Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, peeps! I thought I'd make a post with what I think is my best work of  this last year. In chronological order, these are:

The Mysterious Land of Under-Noodle, from the Inspired Eat Me! anthology

The Mystery of the Night Boy, a Patience mini-comic

The Hyaku Monogatari feature from the Hallowe'en issue of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf?

This Is Not A Serious Music Publication, a collaborative music zine I made with Sammy, which is probably my absolute favourite thing I did this year.

Two postcards from my Autumn 2012 set.


I think what I learned this year is a) I do some of my best work under extreme time pressure, and b) I also do my best work when I'm really excited about it. (Both apply to the music zine.) Possibly also c) due to being willfully contrary, bad reviews only make me draw MORE COMICS.
Unfortunately I also learned that it's very easy for me to get caught up working on small press comics and zines because they're a lot of fun to make, neglecting the work which would get me closer to illustrating actual books. Hence my plan for next year is to manage my time better and prioritise book-related work, even if it means making fewer comics. This was a really difficult conclusion to accept because I really love making comics with my friends, but I only have so much time in the week after going to my day job, and I just can't do comics (in the quantities I've been doing this year) AND do the work I need to break into book illustration. Not until someone starts paying me to draw things anyway.

So... I hope 2013 brings me people who pay me to draw things? 

AW YEAH NEW YEAR!

poetry illustrations

Since a copy of the book arrived in the post just before Christmas, now seems like a good time to show you these!

These are a pair of illustrations I made for a Save the Children poetry book called Born to Giggle. I was assigned two poems, called Hair So Long Song and I Like A Wood. I thought they were both sweet, and I like having the chance to work without shading. I think the second picture is my favourite, but I'm pleased with both. Later I got given an extra one about a missing tortoise, so I got to draw a tortoise as well!

Dress Timeline

I still haven’t got round to scanning my Sketchavember pics, so until then here are some observational sketches.

While my little sister was visiting here in Bath we went to the Fashion Museum. They had a timeline of dresses from 1800 to 1900 (loosely) showing the changing silhouette and the fashions for different fabrics. The ones from the early 1800s looked like the comfiest thing, but the late Victorian dresses were so stylish. There was also a special display of black evening-wear, but it wasn't very clearly labelled so I'm not sure how old one of the dresses was.

If you're wondering why the timelines go backwards... that's because I'm left-handed, so I start on the right-most edge of each page. Not ideal for chronological order.