Rapunzel and Cinderella

Whoa you guys it's my birthday today! I'm 23! Do I seem older and wiser?

Not that I have any special birthday art though. These are the final 4 art cards in the fairy tales series I mentioned, finally finished in preparation for the Bristol Ferment Farmer's Market, although I didn't find time to post them beforehand.

The top set is Rapunzel. In the version I had, the witch finds out about the prince because Rapunzel gets pregnant. She cuts off Rapunzel's hair, kicks her out, and uses the hair to trick the prince so she can drop him off the tower. It still has a happy ending though.

The bottom set is Cinderella, which is incredibly gruesome! The wicked stepsisters cut bits off their feet to make the slipper fit. It's also the spirit of Cinderella's mother, in the form of two doves, that gives her the gown and slippers in the first place.

I didn't sell any of these in the end, so I've put them up for sale in my Etsy shop. Maybe you should buy one to make me happy on my birthday! Although I have just made an entire coffee cake which I have all to myself, so I'm already pretty happy.

miniature bookmarks

These are some more originals I’m selling at the farmer’s market this Saturday.

These ones are miniature bookmarks, which I’m selling in these sets of three. The first set are meant to be birds that have symbolic meaning in England, the second set are elemental spirits.

I’ll also have free mini-comics and mini-zines to give out, the latest issue of What’s the Time Mrs Woolf, and a few copies of Science Fiction Octuple Feature and Eat Me! from Inspired.

present tags

Since I had very little time to prepare for the farmer’s market this Saturday, I decided to do some more originals to sell instead of trying to make a comic or a book.

These sets of six are tags for presents, they’re threaded with red embroidery thread now, but my camera is out of battery so I can’t take a photo. 

The top set are my favourite spring flowers. The bottom set are based ontsukumogami, an item in japanese folklore. Supposedly when a tool or belonging reaches 100 years of service, it gains a soul and moves around the house.

I’ll also have free mini-comics and mini-zines to give out, the latest issue of What’s the Time Mrs Woolf, and a few copies of Science Fiction Octuple Feature and Eat Me! from Inspired.

Patience Mini-Mystery

This week Sammy was at Manchester MCM, and next Saturday (work shifts permitting) I'll have a little stall at Bristol Ferment Farmer's Market, so I made a mini-comic to give out instead of business cards. Sammy's been doing it that way for ages, and it works really well - people tend not to turn down a free comic. We also made a free mini-zine to promote What's the Time Mrs Woolf?

Anyway, I decided on a miniature Patience mystery, since I'm hoping to get the first full-length comic done before the spring cons next year.

Aside from the new issue of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? (with a 'hairy' theme) the other things I'll be taking are all original paintings. I'll be posting some of those next week. I'll also have a few copies of Inspired's latest anthologies, and limited numbers of the mini-library Sammy tried at Manchester.

If any of you are near Bristol, I hope you'll stop by and see me!

I forgot I had more paid work to show you! I did this one a few months ago, it's a logo for a baby swimming school. I had no idea how you teach a baby to swim when they can't even walk yet, so watching the lessons was really interesting. Apparently there's a few tricks to it, like if you start before the baby starts trying to sit up then they'll be much more comfortable on their back in the water, and will have an easier time learning to float later.

The swimming school is called 'Dinky Dippers' and it's run by Nadine Santus, if you're reading this from the Cambridge area and you have a child under 4 who could use some swimming lessons.

Art Cards - Fairy Tales

These are some art cards I painted to sell at Bristol Expo. Originally there were going to be 14, all based on German fairy tales (so no Beauty and the Beast), but I only had time for 10. Rapunzel and Cinderella are still to be completed.

1 and 2 are Snow White and Rose Red. I mentioned in an earlier post that I imagine Rose Red looking a lot like my sister because we used to play a make-believe game based on the story, recently she told me that she remembers it too.

3 and 4 are Snow White. I love painting her, I like to interpret the 'hair black as ebony, skin white as snow, lips red as blood' thing literally.

5 and 6 are Little Red Riding Hood. I tried to make her look German, and make the forest look like it could be a scary place, since it would have been back when the tale was written.

7 and 8 are The Frog King, or Iron Henry. That's probably my all-time favourite fairy tale, I always imagined the princess to be only 12 or so (I think because the frog addresses her as 'King's daughter, youngest daughter'), and I liked the traditional description of the prince as 'a king's son with kind eyes'. Also the version where she throws the frog against the wall is vastly superior to the kissing version in every conceivable way.

9 and 10 are Sleeping Beauty. I find that story pretty creepy, but it's got some nice imagery. In the version I was told the prince can only get through the thorns because the 100 years are up, and on the way though he can see skeletons of other men who've tried to get through and died in there. I'd like to do a bigger version of that some time.

I'd never tried selling originals at cons before, so I was pleased to sell two of them. I put the rest up for sale in my online shop.

Blisters (again)

Yes, yes I sketched my blisters again. Look at the size of that thing! Wouldn't you want to record it for posterity? Originally it was much smaller, but it was on the sole of my foot, so walking around forced the fluid up the side and made it almost three times its original size.

It's weird to look at my toes and realise they've developed in the shape of my shoes. I'd rather have natural ones, I think.

In other news, I am so tired. I've been working a lot more hours at the tea room than I was contracted for. Not that I'm not happy to have more money, but there's a reason I only applied for part-time. We're hiring new people soon, so hopefully then I'll be back to my contracted hours and I'll have time to do drawing again. With any luck the Summer will be over early too, so I can stop being in such a bad mood.

The Bad Fairy Bakery

I wrote two comics for Inspired's newest anthology, Eat Me! (I was also very pleased to win the cover vote this time with my cheerful takoyaki.) The Mysterious Land of Under Noodle went into the anthology, so The Bad Fairy Bakery was printed alone and sold as a mini-comic at Bristol Expo. Since it's only 8 pages long, I thought I'd put up the whole thing for you all to read, like Patience is a Virtue. I hope you enjoy it!

Here's a little preview from the latest Inspired anthology, Eat Me! I was very pleased to win the cover vote this time as well.

I was also really pleased with how my comic came out, since it was the whole reason we had a food theme. Sammy and I were eating at a noodle bar and I started making up a story about my wonton noodle soup, so we decided to do a food anthology so I could turn it into a comic (the other members agreed of course). I really like my character designs for this comic.

Andersen and Coda

I've been doing quite a lot of work that's not ready to show, along with frantically getting ready for Bristol Expo this weekend while doing many, many shifts at a tea room, so here are some old-ish sketches I did in spare time instead.

I don't think Andersen has appeared on here before, but he's a shape-shifting cat who is found by Jessie in a forest, and seems to have been abandoned by his people for some reason. He's mute, but he does understand speech. (Although he doesn't speak English.) It never really comes up in the story, but he hooks his tail over his leg like that because when he was little someone trod on it.

You should all recognise Coda, she's in white because she's participating in a ritual.

As I said, I'm also going to Bristol Expo this weekend with Inspired Comics, I hope some of you can stop by and see us. We'll have our new anthology, and with any luck I'll be bringing a new issue of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? and an 8-page comic called The Bad Fairy Bakery.

*rush rush panic panic*

snow white and rose red

I got a brown paper sketchbook so I could try drawing with highlights as well as shading. I'm not sure if it's really for me, but I'll try to fill the book up anyway.

Snow White and Rose Red was one of my favourite fairy tales when I was little. They're usually depicted as a blonde with very pale skin and a black-haired girl with rosy cheeks. I'm fairly sure I imagine them as a blonde and a redhead because I have vague memories of playing a make-believe game based on the story with my little sister, who has fiery red hair. (As a child I had pale blonde hair.)

In other news, I now have a day job, hooray! I'm working as a waitress in a vintage tea room, so if you're in Bath you should come and find us up near the fashion museum, if you want to see me in a headscarf and bright red lipstick.

journal pictures

I've uploaded some more doodles from my journal, this time on horrible paper because I was using a horrible notebook. These are all from after I moved to Bath. Find them here.

This one is of me leaving Sammy in my metaphorical dust in the Paper People game.

Graham's ghosts

One of the first commissions I got after leaving university was to design a ghostly string quartet for an animated band. It was commissioned by a student called Graham Porter, and I has a lot of fun designing the ghosts. The commission included a painting to use for promotion, and some fairly detailed designs. These are some of the pose and expression sheets I was most pleased with, and a slightly terrible photo of the painting.

Guess where I was last weekend! Inspired Comics (from whose blog I have stolen the photo) got a table at Birmingham MCM, so I went along to help and to monopolize almost a third of the table with all my junk. I think it looks sweet all together though, all muted colours and soft toy mascots. (Fox!) You can see the edge of our latest anthology in the corner there. Remember the new Inspired anthology will be debuting at Bristol Expo on the 12th-13th of May.

Thinking of debuts, issue 3 of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? was on sale, and is now available in our online shop. You can find information on our features and contributors this time on the zine blog, and you can buy it at Comiket later this month if you'll be in London. If you want issue 1 you'll have to be quick - sales were good at Birmingham, so there's only two left in the shop.

And thinking of shops, I now have an Etsy shop, how exciting! You can buy my postcards and miniprints there so far, I hope to have new products up soon, including some original paintings. This picture is the header, before I cropped it. Isn't Tabitha cute?

monster girls and paper people

Recently (before I went to London, if you're wondering) I was in a bit of a slump and I didn't seem to be able to draw anything. Everyone always says when that happens you should just draw loads of things until it goes away, so I used that monster generator that's been going around and drew monsters for half the afternoon! I got all girls, coincidentally. It worked very well, even if I did discover that I need to work harder on diverse body types.

Also Sammy got me with a paper person! Nooooo! I should have known she had an ulterior motive when she gave me those creme eggs.

The 'paper house' is the scrapbook I made to contain some of the paper people from years gone by. I decided to start documenting my end of the game, so I've made a flicker set showing some of Sammy's previous victories.