Drawing not drawing--KA-BLAM!!

What with the glacial pace of my moving home at the moment, things are a bit up in the air and I won't be drawing any sequential stuff for a bit, at least until after I'm settled into the new place. My book on comic films is done (less a rewrite that really SHOULD be done---but I'm fed up with constantly updating it now, I just want it out there and out of my system so I can move on to pastures new) and right now, before I complete The Jock #2 (only 6 pages left, folks!) and tweak #1, I'm preparing a gallery comic of around 60 pages to be printed by Ka-Blam.

The advantages of Ka-Blam are that there are no piddly PDF formatting problems, there are optional print tariffs depending on advertising and their product looks pretty good. I decided I'd like a nice easy-to-leaf-through sort of "Best Of" thing, featuring art of mine that I can bear to look at. Primarily stuff previously seen on my website, I'm just pulling together my favourite artwork, including a few comic pages, and hope to print off a handful of copies for myself and mates, no big commercial enterprise. Moving has thrown a spanner into the works of some further ideas I had for the moment, but we shall see what the future holds.

However, I have not been TOTALLY absent from the sketch pad as I was shanghai'ed into producing another piece of art for the local coubcil today. Anybody who has been unfortuante enough to listen to me list the stuff I hate to draw knows cars and buildings are at the top of the list of things I hate to draw (people being my fave thing to draw). I had to draw a three bedroom house, a removal van and a bungalow. Seriously--JOY. Drawing at A4 with office supplies instead of proper drawing equipment, it's miracle any of it came out looking---not quite terrible. The van actually came out ok considering I couldn't use reference but due to the limits of the page size, things got truncated (they'll eventually be blown up for placards!) and because of the wheels, the truck looks like a Dinky toy or something!

This isn't the first time I've provided art for the council---below are two covers I did for the homeless prevention unit. I have to say I actually quite like the relationship breakdown pic---given free reign, I think I came up with a simple illo that clearly portrays--or at least hints at--the subject matter. I quite like the clean line style I used too, especially on the bloke.

Less impressive was the support piece...I created the background cast to be fairly diverse (gay gay, geography teacher-type guy, hippie hick, black lady and Hindu man) but I didn't want to make the main black guy be too stereotypical ie no baggy sports gear, dreads or facial characteristics that could be construed as being offensive. The only comment I got when handing it in was "Can you black this guy up a bit?" I just darkened the hair a bit cos I felt he was as clearly black as I wanted to go without veering into caricature. I quite like the girl figure though, again happy with the clean line approach...

Quite weirdly, I find myself in the unusual position of having to draw a self-portrait! As someone who avoids mirrors like a vampire, maybe I should take their cue and draw myself in the dark...