Christmas is upon us!

Seeing as it's nearly that time again I thought I'd get a bit festive on the blog!
Here's a spot of Christmas art!

Above: my card for Nikki this year, below is the brilliant design she created for mine! It was inspired by an amazing song she found via Youtube! Go to her website front page to enjoy it properly, complete with its musical backing!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, I hope you all have a great one!

Sonic

I've not drawn the old 'Hog for ages, probably a couple of years now!
I was glancing over some of my old pages for Sonic the Comic Online as I was rooting through my hard drive this evening and it made me feel nostalgic for drawing the old chap so thought I'd have a go for old times sake- it was a lot of fun!

Franky

Just a quick sketchbook doodle of Franky from One Piece, (his classic appearance, of course)!

Upcoming Project...

Hey!!
It's about time I posted up some of the stuff I'm currently working on!
This guy is a character I've been drawing and refining for a few years now, but I'm actually going to try working properly on his comic (at last!). I don't want to give much away at this stage as it's still early days but I'm hoping to have the first part done early next year and am working all-out to make it happen! Suffice to say, it will involve ridiculous creatures, insane battles and several ink-jar's worth of speedlines! For now here's a tease, expect to hear more over the next few months!
Thanks for stopping by,

Zak

Battlin' Bots!

This is a rough sketch for a failed pitch (which one day I intend to return to!)
It has a strong emphasis on fighting robots as you may have guessed! This is one of the loosest drawings I have- I don't want to give away too much in case I do something with the character at a later point. Until then, here's a little tease!

Baggage!

I'm no good at writing long posts so I'll keep this short but sweet:
Check out 'Baggage' by my fellow ex-DFC compadres Bob and Lorenzo Etherington, it is SUPERB!
Bob has delivered a really warm, exciting, mysterious, energetic and bonkers tale and Lorenzo's artwork brings it to life in a manner that would blow the socks off even the most jaded comics cynic- his pages are insane!
Here's a pic of the book I jacked from their blog

And here's a bit of fan art from yours truly!

A couple o' cards!

Sorry for the recent absence of new posts, it's been a tad hectic lately!
Here are a couple of recent Birthday cards, both pretty dog-themed, The top one was for my Grandma and features my pooch Buster Beagle, the bottom one was for my Dad!

Sketch!

Just a quick one this time!

Sword Swingin'!

Here's a new drawing of my character Daigo, scrapping like usual!
I've been reading a bit of BERSERK! lately, if you can stomach it it's pretty incredible stuff, Miura is an absolute monster draughtsman and storyteller and he reminds you of this fact in every single panel.
This drawing is partly a result of reading lots of his action scenes: motion-blur lines ahoy!


At some point soon I'll be posting bits and pieces over at the KING ZILLA blog too, be sure to give it a look, there's some lovely work there. Cheers to Sinistar for the invite!

Scott Pilgrim

Here's Mr Pilgrim in all his finery, as drawn for my pal James' birthday card!

26!

Wahey, I turned 26 on Saturday!
This is the card my extremely talented girlfriend Nikki illustrated for me- they're Strawbearries!


Check out her site by clicking the picture, it's brilliant and is always being updated!

The Last Guardian

This is a fan art of the sure-to-be-amazing 'The Last Guardian' from Team Ico.
It's due out later this year and I can't wait!



(Click the image to see the larger version on my Deviantart page)

A bit of a different colour scheme from the game, but hey!
Here's the trailer if you don't know what I'm jabbering about:

Happy New Year!

I hope everybody's 2011's off to a good start!
Here's a little something to see in the new year, I've got a fair few resolutions to try my best to stick to!



Zak

Crow

Here's my take on Niizuma Eiji's character Crow from Bakuman, hope you dig it!

One Piece

Luffy again, this time looking uncharacteristically grumpy and scuffed!
The latest chapter was off the hook, can't wait to see the level-upped Luffy squaring off against a REAL challenger!

Whack-a-mole!

This is my Monster from a few posts back maintaining his extraordinary figure by whacking a mole and eating ice cream.

Just 'cos he's like that.

Q

Hey guys,
just a quickie this time, this is a sketch I did of 'Q' from the 007 flicks.
It's not at all accurate as I wasn't drawing from ref, more an attempt to capture the feel of the character.



By the by, I once met Q's actor Desmond Llewellyn rather briefly at a Comic Con (Memorabilia at the NEC) and he was a really nice guy. Sadly he died a year or two later but I remember that he was an extremely friendly chap, consider this a rather belated tribute.

Luffy's Back!

I know he came back a week ago but here's my belated celebration of that!
One Piece has been absolutely mind-blowing lately- it took me ages to get the hint and check this manga out but I'm so glad I did, it's got the best action scenes in comics!

BAKUMAN

Yeah, this is one of my Favourite Manga right now, I eagerly await the latest chapters every week and am absolutely hooked! The first Tankobon is out in the UK now (possibly the second by now too, I'm not sure!), pop down to Waterstones and pick it up as it is RAD, especially if you're a budding comic artist- it really feels like getting a fairly sincere look behind the scenes at Shonen Jump!



I've just finished reading the final volume of Ohba and Obata's previous collaboration, Death Note.
Yep, I'm a late comer to it but it's absolutely superb, it's made me a fan for life of both creators and I definitely plan to investigate their other works!

VAAAAANNNNNNQQQQQUUUUIIIIIISSSSHHHH!!!!

If you've not played the demo yet, you should REALLY check this game out, it's ridiculous!
It's from Platinum Games, the dudes behind Bayonetta, Madworld and Infinite Space, and more specifically it's directed by Shinji Mikami, creator of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 4!

Here's a somewhat embryonic piece of fanart!



And here's a vid:

Ramona Again!

Here's the finished, coloured version of the sketch from last post!


Oh, and props to Bryan Lee O'Malley for making the comic series that inspired this, if you still haven't checked out Scott Pilgrim since my last post, consider this a reminder!

Ramona

Heyy! Here's a real rough and ready lunch-break sketch of Ramona from Scott Pilgrim, I've not seen the movie yet but I loved the comic, check it out if you haven't already! And if you have? Check it out again! Then get on the PSN and download the game- it's heavy!

I'll try to do a tighter version sometime as I was quite happy with this sketch.

Cheers for looking and by the way, BIG thanks to everybody who's commented on any of my posts in the past. Seeing as there's no way to directly reply to comments in a way that will notify the original author I tend not to respond much as I assume people won't bother manually checking back. I really appreciate all the comments you guys have left though, thanks a million!

More soon!

Tinks!

Hey, why not!
I'm off to Disneyland Paris in a couple of weeks so here's something I drew up over my lunchbreak!



I always find that Tinkerbell is portrayed in Disney's promo material as the epitomy of happiness whereas in Peter Pan she's pretty hotheaded and at times downright nasty!
This is the grumpy Tink!

Buster

This drawing was for a card I did earlier this year, it's my pooch Buster!
He's a bit of a handful but very good-natured when you get to know him!

This is how he is now (thankfully!):


And this is how he was when we first got him from the dog rehoming centre:

Think you've got the X-Factor?

Hey guys, I know you all harbour secret dreams of being an overnight singing sensation. Well here's a handy guide I made to help you through the qualifying rounds of The X-Factor, everybody's favourite cringe-inducing fast-track to fame!
Just make sure you exhibit one or more of these bullet points and you're guaranteed four yesses.
Note- decent singing voice and ability to hold a note not required.




Oh, don't forget the sob story too, that's important!