On the train yesterday

A productive sketchbook day on public transport yesterday. The bottom page is work in progress for Fourteen nights theme. Which I may get done today if I'm not to knackered when I get home. Hope you like them. I do. Excited about my She-wolf picture, watch this space . . .

#89 Captain Skip Slidedown, a dirtonaut

Mr Irving Fungusface

This is Mr Irving Fungusface - A living garden and another excuse for a random sketch. I drew him for the 700 Mole-Men project. The list of 700 strange naked-mole-rat-like people is taken from John Hodgman's new compendium, "More Information Than You Require". Each Mole-(wo)man has a curious name and a very short character note. There is a Flickr group where you can see other artist drawings. I'm sure I'll do a few more in other idle moments as I enjoyed this one and could do with doing a bit more imaginative work.

A lot of something and nothing

The products of chaotic mind. Also doing lots and lots of planning scribbles for a comic on scraps of used photocopy paper. I feel really out of my depth with it. Maybe I'll post some of the more legible ones up sometime this week and fish for advice.

Inky girls

Where in the world

Here are my sketches from Sketchcrawl 20 London. It was a good event. I met some nice people and had a good time. A bit disappointed in these sketches though. They don't really show much about where in the world they were done. We crawled past a lot of really interesting place but I sadly I didn't draw them. I'll try and get out again soon and force myself to draw the surroundings and not just passing people.

On The Street

The best of yesterdays scrawling, there was a lot of chaff.


Some scribbling from today

The last two days have been disrupted by disasterous train trouble. It wasn't worth heading into to work by the time it cleared up so I took holiday and did a bit of sketching. Nothing special just quick scribbles. As ever I really need to focus and do some proper drawing/illustration work.

Sketch Book

At The Crossroads

This is for the Fourteen Nights blog, the theme was 'Old Wives Tale' - Selling your soul to the devil at the crossroads is not strictly an old wives tale I suppose but it is kind of. Not sure about it really, as a picture. No time to fix though so here it is.

Some sketches done at foyles coffee shop

Too many sketchbooks

A few of todays sketches from 3 sketchbooks

As if three sketchbooks wasn't enough I made this one from a sheet of A3. It is a pattern I came across whilst on my degree. I've alway wanted to do something with it. It can be turned inside out to reveal more pages or arranged in differnt ways to show different formats. Maybe a little comic/illustration collection with some of the Fourteen Nights guys in the future . . .

I was just about to post then though I should a how to. So here you go. In case you were interested.

'King of the Internets'

The online marketing guy - he seemed quite offended but everyone else thinks it is a good likeness. :)

. . . and a few flickr drawings.

I started doing some rough layouts today but need to get the fourteen nights theme done by the end of the week so I'll be doing that tonight.

Today

Did these in between renders this afternoon. Moleskine sketch book doesn't like watercolour much. The coated paper does wierd resistance things. I mainly use the cheaper multipack thin paper Moleskines and in many ways I prefer them I can see the appeal of these highly(/over?) rated books though. I wonder if it will grow on me.

Two Great books

I received Enrique Fernandez version of 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' on Friday. I quite seriously sat and read it with my jaw dropped. It is so beautiful in every way that am still reeling. The character design, colours layout . . . everything is just nailed. So many good things to say about it but I haven't time now suffice to say if you don't already own this your next stop should be Amazon.

The other book I got last week was Dustin d'Arnault's self published comic The Half Man. It is a wonderfully inky imagining of an African myth. A tense atmospheric 'David and Goliath' tale set in a dense jungle. I can't say enough good things about his Dustin's Inks. I highly recommend this book. If you need more persuasion then you are supporting self publishing which is a great model for aspiring artists and if you are interested in producing your own one day then it is excuse to check out the service over at Lulu

Where does all the time go?

a small selection of todays sketches


an unflattering watercolour

another new sketchbook

I have had a heavy weekend of drawing, mostly researching the Dorian Gray thing. I've not really stopped but I'm not sure how much progress I've made but I feel ready to start tackling layouts now. I still haven't settled on my characters being female. I like the idea. I'm quite inspired by the glamourous women of mid-20C advertising and fashion photography. I think perhaps I should simplifiy my ambitions though . . . ? I have also been reading books on filmmaking, noir lots of comics and graphic novels articles on the Golden Age and trawling the blog-o-sphere . . .

This drawing was a bit random but I think I have a plan for it . . .

Where does all the time go? I'm working hard at improving my drawing but there just never seems to be enough time to draw enough or read enough . . . maybe I'm in too much of a rush. It's hard to have a perspective on your own progress when your nose is so close to the page. This coming week I want to get a picture done for 14Nights, one for Illustration Friday and start layouts for comic . . . oh yeah and I have to go to work ;)

Watercolour and Ink

Just a few sketches today. Finding watercolour tricky . . .

Sketch Dump

A few pages from yesterday's scribbling. I brought a portable watercolour set and a water brush-pen for sketching out and about because I could do with thinking about colour more. Need pratice though, watercolour is tricky.

Hitchcock Studies

I've started trying to draw out a section from 'A Picture of Dorian Gray' as you may have picked up from previous posts. I have quickly became overwhelmed by the possibilities for framing, shots, layouts, pacing . . . Realizing how ill equipped I was to deal with this task but feeling determined, I have been studying frames from Hitchcock films. It has already proved to be a very useful exercise but I am still overwhelmed.

This very good site has all Hitchcock's films represented by 1000 stills (per film) and is a great resource.

Sugary

A quick-ish drawing for this week's Illustration Friday theme. Not sure I quite got Sugary. Sweet perhaps but sugary? I'm a bit off Photoshop at the moment so this is markers and pencils. Haven't actually posted this on Illustration Friday yet, maybe I'll get around to it this week or maybe I'll try to make a more Sugary picture.

I did Join the SketchCrawl forum though and am looking forward to scribbling my way around London on the 25th.

Slow progress

Slow progress lots of sketches not enough focus . . . I hate wasting the weekend.

Leonardo Rodriguez

There is too much awesome art work on the net. Inspired and intimidated in equal measure every time I go poking around. just added a new hero to my links list, Leonardo Rodriguez, Very nice watercolour illustration. Nothing twee about Leonardo's watercolours. Great bold colours and design. Sooo jealous. I don't trust my sense of colour and really need to get back into painting. So little time. How do those guys who work at the big us animation studios manage it. Awesome designers by day, self publishing by night, blogging and having a life. Do they sleep?

More Sketches

I've been quite busy sketching and not working today. Really enjoying it at the moment. Having fun trying to work out frames for a short comic. Previous attempts have been a bit of a battle but so far this is flowing along. I hope I can maintain the momentum.

Two more PDF mags

As I didn't want to seem unjust here are two more . . . Blanket and Moloko Plus are other art/deisgn orientated publication definately worth a look and no doubt there are many more.


*i had a few problems with this post sorry if you got spammed

Doodling and noodling

Scanned, printed and drawn over. Just messing around.

Some thumbnails I did on the train last night for a 2 or 3 page version of Dorian Gray story. I wounder if it will go any further. Enthusiastic at the moment so I'll work on it over the weekend. This is the first time I've done thumbnails and feel that I knew what I was trying to achieve and that it might lead to something :)

Study

I'm going to try and do the beauty and the beast thing again this is my first study. I'm feeling inspired by Lupe Bracaccini's hair and the recent posts on Al Parker over at Today's Inspiration.

Twenty2wo

I just been reading Twenty2wo's online magazine and I am impressed. It delivers an interesting selection of illustrators some good interviews and great images. I've looked at a few PDF magazines recently but have generally been disappointed. Many just seem like tatty zines with articles of acute interest but Twenty2wo is a professional and engaging read. There is a blog too which you can find in my links.

Get your own - Open publication

Also Issuu, the hosting site for the magazine is well worth a look to as it offers an interesting model for self publication.