mental notes in what not to do and how to improve, so at least I am being constructively aware, but I want to be like that whilst I am working and not after it.
Anyways hope to get an improved one up soon laters.