Monstrosity Issue 2!

Monstrosity issue 2 will be released at the Thought Bubble festival in Leeds at the end of the month! Here's a work in progress peek at the cover!

Digital Pencils

And inks! Colours coming soon!

Simon Swift cover- Stage by stage

Hello!
Tomorrow's issue of The Phoenix has Simon Swift's latest nemesis 'The Fetch' taking centre stage on the cover- here are all the stages on the way to the finished piece. This isn't a particularly in-depth analysis about my process, just an overview of my approach.

Thumbnails

The idea that Tom, Will and I had talked about was having The Fetch on the cover frosting up the jungle, with that in mind I sketched out 3 very loose thumbnails in Photoshop. They liked the third of these the most, but Will suggested that it would look stronger if The Fetch was facing the reader more.

Rough Cover

I then took the basic idea from the third thumbnail and roughed it out very loosely in Photoshop.

 Pencils

Once the rough was approved I made the rough very light by reducing the opacity of the line layer in Photoshop. I then printed the very light rough out onto a sheet of A3 Bristol Board and used it as my loose guide upon which to draw tighter pencils. I kept a lot of the foliage relatively loose at this stage as it needed to be drawn over in ink anyway. I pencil using a blue col-erase pencil. Blue is best as it's easier to remove the pencil art digitally if it isn't black, that way it's a lot less hassle to end up with crisp ink lines on the finished piece.

  

Inks

Once I was happy with the pencils I started inking. I currently use 'Fountain Pentel' pens as I like the line they produce. I use a fine sharpie for the thicker lines and solid blacks.

Colours

 I then use Photoshop to remove the blue lines that show through the inks and separate the lineart onto its own layer, so it 'floats' above the white layer. I build up the colour in layers, beginning with flat base colours and adding layers for shading, lighting, steam effects and the eye glows as I go until I'm happy with the result.

Final

When I was working on the colours, my girlfriend Nikki suggested that it would be nice if the Phoenix logo was frosted up by The Fetch too, I passed that idea onto Will who loved it! The Phoenix's amazing designer (and comic artist extraordinaire) Paul Duffield executed it absolutely beautifully and added in The Fetch's speech balloon, elevating it to a whole new level! Here's the finished article (nicked from The Phoenix's Twitter feed)! I'm really pleased with the finished result and can't wait to see it on the shelves this Friday!

Link's been framed!

Bub Chahal from Close Encounters in Bedford emailed me this picture of a commission I did for him last year for his son Kam's birthday. They had a really nice framing job done for it so I couldn't resist posting it up here!

Here's a bit of a closer view of the images!:

N.I.C.E.

Just got back from N.I.C.E.: The Northants International Comics Expo at Wicksteed Park where I had a table with my pal Matt Smith who was selling his awesome minicomic 'The Long Winter War' (with free cut-out and make card figures!).
My friends James Anson and James Khan came down too for their first convention- they loved it!
 I sold out of the first batch of Monstrosity but I intend to print more to sell at cons next year.
I also enjoyed doing lots of drawing for people, here are all the sketches that I remembered to photograph- there were quite a few others which I completely forgot to snap though, including drawings of Green Lantern, Vegeta, Kaneda and Iron Man.

The last one was a collabo between myself and Matt by the way!

To everybody I saw there- it was great to catch up with or meet you, hopefully see you all again next year!

Tod Lineart!

Here's Some Sky Drifters lineart!
First a sketchy version of Tod's Phoenix cover:

 

And here's the inked version!

 

And lastly, the lineart for my favourite Sky Drifters page yet, I'm really pleased with how this one came out!

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)!

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!

Sketch!

Just a quick one this time!

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.

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!

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!

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!

Morning sketch!

Draw The World Together

Hey all!
I just wanted to draw (no pun intended) your attention to the Draw The World Together charity sketch auction currently going down over HERE

All proceeds raised from the auction go to aid the work of the children's charity, EveryChild
and their work to help street children in Bangalore, India so get purchasing!

There are a couple of drawings I did for them back at the Bristol Comic Expo up for sale, one of the Hulk and one of One Piece's Monkey D Luffy, let's make sure they go for a good price!




Both are on the reverse of headed hotel paper as that was all that was to hand on the day, nonetheless I think they came out pretty cool and I hope they find good homes. There are pieces by many other artists I might add, so if you don't like the look of mine there may be others there that you love!
Go check it out!

Biznizman

A quickie done over lunchtime, all photoshop!

Nothin' Much

Just a real quickie I drew the other week in my sketchbook. Nothing special, just something to keep momentum going til I finish up some far better drawings I've got on the go!