Ya Wouldn't Let It JLI

My return to work kas seen me drawing my arse off. In the past two weeks, I have done four work pieces and no less than 13 personal requests. I have had a further 3 today alone!  A while back, I began filling up a few pads with sketches to ink at some point. Posted here (with some others I have tweaked)are some in various stages and I have plenty more I'm working on in my lunchbreaks...

New Year Greetings

Well, returned to work last week and by Friday had 6 art requests, all done except a tattoo design I'm working on. Over Christmas, i managed to clear my home of alot of detritus and made it through my reading pile (though have an art book to peruse). I'm also two stories away from finishing Panini's recent Wolverine pocketbook and really impressed how the Claremont/Miller mini stands up. Mind you, Miller is afar better storyteller than artist as he draws one of the worst Wolverine panels ever (page 2 of #3 is a corker). I usually hate mixed artists but the mini is rounded out by the two-part Paul Smith Uncanny X-Men followup story and the whole thing holds together well, and with the low cost, high production values and compact size I'd heartily recommend this.

I don't know why I mentioned that, I never meant to but there you go...

I hope to focus more on drawing this year. I currently have four pads on the go, creating a list of stuff I want to do and a few older pieces I can save. For instance, a new face and a new backdrop means I can save the old Mucha-inspired pic below. Progress is slow on some of the pencils posted previously, with the JLI being far more difficult than I expected. The Flash is posing a particular problem and I'm also not happy with Fire and Ice (well I am...but this uses a more attractive hairstyle from an Adam Hughes pinup rather than the shorter hairstyle she originally had so I need to strike a better balance), while Ralph and Captain Atom look far too like the Maguire originals (I tried to keep poses as close as accurate to #24's cover but these two are far too close and swipy looking!)

I imagine that all of a sudden, I'll have a handful of updates completed so here's a few more pix until then...

End of the Year Rumblings

Feel like it's been ages since I last posted but I have been pretty busy. I've managed to pencil a few bits and pieces but sadly it's difficult finding time to ink, especially as the weather's turned nasty and I can't sit outside and ink on my lunch breaks as I did in the summer.

I have 4 comic pages to do in the new year but I find doing a few bits and pieces for my own amusement really help recharge the batteries. I'm currently working in four pads: an A3 pad to practice larger pieces, an A5 pad to do quick little bits (currently home to some cartoony Pulp Fiction scribblings), a hardcover that I want to keep for drawing women and another hardcover for general stuff.

Above are a couple of bits included as just a little update really...

Work Load 1.5

Following the last post, I had some time to while away in a London pub yesterday while I waited for a couple of good pals to arrive so I got caught up on the two animated-style requests, the Blue Beetle to go with the Booster and even an Iron Fist to go with the Luke Cage request. I finished the Ghost Rider bike this morning and coloured the whole lot today. Nothing special, but fun pieces and something a bit different...

Work Load

Last Wednesday, I was asked if I could do a few drawings for a presentation at work this week. Well, that turned out to be 22 caricatures of staff and managers dressed as superheroes appropriate to their personalities. As I was out all three remaining nights last week, that meant I had to cram them all in over the weekend. As well as drawing them, they all needed colouring and lettering too so the only way I could possibly manage it was by going animated style. This meant less rendering and easier colouring (all done with the paint bucket tool).

I didn't want to "waste" all that work so I drew them with the original character heads then shopped in the staff caricature heads. Some turned out really well, others (mostly the women for some reason) less so but here's a look at some of my favourites with a final version (less text) for comparison.

I have a Blue Beetle/Booster Gold pic on my list of illos to do but I think I may just do a Beetle to go with this Booster anyway.

These seem to have been popular, got a laugh, a round of applause, a request for a tweaked version of one pic for the individual's own use and a request from somebody else to be turned into a hero. My Saturday evening's already booked out but now I think I know what I'll be doing Saturday morning!

More Random Stuff

 

My return to sequential work should hopefully be only a fortnight away but things keep coming up to push my schedule back. Here's a sampling of stuff done recently.

I had to do three more pieces for work recently (besides the animation available here:  ) but I took the bride above from one of these, just cut the rest of the illo and added a new head.

I've also got a show coming up after much cajoling, nothing fancy but hanging in a gallery at my regular pub, the Belle Vue. Obviously, much of what I do is done on Photoshop so the exhibition will be mostly prints but I decided to create some new pieces more in keeping with the pub's rock music ambiance.

 

I'm also going to do a larger original pencil piece to show, started today and already I'm not sure if it's working. I'm mot using my usual pencils for shading, just my standard retractable pencilling pencil so I my need to start over with proper pencils.

I pencilled a Debbie Harry piece ready to ink and probably shade with copics but ended up quite liking the pencil version. As I still plan on inking it, I decided to start another Kristen Bell (just can't get her right!) in pencil but sod's law, it's all going wrong  and I'll have to start again...

The Hellcat is another "art save": I was requested to draw a celeb dressed as Hellcat but after I completed it, I shopped in the proper Hellcat head to keep an illo I can look at (I don't care for the celeb!). The Japanese pic was an image that come fully formed in my head whilst watching The Wolverine, the waitress is another art save that I'm going to drop into a new background (when I figure out what to do) and the other headshot is supposed to be Elizabeth Sladen, done some time a go for a Who montage that went horribly wrong when I shopped all the elements together (Rory came out well though)....

Anyways, that's what I've been doing lately...

Random Stuff

 

 

 

Sigh

I've been drawing my arse off lately and not a whole lot to show for it but some is coming together. As well as completing a 5 pager and a crudely animated sequence to go on Youtube, I've had various other projects so last weekend, I took a breather and just chilled, doing stuff for myself.

That mainly included starting some pencilled pieces for myself to ink and finishing off a few other pieces. Results are mixed at best. Some have come out nice: unless I cock the inking up, I am fairly hopeful for two pieces, I started a really nice Jim Morrison then ran out of space for the top of his hair so will probably have to ccomp in hair as I don't think I can recreate the likeness achieved so far: sometimes you can't recapture that spark.

Other pieces failed: a Kate Beckinsale was nice in pencils, ok in inks but not good in colour. Similarly, a Clint Eastwood was nice in pencils but went all kinds of wrong in the inks. Still, I really liked the Gulacyesque image so may give it a second bash and tighten up on that likeness. These won't be posted, neither will a few other bits pottering away in the background.

Above are a few examples I can show: the eggs were created for the afore mentioned animation project but it was suggested I might want to copyright them. I doubt I'll ever use them but you never know, so these are the Eggsplosions. The Little Red Riding Hood turned out okay and Jeremy's Piles was a rejected Viz submission...they choose not to run it (I've never been a huge buyer so have since been told it may be too similar to a strip called Nobby's Piles which I assume runs on the same line) but they said the quality was very good and they would be happy to look at anything else.

As a result, I have another one-pager in the works but also need to return my focus to the four pages I have to do for TMSAV. I've thumbnailed the story twice though and while perfectly clear storytelling, want to tighten it up a bit.

So anyway, pics above then...