Sketchavember, completed!

I finally got round to putting my Sketchavember pictures on flickr, like I said I was going to ages ago! I drew one of my own characters every day, starting with the some of the oldest (created when I was 12 if you can believe it) and working my way forwards. I drew in really textbook shoujo manga style back then, so it was fun to try and make them all look reasonable in my current style. I realised early on that not only did I have a bad case of Only Six Faces, but I also never drew anyone who wasn't improbably attractive. I'm still not happy with how similar a lot of them look, and they're all waaaay too pretty, but I'm confident I can make them better - before this I wasn't at all sure it could even be done.

Anyway, I've posted them all with little descriptions of who each one is and how they've changed from their original design, so hopefully you'll enjoy reading about them.

If you're curious, the boy in the picture is Asmodeus, from day three, and he's the redesign I was most proud of. He used to have HUGE eyes and a little, childlike nose. Not to mention ears that were fairy-pointed instead of deformed-pointed. Turns out all this time it was mostly blushing that made him look like himself, I'd never have guessed!

A Christmas card!

As I've been so quiet this month I thought you'd like to see something. This is a Christmas card I designed for my Mum to use this year. I doodle angels all the time (especially in church) so I'm most proud of the star in the middle. Mum wanted one that incorporated the Star of David and a seven-point star, and I hardly specialised in geometric design so I'm pretty pleased with how it came out.

I've been soooo busy lately, what with Thought Bubble, making What's the Time, Mrs Woolf?, doing commissions, Sketchavember, applying for a million proper jobs and having horrible colds, so I haven't had much to put online.  Some of the commissions are almost done though, so hopefully I can show you what I've been doing all this time! Rest assured that at the end of this month I can at least show you my Sketchavember pictures, so you can all get acquainted with 30 of my own characters and laugh at how shaky my grasp of anatomy becomes when I draw late at night.

Seriously, it's pretty bad. It's like I forget that shoulders and hips are real body parts.

A Thousand Empty Heavens

I've finished my comic for this year's Inspired anthology, Science Fiction Octuple Feature. I posted a 2-page preview for Disposable People, so I thought I'd do the same again. A Thousand Empty Heavens is a pair of contrasting vignettes, so I've used the first page of each. I'm very pleased with how it turned out, although I did realise I've done a depressing sci-fi story twice in a row for Inspired. I'll have to do something cute and cheerful for the next one.

We're taking this to Thought Bubble, and you can also buy it online HERE.

Why I'm Afraid of Mirrors - Part 3

Two days ago I was afraid my reflection would move on its own.
Yesterday I was afraid my reflection would not be me.
Today I am afraid there will be something behind me.

Patience encounters the thing I fear most about mirrors - the possibility of seeing something behind me that wasn't there before. As a special treat, a shrouded figure is also one of the things I fear most in general. I am terrified that one night I'll wake up and see one standing at the foot of my bed.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Why I'm Afraid of Mirrors - Part 2

Today Patience illustrates the second-biggest reason I'm afraid of mirrors. Tomorrow, the thing I fear most in any reflective surface!

Yesterday I was afraid my reflection would move on its own.
Today, I am afraid my reflection will be someone else.

Ironically, I blanked on monster design, so that is basically me Patience is seeing in the window.

Why I'm Afraid of Mirrors - Part 1

Lots of my friends already know I have a terrible fear of mirrors. Hallowe'en is one of my favourite festivals, so to celebrate this Hallowe'en my lovely assistant Patience is starring in 3 illustrations showing the things I fear will happen every single time I look in any vaguely reflective surface.

Today, I am afraid my reflection will move on its own.

church doodles

I swear I have been doing something these past few weeks!

It's all very exciting, the Inspired crew have finished our new anthology, Science Fiction Octuple Feature, (which Sammy is taking to various comic shops and will also be available at Thought Bubble this November) and within a week of finishing my comic for that I got two very interesting commissions from people I don't know personally (and one from my Mum, which doesn't really count). The downside is that with all this group work and paid work, I've not got much that I'm at liberty to post online until later this year.

To prevent my blog being totally dormant, here are a couple of pages I doodled up during church. I wouldn't feel right doing paid work in church, so it's the only time I've been free to draw whatever I feel like.

Even if it sometimes turns out a bit weird because I forgot to bring a pencil and had to do it in gel pen.

I hope I'll be able to show you some of the paid work soon, it's very exciting for me to be getting work from strangers for the first time, instead of from friends or family members. (Or more often, friends of family members.)

pigeons everywhere!

For your viewing delight, some sketches of fancy pigeons!

I took my friend Nam to an agricultural show my village hosts annually, at which I magically transform from a serious academic semi-goth to a lunatic in wellies getting excited about sheep. It's genuinely one of my favourite things about the village, they have rare breeds of sheep and pigs and sometimes Dales ponies and there are strange chickens and a pigeon show! There's a produce contest where people show off enormous marrows and a man who demonstrates how to shear sheep and spin wool by hand! And a Tamworth pig with a dozen ginger piglets!

My favourite part is the fancy pigeons. I love the 'blowers' best of all, with their enormous puffy necks. They always look so proud of themselves, strutting around their cages.

Yes, I am a country bumpkin. I've disappointed you all.

The Vixen and the Lioness

These are some illustrations I made for Ollie Tigwell, a graphic designer I know from university, to use in a small booklet containing the fable of the vixen and the lioness. I did them in a bit of a hurry, having been ill for a few days, so I was very pleased with how well they turned out in the end.

The fable goes like this, by the way:

A vixen was taking her babies out for an airing one morning, when she came across a lioness with her cub in arms. 'Why such airs, haughty dame, over one solitary cub?' sneered the vixen, 'look at my healthy and numerous litter here and imagine, if you are able, how proud a mother should feel.' The lioness gave the vixen a squelching look and, lifting her nose in the air, walked away, saying, 'Yes, just look at that beautiful collection. And what are they? Foxes! I've only one, but remember that one is a lion.'

I think the moral is meant to be quality over quantity, but I actually like foxes better than lions so to me neither mother came across very well. Woops.

journal pictures 4

Finally all my work for the Inspired anthology is finished and delivered, so I have time to work on other things again, huzzah! Not that I've done any other things yet, so here are some more journal pictures for your enjoyment. Most of these were drawn after the functional end of 3rd year, so I think they represent a high point of drawing quality - I was bored enough to pencil them first.

If you're interested, Sammy (depicted here) did a comic of this incident from her point of view. I was thinking of doing one from my end of things too, since I swear it scared me more than her.

Inspired Cover 2

I did two covers for the Inspired cover competition, the one I posted a few days ago drew quite heavily on the comic I'm submitting, so I also did this one as a more general sci-fi cover. I like them both, but I think I'm being biased towards this one by all the drawing for the internal comic. Anyone would get sick of beautiful, delicate robots after several weeks of drawing them.

Koga of the Wolf Demon Clan

I don't feel good about uploading the work I've been doing for the new Inspired anthology, since it's a team effort, but to wind down between massive inking sessions I've been doodling some fanart and this one turned out pretty well.

Koga's one of my favourite supporting characters from InuYasha, even if he did turn out to be bloody impossible to draw. Rumiko Takahashi's style is really hard to translate into other ones.

Also, turns out I can't really draw wolves, especially not extinct ones. Oh well.

P.S. I've only read up to volume 23, so nobody tell me anything that happens after that!

Nambots

These are a set of robots I designed as a birthday present for my friend Nam, shamefully about 6 months late. The top two are me and Nam, the little ones are AngstBot, HugBot and DanceBot.

I'm on a bit of a robot kick lately, I never even tried to draw them before. They're a lot of fun as it turns out.

Inspired Anthology

I thought you might like to see my cover design for the sci-fi anthology Inspired is putting out later this year. You can see a few more on the Inspired blog, as well as a lot of development work from the other members. I'm working on a second one, but it's turning into a lesson in why I should always scan my lineart before I paint anything, as I'm now having to go through the laborious process of tracing all the lines on Photoshop, printing a blue-line, re-inking it by hand and scanning it in again to colour digitally. If anyone knows a faster way PLEASE tell me.

Obviously that's taking forever, so here's some of the development work and the world's most basic page sketch to tide you over:

If you're interested in some of Inspired's older anthologies (I've got a comic in Pick & Mix 2, hint hint) we now have an online shop that you can find HERE.

journal pictures from spring term

I haven't had much to update this blog with in a while, but there's always more journal pictures. These are really quite old, I forgot I hadn't uploaded the last batch until I scanned the latest ones. You can find the new ones on flickr.

I should have some new pictures soon, I've just been busy doing my anthology submission for Inspired Comics. I never feel comfortable putting up too much information on it ahead of it being printed, since it's a group project and all. You can see some of the character designs and stuff over on the Inspired blog though (not just mine, Gem's are up too).

Thinking of Gem, I don't suppose any of you are in need of commissions? She needs a bit of extra money fairly urgently and is offering them at very reasonable prices, so it'd be great if some of you have the money to buy one. I can recommend her environment work, she's amazing at backgrounds and environment concepts. You can find all the information on her blog, as well as examples of her work.

sketches

I've not been up to much recently due to moving home to Gransden and trying to clear out my room (in which I seem to have stored everything I've ever owned since I was about 6) while being racked by hay fever, so here are a couple of sketches to tide you over 'till I've done something more interesting.

That's a quick watercolour sketch I did when Sammy and I were visiting Kingham.

And these are some aliens called Vrega. I think I've mentioned before that I tend to write huge, unnecessary backstories for all my characters, but I don't want to put them here, so if you're interested you can read about their world here.

Oh, except I should probably mention that the Pre-Disaster boy is the Devil Boy from the postcards, and not all Post-Disaster Vrega dress in lots of leather and metal like that, that's just a fairly common clothing style for them.

Strange Friends

I told people some stories about friends I made at university, I met a ghost possessing a human who died at birth, a lovely creature made of moonlight, an urban wendigo, and a woodwose. I'm the tooth witch.

These should be available as sets of miniature prints when next I get taken to a small press event. I think that should be Thought Bubble at the end of the year.

Incidentally, even disregarding the fact that I drew him as a horrible slavering spirit of famine, I find it interesting how different the wendigo looks in my pictures and his own. I emphasise a completely different selection of features.

David Bowie, Jarvis Cocker and... Keane?

These sprang out of a brief conversation with somebody who involuntarily imagines singing animals whenever they hear music. They were embarrassed about it, but I thought the notion of Jarvis Cocker as a guinea pig in a leather jacket was something that needed to be put on paper.

Also, turns out I have no idea what Keane look like, I was imagining whiney-looking anaemic teenagers with floppy hair and a body type that suggested childhood Rickets.  I had to be rescued by google images.

observation

These are some observational pictures I did in the back of my journal.  I'm not great at observational portraits because I take too long to get the basics down, but I thought these turned out well.  Maybe I should start doing them all on lined paper, it makes me worry less about getting things wrong.