Case in point... Femme Fatale

As if to prove a point... I was working on the female character in the red dress, based on looking at a Stuart Immonen sketch book I picked up... He draws brillaint female figures and I was looking for a little inspiration. After my 'epiphany' in the last post I decided to scrap what I was doing with her and revisit the character 'au natuale' as it were...and I found (suprisingly enough) that I was decidedly happier with the 'shane' style image than that of the original approach. It's not perfect... but it's a start!

Dark days

It would seem that of late I've grown a little more dispondent with my creative ability than normal... to the point where I've been toying with the terrible idea of calling it a day.

I can't seem to take my work (and professional profile) to the next level, and I'm getting increasingly sick of it to be honest. There is so much great talent out there, and I'm starting to think I wont attain that same level any time in the future.

Sometimes I produce an image that makes me think 'yeah, there's something there'... but for every one of those I'll put out 10 that are desperate attempts to be 'creative'. I've begun to realize that in trying to understand how others work I've lost sight of how I work. It's a common danger (and always has been) when you're trying to move your artwork forward... but I feel like I've been blinded by it in recent times.

This Ninja Tortoise is from a sketch I did for the War of Words 'Shell' entry, and whilst working on it I realized how important it was for me to 'reduce' the design to it's most basic of shapes in order for me to be 'happy' with it... and looking back over recent posts, it's a common theme. Take 'Lemmy's head' for example... it's almost entirely made up of basic abstract shapes.. and I'm really happy with it. Same with the 'Cowboy & Ninja' post... really pleased with the outcome. yet I continuously try to change how I approach my work... what the hell for? Surely the 'joy' is in creating artwork that is a little more challenging, more exciting because it's natural and not forced...

I appologise if I've disappointed any viewers with any substandard art in recent times... If it's any consolation, you're nowhere near as disappointed as I am!

War of Words... LEAD

WOW time again... Dave's entry for LEAD is crackingly marvelous.. straight out of Guitar Hero!

Mine's a bit pants... though I like the alligator! Coloured up in Photoshop, but I'mm not enjoying the results too much on this one.

Wish I'd have gone digital.

New word.. JIGSAW.

All together now....

"The Ace of Spades" dunga dunga dunga dunga ding ding dunga...

Thought I'd work up the previously posted Lemmy sketch as a digital piece. Got a chance to play around with the shapes a little bit more.. I like it!

Work in progress

I wasn't going to post this until it was a finished piece, but it's been an interesting 'project'. A long time ago, back when I was still learing the basics of Illustrator and experimenting with shape and such, I decided to produce a poster for a 'Zombina and the Skeletones' headed club night called 'Cowboy Vs Ninja' in Liverpool.

It was terrible!!! and for the life of me I can't find it (if I do I'll post it.. I'm not proud!). Anyhoo.. I decided to revisit the idea as an exercise, just to see if I'd improved any over time. Above are the sketchbook page, the photoshop composite page and the work in progress Illustrator file. I think it's almost there, but I ust want to play about with it for a little longer.

Thanks for joining me on the adventure!

War of Words... SHELL

Had the idea for SHELL almost straight away, and sketched up a few variations before settling on one that would feed into my current Masters module. I approached this image with a view that it would be a scene from a story, a page from a book. So it was as important this time to concentrate on the image as a whole (rather than just the character like normal).

Pretty happy with the outcome, so I guess it's worked?

More Wizard worshipping...

I promise these are the last Electric Wizard poster posts.. It's just something I've had to get out of my system! Although the reveresed white backdrop on the first one looks more like an exclamation mark, it was to represent an inverted cross as per the previous posts. The skull was just something different to try!

Right... more drawing soon!

Worship at the altar of the Wizard

2 Alternative poster layouts for the ELECTRIC WIZARD show at Bristol Bierkeller. Wanted to try and create a powerful, yet simple graphic that reflected the band's sound. Wasn't certain which was my favourite so I posted both!

War of Words... COTTON

Long time coming... the War of Words returns... COTTON. And here's my offering, I always had Sally from 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' in mind. As soon as I heard the word I saw in my mind the part in the movie when she throws herself out of the tower window and starts sewing her dismembered limbs back together.. BRILLIANT!

This was done with my smashing brush pen and coloured up in Photoshop (for a change).

Black Mass

Found an image of the shiels coven whilst googling to pass the time a while back, and it made me think of the imagery associated with the band Electric Wizard. Thought it was a good opportunity to put a poster together for the band (who are touring to promote their splendid 'Black Masses' record at the moment)... and here it is!

More Monsters

Here's a couple more rough sketches using basic shapes (along with some J Otto Seibold artwork samples for reference) I find myself drawn to his work, not only because its fantastic, but because I aspire to create Children's book to this quality (it being illustrated digitally, the relationship of image and type and the fact that it's instantly recognisable as Seibold's work).

Wendy Ann Gardner (author of the Naughty Naughty Pets books) is another reference point for my 'style' and approach to book design.

Monsters everywhere!!

Here are some more work in progress design sketches for the pre-school monster band. I'm liking the 'pac man' style vampire and the 'pointy' wolf head, though I think I've still got some work to do until I'm happy. I'm going to start referencing pre-existing books that I like for some inspiration!

NCIS

Here's a sketch I did a long while back of Goth Girl Lab Technicial ABBEY from the show NCIS.

He has nobbly knees and turned out toes...

Was inspired by producing the MEGAMAN image (posted below) to have a go at maybe re-interpreting other book characters.. So here are some sketches for the GRUFFALO. The bottom left image was the first one I produced, and from there I decided to simplify the design a bit (make more like something I would produce naturally) you can see the 'devolution' on the page, and the last one I produced is on the top left. I think that the one on the top right is my favourite though (the one with the extended jaw) as it's somewhere in between.

Book 2 in an ongoing series?

C'mon Marvel... you know you want to employ me to do the covers for these 1 Shots!!!

for Jane.

My dear friend Jane is without doubt the biggest Beatles fan I know, so this rough graphic was done with Jane in mind. I haven't had chance to do Ringo and George yet.. but no one is interested in them any way are they? ;-P

Mega man

Over at http://www.udonentertainment.com/blog/megamantribute/ UDON are accepting submissions for artwork entries for an upcoming MEGAMAN Tribute art book. I found out about this about 2 hours ago... the only problem is... the deadline is tomorrow!!

Anyways.. I thought to myself "why miss the opportunity?" so above is the book cover, my original sketch and the finished Digital work up. What a great feeling to actually put something together in such a short space of time. I used a recognised Mega Man pose as the basis for my sketch, and worked up from there. I wanted to keep the drawing as faithful as I could, but really put my stamp on it (with the odd angles, straight lines and what not).

Really pleased with it too!!!

Just hope UDON like it enough to include it in the book! Watch this space!!

The elusive monster band (update)

Right then.. regarding my 'horror rock band' comic book.. It's been frustrating the hell out of me.. It's been so bad, that it's (until very recently) made me not want to do any drawing at all. So just at the moment it feels like I'm going nowhere on the Masters course.

We are moving onto a new module, and I'm hoping to enter a competition brief for Macmillan books to produce some artwork for a preschool picture book. In a clever attempt to move on with my rock band idea I've decided to revisit the characters and place them into the comfy confines of a Childrens Picture book. To do this, I've got a (work in progress) story based on the band coming together and I've chosen to interpret Renton, Ralph, Maxwell and Socks for a younger audience.

Here are my initial thoughts for Maxwell based on this line of action. I just hope that it will put the original idea into a perspective I can work with as I've got so many ideas that I want to persue with it. I'm also hoping that it's going to make me a bit more bloody productive on the Masters too!!!

Stay tuned!

The Ghastly Stomp

Here's a Ghastly Ones sketch, done using my (beloved) new Calligraphic pen... REALLY very pleased with this!

Are we there Yeti?

Here's my 2 worked up choices for the Pictoplasma brief. Decided to stick with the calligraphic pen sketches and colour them up in photoshop for a change. I'm really pleased with the 'naturalistic' feel of the images because of it.

Decided to work up both because I was torn with my favourite. A few people suggested the 'ape like' one, but I really liked the idea of the Yeti heading off to work in the morning with a rucksack and a coffee (feeling like a lot of people do on a work day).