Monstrosity Issue 3 to launch at Thought Bubble!

It's long-overdue, but issue 3 of Monstrosity will be available at last in just over a week's time!
I'll be selling all three issues at table 65a in the Royal Armouries Hall alongside other assorted goodies.
I hope to see you there!

Edinburgh International Book Festival events!

Tomorrow I'll be catching the train up to sunny Edinburgh for this year's International Book Festival! The lovely folks at The Phoenix have put me forward for three events this year, one of which will be the first time I've done a live event by myself- can't wait!

If you're in the area, I'll be involved in the following three events, taking place between Sunday 14th and Tuesday 16th.

Unbound
Phoenixers Gary Northfield, Laura Ellen Anderson, Jamie Littler, Adam Murphy and myself will be doing some large-scale drawing and comic making, with a spot of audience participation thrown in for good measure!
Sun 14th Aug  9.00pm-11.00pm The Spiegeltent
Read more HERE

Comic Consequences
Author Vivian French will host, whilst Adam Murphy, Gary Northfield and myself try our best to create a story from a starting point dictated by audience members!
Mon 15th Aug 10.30am-11.30am Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre
Read more HERE

Creating Comics with Zak Simmonds-Hurn
I share my thoughts and ideas with the audience for how to create unique characters and comics. We'll all design our own characters and create a short comic during this fun workshop!
Tue 16th Aug 12.15pm-1.15pm Baillie Gifford Corner Theatre
Read more HERE

I hope to see you there, it's going to be a really fun few days!

Sky Drifters- Jailbird

I made a post about my last Sky Drifters series which was supposed to be scheduled to go up in early June just before it came out, but it looks like it didn't post!!

Anyway, here's some peeks at it.
It was called Jailbird and it was a wild west/jailbreak tale with lots of twists and turns in the story and some really cool characters!

If you want to check it out, Jailbird ran through issues 179-184 of The Phoenix, available to buy online here: http://www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/product-tag/sky-drifters/

Sky Drifters appears exclusively in the wonderful...

Hay Festival- Hay Fever 2015!

This year I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to illustrate this year's Hay Fever children's programme for the Hay Festival!
It was a really exciting project to be a part of and, as the festival begins this Thursday, I thought it was about time I shared some of the art I created for it.

We settled on the idea of a group of children who travel through worlds of the imagination (via book portals, of course!) before eventually arriving at their destination- Hay!

The character designs came together pretty quickly as I wanted to stick to the types of fantasy roles children might be familiar with, so we have a ranger, a warrior and a sorceress:

I thought it would be cool to have the young explorers discovering the first book-portal on the cover, as I love the idea of forgotten sacred tomes that hold lost secrets. First I did a very quick scribble in my sketchbook to get the basic idea down and once approved I did a loose colour version.

From here I worked up the finished cover, trying to keep the enchanted feel and air of mystery!

The interior spreads came together quite quickly, the team at Hay had some suggestions for worlds the kids could travel through and I came up with the rest.

You can look at the finished programme HERE

The Hay Festival runs from the 21st to the 31st of May this year, click the links at the bottom of this post to find out more and book tickets! I'll be drawing at The Phoenix's stall on Tues 26th!

I must give thanks to Lisa Murphy and Andy Silver, who helped me out with the flat colours for these pages and both did a wonderful job!

Thanks also to Liz Payton, Tom Fickling and the team at the Phoenix and Jesse Ingham, Mary Byrne and the team at the Hay Festival for working with me on this and providing me the chance to illustrate the programme, It was a real joy!

Thanks also to my girlfriend Nikki Dyson, without whom I would have gone with an entirely different, much less fun concept- I owe you one!

Cardiff Children's Literary Festival!

Back on the 12th of April this year Nikki and I attended the Cardiff Children's Literary Festival on behalf of The Phoenix Comic.
We, alongside our assistant for the day, Rob Nichols, had several tables over in 'The Cardiff Story' covered in art materials, ready to help some budding artists start work on their own comics!
We were incredibly impressed by the results and just had to share them as some truly superb comics were made on the day!

'The Origin of Fish Man' by William Jones

'Martian Attack' Parts 1 and 2 by Gethin SiÔn Merry

 Untitled by Rhys Owen Zirker

 'The Superman' by Megan Guidi

'Josh, Jack and Jason' by Idris Merry

 

'The Adventures of Super Tortoise' by Mia

 'Cat Dog and Mouse' by Alexandra

 

'I Don't Like This Dummy' by Amelia Sheen

Untitled and 'Skeleton Football' by our brilliant assistant for the day, Rob Nichols.

 

And here's Rob with his comic!

  

And lastly here's one I drew up on the flipchart.

All in all it was a great event, Nikki and I came away from it feeling really inspired and excited to have seen so many kids really enjoying telling stories visually. I think the future of comics is in safe hands by the looks of things!

Sky Drifters is back again!

Sky Drifters is back again in this weeks Phoenix Comic- here's a sneaky peek for you!
The Phoenix is available to buy from Waitrose, online and via their brilliant iPad app!
More info at www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk

RAAR!

Here's a Birthday card I drew for my mate James!

Sky Drifters is back!

Click HERE for more info on The Phoenix!

100 Issues of The Phoenix!

Monstrosity issue 2- back cover by Richard Elson!

Rich is one of my favourite artists in comics, his incredible talent inspired me to want to get into comics from a young age and his work still amazes me to this day. 
As you can imagine, I am absolutely thrilled that his artwork will be gracing the back cover of Monstrosity issue 2 when it launches this weekend, thank you Rich!

Monstrosity 2 Cover Colours!

Here's the finished art for Monstrosity issue 2's cover!
As I've mentioned before, it'll be available at Thought Bubble in Leeds on the 23rd and 24th of this month- hope to see you there!

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!

Summit of The Goddess

Here's my cover for the latest issue of The Phoenix, issue 89! My drawing schedule for Simon Swift has been rather hectic and I've not had much of a chance to update here lately but I will be starting the final episode of the current series tomorrow so hopefully I'll have more of a chance to post here soon!

In other news, Monstrosity issue 1 is now available from some fantastic stores over here in the UK. I really recommend them all and I'm delighted to be stocked by them!

Gosh! (London)

Orbital (London)

Travelling Man (Leeds)

Close Encounters (Bedford)

The Incredible Comic Shop (Swindon)