You are henceforth banished from my bedchamber!

Me again chums! Apologies for the lack of blogging I... er... forgot? Bought meself a copy of Manga Studio EX4 couple of weeks ago and have been getting to grips with it (read: wrestling with it). But you'll be glad to know I'm almost up to speed and am now capable of doing things like the above with it. All drawn on screen with me Wacom and I'm sure you'll agree it looks just like the real thing. I heart Manga Studio.

Illustration is a character study for a children's book about a beleaguered court jester that resides in my 'must get round to starting it' file (shelved just before the 'must get round to finishing it' file and after the 'must get round to having an idea that's going to make me a millionaire' file). Ladies and Gents - Sebastopol and Aedric, the King and his Fool.

Something old...

Cant' post anything new I've been working on yet because either: a) the client hasn't published it yet, b) the client hasn't seen it yet or c) the illustrator hasn't got round to finishing it yet...

Instead here's something from the deep mists of time, way back in 1999 when I was doing my degree. It's the cover for a picture book I'd written called 'Last Night, at the Fair', which even by my standards then was absolutley abysmal. But I've always quite liked this image. It was conceived and executed between the hours of 2am and 5am on the morning of the project's deadline, the colour-pencilled fruit of my first ever all-nighter. I like it because of it's simplicity and simply because I managed to pull it off.

I learnt two important lessons in the process: never leave things until the last minute and always leave things until the last minute. It's amazing how a deadline clears the mind - too much time can be a very bad thing - but still, a bed at night is kinda nice...

A Truck Drivin' Man

New character sketch from my Product project, designing a range of Designer Toys for mass production. More details and characters soon!

Job's a good 'un

Just finished the character design job for CS One's new website. Before it goes live here's a sneak peak of one the cheeky chaps. Not my usual style but great fun to draw - quick and easy, no time consuming photo ref or mind-nummingly complex foreshortening. I'm going try and work elements of this back into my 'house style' - bish bash bosh ker-ching, that's what you want!

A Man for One Season part two

Righto chums, pages 3 and 4 of the AQQ strip above. As before, nice idea but slightly stiff and inconsistent illustration. The four pages form part of a larger cycle which follow a group of individuals throughout the year as they earn their living doing seasonal work.

There's one important panel from the thumbnail in page one that was omitted due to space, which holds the meaning behind the larger story:

The park-keeper goes back to his shed and realises that now all the fallen leaves have been collected his life has been robbed of purpose until next autumn. Because no matter how menial, no matter how meaningless and ultimately futile his activities are they provide him with a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And so the story goes on... For example, can you imagine the crushing despair of the department store Santa on December 25 when he wakes up to the realisation that his portly frame and robust laugh is going to be utterly redundant until next November?

*sigh*

See you next time chums!

A Man for One Season part one

For some reason I get a lot of jobs where the client wants a robot as a character. I suspect this may be because there's an image of a robot on my business card, which I reason demonstrates the power of subliminal imagery. With this in mind my new business cards will picture a stack of freshly-minted £50 notes with an arrow pointing to an illustration of my wallet. Worth a try...

Anyway, I just found the above thumbnail rough in the archives, which I've posted to address the balance and to prove that I can draw things other than automatons. It's a thumbnail rough for my first commissioned comic strip which was published by AQQ magazine in autumn 2007. It's interesting to see the differences between the rough (above) and the finished artwork (below). I was never entirely happy with the end product, which, as is often the case, was compromised due to publishing deadlines. I still like the idea, though the version that saw print lacks the simple charm and fluidity of the rough.

I'll post some more pages soon and explain what it's all about...

Thank you, thank you

Just finishing off a job for CS One Designers at the moment, a slew of character designs for their soon-to-be-going-live new website. Can't release any of the images yet but in the meantime this is the last piece I produced for them...

'Ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go

Okay, this is me saying HELLO...

Gripping stuff so far eh? Well, that's life chum, deal with it.