Tuesday 3 March 2009

Random Roundup Returns


'Cor, it's not every day you get free beer at work is it? Yep, payment for yet another office art project means I now have a nice four pack chilling off in the fridge, almost makes all the crap at work worth it!

Anyway, posted above is the coloured and pencil shaded Supergirl, worked at at A4 rather than full size. I've saved a copy as a Photoshop file as this is one of the few pieces I've done that I'm fairly happy with (a few niggles but overall about 85% happy) and I might want to go back and do "proper" colouring rather than just these flat colours.

Went rooting through my old art the other day to organise it a bit and not alot of old stuff really exists anymore. When I was working nights, it sent me a bit funny for a while and at one point I vowed never to draw again and threw out tons of art, including most of my Jock issues. However, I unearthed a few other bits and realised how much work I've done with Rol. As well as over 25 issues of the Jock, there's been covers for Pjang, a Spider-Man illo for Vicious, a spot illo for his website, short stories like "Trust" and "Lonely Boy" and various character designs: we're almost like the small press Moench & Gulacy! :)

Random newsbites:

October sees the publication of The Complete Rocketeer from IDW, completely recoloured by Laura Martin, Dave Stevens' personal choice for the project. This means I can finally give up looking for a collected edition of Cliff's New York Adventure. For those of you who've never tried this, now's the chance to own a gorgeous looking collection with a great sense of fun.

The Birmingham Comics show also looks interesting this October if rumours of the big name guest of honour are accurate. I would say who it is, but it'd be rude. Picked up a couple of Wally Wood and Al Williamson items dirt cheap at a Brum comic fair this weekend, as well as Charles Vess' Spidey graphic novel, also dirt cheap--bonus! Still, it was better seeing unexpected faces Sarah and Phil at the pub again, felt like old times.

Three episodes in on the new Heroes episodes and it's treading water a bit. It definitely needs a firmer direction but I have the sad feeling this season will be the last. I think principal filming has ended but there's a familiar TV face joining the show for a bit (won't say who in case of spoilers but it could b a good piece of casting).

Let's hope the returning Smallville is still good. The reason I worked on the Supergirl piece is I know time is short for me on Heroes and Smallville days so I thought I'd ease into drawing after being ill by doing that. Hopefully get back to Lonely Boy tomorrow (now that I've made some necessary alterations via the lightbox in the pencil stage) and get some serious pencilling done at the weekend...luckily the backgrounds should be fairly easy for the final pages.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Cool Supergirl, hopefully your last ;-). If you fancy it, send me the coloured file and I'll try turning the pencil shading into a colour burned jobbie.

That BICS rumour is just that, unconfirmed, so best not to jinx it yet. Heroes is on its uppers methinks, now that it's exhausted the X-Men Claremont run and ventured into the murky realms of Civil War. Fun while it lasted.

Nige Lowrey said...

Don't think I'll need to do another Supergirl now though at some point I'd like to do a decent Wonder Woman and Donna Troy. I still ahve the file as a photoshop file so that'd be huge, what format would you like the file?

I'm not mentioning names about BICS until they're announced, which is why I thought that'd be rude. However, if you can detect a knowing wink, I couldn't possibly comment...

And I forgot to comment that Phil was right, there's a new Green Lantern animated feature coming out (starring Jennifer Garner's dad off Alias as Sinestro!): have to admit that the DC animated features are a lot stronger than the Marvel ones, mainly by being more faithful and having stronger storylines. Once again, New Frontier: great!

Unknown said...

Save it as a TIFF with layers, shouldn't be so big then. Email or Sendspace it me.

DC cartoons may be better, but their heroes still smell of starch. And poo.

Nige Lowrey said...

DC heroes are better icons because they're paragons but Marvel heroes are more relateable as they're more realistically flawed. And don't smell of trouser surprise.

The Photoshop version I'm using doesn't seem to let me save the files as a Tiff with layers (the option is greyed out when I select the tiff format)so I've uploaded the original PSD here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/l5nmpj

Rol said...

If you're missing any old Jock issues, let me know - I might be able to dig them out... though that would no doubt horrify you.

dave said...

Hey Rol, can I have some old Jocks? I gave mine to Bill when we met him and Alan in Sheffield and never got them back. Then again from what I hear from Nigel, he's in a patagonian rainforrest teaching the wrong things to the wrong people;-)

Nige Lowrey said...

I was referring to chucking out all my original art rather than the issues, which I still have. I thought I had the Liam Bingo issue art somewhere (as the art's slightly ropey but I think the storytelling was great---I loved open script)but I can't find them.

I seem to have misplaced a ton of my old small press comics: while I still have all the Jock, Fell (finally met Andrew Pack last year!!) and Silver issues, I've lost alot of miscellaneous work done for Dave, Defective and other bits and bobs (which amounted to a fair stack actually). Similarly, I've managed to keep hold of Tone's work as well as that by Ralph and Garen Ewing, but have misplaced most of Dave's stuff (which i only discovered when I tried to find all issues to send him to reprint). Thinking about it, Chris Askham's work is missing too...

And while it's low profile, Bill Kay has got a new blog but any reference to his old life is understandably rare..

Rol said...

Dave, as soon as the pot is off my arm and I can lift the boxes off the top of the wardrobe, I'll send you what I have.