Twump!

Just a little Twitter dump of the images I've tweeted in the last few weeks and haven't been posted here. All work in progress (apart from the last one which will always remain just a scribble):

Ever wanted to know the weekly schedule of a comicbook artist and part time musician/tutor? Not really? In the hope that someone will find it of interest...

Monday 9am - 5:30pm - Drawing in my studio with half hour break at around 11:30 and an hour or so at around 2:30 for lunch. At 5:30 I have dinner with Aimee who's just returned from her hospital duties (she's a medial student), then leave the house at 6:20 to teach in Carryduff, then drive straight to gig in Lavery's. Sometimes I get time for coffee and a comic in Clements in between, depending on how quick I get away from the classes. Arrive home for bed about 1:30am. Took me a few weeks to get my coffee level right. One cup at about 10pm stops me being too tired to drive home, any more or later and I won't sleep.

Tuesday Until recently this was almost exactly the same as Monday, but from last week I had to drop the Tues class I teach, which should give me some extra time in the house between 5pm and 7:30pm

Wednesday 9am - 5:30 pm - Drawing in the studio, same breaks as Monday (and every other week day). At around 5:30pm have dinner with Aimee then leave the house about 6.20pm again to teach in Carryduff. Get back home around half 9 and spend some quality Aimee-Time. Blog.

Thursday - Same as Wednesday but get home around 9pm (unless its the 1st Thursday of the month when I'll head to Comicbook creators meeting in Garrick, so get home about 12:30am)

Friday - 9 to 5 drawing, then order Chinese and usually indulge in some alcohol drinking. Frequently there is some sort of Mario Kart Wii or DVD boxset involved with Aimee.

Saturday - Lazy breakfast. Teach class 11:30am - 1pm. Up until last week I took a fortnightly kids session until about 3:30, but I've had to drop that too. Spend an hour or two in town buying comics and other window shopping with Aimee (she likes shiny things and Jane Norman)

Sunday - More often than not there is some commitment for Sunday like a family lunch or Christening (like last week), but I try to get a bit of drawing done at some point. Make sure to spend at least a portion of the day relaxing though...

That might read like a bit of a rant, but I enjoy almost everything I do (and love a lot of it). I am tired though... maybe I should go to sleep...

Com-poot-er?

I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas from Aimee. Not being much of a gamer, I haven't had a new gaming console since the N64 (though Aimee's sister has a Wii in the house, and we have spent a few Friday nights with Mario Kart) but the thrall of modern games was pulling me in and I finally relented.

Yes I know I'm a little behind with all this but the art in these games are amazing. The design work and detail in the environments alone are amazing. I was in awe walking through the Gears of War 2 levels in HD, just stopping at staring at the endless caverns and scenery.

Anyways, here's a quick warm up sketch I did of a Shock Trooper from Halo: ODST. It's very loose and sketchy. Also, please ignore the gun which just looks like a big bendy tube:

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Wouldn't mind sitting down and trying a proper rendered illustration based on some of the games I've been playing.  Just have to find the time.

I've just realised that since it's February, this blog must be just over a year old (it was my New Year's resolution last year to start one). If you haven't read a lot of the older posts you should have a browse around. Lots to see.

Bit of Rough Stuff...

I'm really enjoying getting back to pencils-only for Slaughterman's Creed. As I mentioned before, as satisfying as creating the entire artwork (apart from lettering) myself was, it took far too long, and having to work through so many stages just to finish a page made me sick of each one by the end.

I've got an inker and colourist lined up, so hopefully will have something to post with their contributions soon, but for now here's a pencilled close up of Mr. Green. Hopefully you can tell by his expression he has something nasty planned...

Busy

Late blog this week as it's been a busy one. Between my Mum's birthday, Aimee's Mum's birthday, and going away for a midweek break for Aimee's Birthday (which is technically this coming Tuesday, but we went away early as she's back to class tomorrow) I've hardly had time for drawing.

It was nice to catch up on some reading though and (finally) finished Good Omens, caught up on Vol 10. of The Walking Dead, and read Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained! as well as this the last few weeks comics while sitting by the fire at the KillyHevlin hotel drinking some Irish Coffees.

Here's an unused sketch of Mr. Green from the upcoming Slaughterman's Creed. I was looking for a different style that would indicate Green wasn't quite there (this would have been made semi-transparent and layered over the background panel in Photoshop) but this version ended up looking far too muddled on the page, and the colours, as Cy rightly pointed out, made Green look Jamaican. This was done with some Winsor & Newton coloured Inks that I'd just bought for a separate commission and wanted to try out.

I really liked working with the inks on this and the commission, so I'll be finding something else to do with them. Don't think a full comic project would be feasible though as they take quite a lot of work.

(Not the) Master of puppets

I sometimes draw things that aren't comicbook related. Last year I was emailed out of the blue by a local TV production company asking me if I thought my style could be tailored to designing some puppets for their show. I sent off a couple of quick sketches based on the descriptions they sent, but I presume it wasn't what they were looking for as it didn't go any further.

So anyway, I found the sketches as I was cleaning up my laptop and thought I'd post them up here.

I have a few other non comics art projects on my hard drive, and I'm about to start another, so I might post some of that soon.

Eggheads

Back from Glasgow this morning after my second consecutive 5:30am wakeup. Feeling a bit groggy but fine fun was had by the League of Just Us while battling the Eggheads.

Five comic book creators. Stephen (otherwise known as Reggie), Paddy, Aidan, me and PJ.

Four comicbok creators and a girl (Aimee, and ok, she's a comicbook model).

A few of us wearing some dodgy shirts. Bright colours were compulsory and I had to go shopping..

The League of Just Us and the Eggheads.

The show won't air until Summer some time and you'll have to wait until then to find out whether we won. I can say that the staff at BBC Scotland were very nice, as were the Eggheads themselves. We also had a special gift for Jeremy Vine, the presenter, which I'll post after it makes its TV debut. 

Desaturation

Well last year I had the bright idea of trying to pencil, ink and colour all 5 chapters of Slaughterman's Creed. It was a great learning experience and while I found the colouring often very frustrating as I learnt how to do it, I'm quite happy with how a lot of it turned out.
Lately I've come to enjoy being able to refine faces and features without having to draw in the black ink lines that can often feel restrictive, and colouring my own work allowed me to tailor the line work to allow for this.

That said, I have two chapters of the book completely coloured, but from the third (of five) I'm going to reduce my art chores to just pencilling. The current process was just too time consuming and if we want Slaughterman's Creed out this year something had to give. There is a natural story transition before chapter 3 that will hopefully be complimented by a change in colour artist, so hopefully any stylistic change will enhance the reading experience and not detract from it.

It will certainly be exciting and interesting to see how another colourist interprets my work again...