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. 

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.

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.

Cards

A birthday card drawing for someone's birthday, that features Smaug the stupendous but in a cute baby form. Colouring treasure isn't all that bad, but I think this year has taught me clearly that there is only so much you can do just colouring via a mouse track pad. So next year I'll invest in a drawing tablet. At last.

And here is a Christmas card drawing, again for someone I know featuring the Space Hamster. I hope everyone had a joyous Christmas and plenty of turkey and puddings. 

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.

22 Panels

It's time to dust the cobwebs from this site and give you people some updates. Back in October me and Diana attended a comic art exhibition in Falmouth, dubbed 22 Panels named after Wally Wood's 22 Panels.

We were neighbours to a wonderful quirky artist Edie who does dark, whimsical children's book illustrations. It was a great environment to be in, with so many creatives in one room and no traders in sight...well maybe one or two. I wish there were more events that really celebrate the art of comics and for artists to come together and talk, sometimes ideas or collaborations come about at these types of gatherings. 

Anyway here are a few sketches I did whilst at 22 panels.

One last thing to say is that I now have additional printed copies of issue 0 of "A Shadow of Steel". If you'd like a copy please feel free to contact me so we can arrange purchase and delivery.

DevCon 1

Me and the lovely Diana Mazuru at our first convention table.

Carrying over from the last post, me and Diana decided that we would do our first convention at DevCon1 and so we got fairly busy preparing our table for the convention and we felt we had very little to put out there. Turned out we had a bit too much. Regardless we managed to have fun and we sold way more items than we thought we would. For instance I completely sold out my first print run of issue 0 of "A Shadow of Steel!" which caught me by surprise, but it was such a shot in the arm for my confidence and I am now more dedicated to actually doing more comics featuring 'The Silver Phantom'. 

It was also a really great social experience for us too, as we met some great and interesting people. 

In the words of Conrad Verner "It's surprising how many people out there are just waiting for someone to talk to them". 

Also I picked up a comic drawn by two good friends of mine called 'Arthur Shilling' and I have to say its one of the best indie comics I have read so far. If you're interested here's the link to their Facebook page. Drawn by artists Rob Cross and Steve May. 

Additionally I got to chat to other artists Lee O'Connor and Jock about comics and for them to critique my work that I valued. 

Finally if you missed out going to DevCon1 and are interested in buying my comic, I will be at 22 Panels at The Poly in Falmouth with soon to receive additional copies of my comic.