Self Portrait

We’re all working from home at the moment and there are a lot of Skype meetings, but I’m working from my bedroom so I’m not really comfortable having the camera on. (I just don’t want everyone being able to see into my room.) I thought I’d update my old skull avatar so my colleagues would have something to look at.

I couldn’t use it in the end because there was no way to set it to JUST Skype and not my email avatar too, but I used it on some social media instead. Should I use it here too and redesign the blog a bit?

Inktober 2019: day 29 - Pentel pocket brush and ink wash

Berix isn’t crying, those tear tracks are permanent stains caused by a hallucinogenic drug.

Just time enough to introduce one more new person! Berix is another courtesan of the Dai Empress. His people make extensive use of mind-altering drugs, so one of his special skills is formulating them for courtiers. He enjoys music.

Inktober 2019: day 23 - Pentel pocket brush and ink wash (G-pen for the strings)

Here’s another character we haven’t met before, although you may have seen his eye if you’ve been here a while. Jothan is a courtesan at the palace of the Dai Empress, with music among his specialist skills. His people never show their open mouths, so he wears a veil if he’s been asked to sing as well as play.

(The harp design isn’t final, I think it should be a bit less symmetrical.)

Inktober 2019: day 17 - Pentel pocket brush and felt tips

His whispers blend right in with your own thoughts, until you can’t tell the difference.

Inktober 2019: day 4 - Pentel pocket brush and ink wash

Lottie wears her hair over that eye for a reason.

This one snuck past my 90-minute time limit, I'm not as quick with the brush pen as I thought!

Family Portrait

A coworker from the library commissioned me to do a drawing of her family from a photograph, and this is the end result! Her son is very cute.

I don't think I ever posted them here before, but this is a bit like the baby portraits in that it's something I don't really advertise, but seem to get asked for a lot anyway. I've even been hired to do them at a wedding, and to this day I have no idea how the client knew that was something I could do.

Inktober 2018 : Day 29 - Pentel Pocket Brush

As Hallowe’en approaches it gets harder for Leilus to hide his unnatural features, but in this age of contacts, acrylics and prosthetic makeup he can still hide in plain sight if he chooses his outings carefully.

This was originally going to have spot colour, but I ended up having to do it at work where I didn’t have any of my coloured pens, so it became a game of ‘how much flat black can I put on this before it becomes an unreadable mess’. The answer was 'quite a lot'!

Inktober 2018 : Day 27 - Pentel Pocket Brush and ink wash

One more for the ‘girls looking straight at the camera’ set! It was hard inking the Mirror Girl with such a thick pen, but it was one of the only ones I hadn’t used yet for this set.

You can tell I was at MCM this weekend because all the pictures become extremely simple.

Inktober 2018 : Day 24 - Pentel Pocket Brush and ink wash

I felt too sick to come up with an interesting composition so I went for broke on the hair. On the plus side, I haven't been happy with how I draw Nat's hair for years and I'm really pleased with it in this one, so I've made progress!

Inktober 2018 : Day 18 - grey and black fude pen

I’m really pleased with this one, but I might re-draw it later. I made a couple of small mistakes that are bothering me more than usual because I’m so proud of the concept. It’s partly because I used my fude pen when I shouldn’t have, but I realised I could do the whole thing with just that one pen so I wanted to try it! Ah well, I can do another pass some other time.

Inktober 2018 : Day 14 - Pentel Pocket Brush

Spider trusts Nettle not to drop him, but he still gets nervous when she sends him too high.

I've drawn a version of this scene for the last 4 Inktobers, so last year I decided to keep going and see if I ran out of pens or ideas first. I did have to think harder than last year to come up with a new one! I can't believe I never thought to change the perspective before.

Inktober 2018 : Day 9 - grey and black fude pen

I have a nice fude brush pen with one grey tip and one black tip (I'm told this is because sympathy cards are supposed to be written in grey in Japan, but I don't know if that's true), so I wanted to try doing 'colour holds' like Sammy. Although we couldn't decide if it's still a colour hold when the colour is grey.

The girl Isaac has attached himself to can see him, so his preferred method of introduction is to sit creepily somewhere nearby and wait for her to notice him.

Inktober 2018 : Day 6 - Pentel Pocket Brush

Last year I was inspired by Heikala's amazing inking videos to get better with my brush pen, so here's another one inked with the Pentel Pocket Brush. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, there's still a few areas I'm not happy with but this already looks better than day 2.

In Autumn it gets very blustery where Louise lives.

Inktober 2018 : Day 2 - Pentel Pocket Brush and ink wash

Alexis is a type of angel made to interact with humans, so even his unnatural features look soft and friendly. He likes loose, fluffy clothes like jumpers and scarves.

My Pentel Pocket Brush is one of my favourite pens, but I don't think I've mastered it yet. I usually do my inks in two or three steps but with a brush pen it seems it's better to make one line and then leave it alone. I'm going to try to use it more this Inktober to see if I can really get the hang of it.

Inktober 2017 - Part 3

Day 21 : fineliners and felt tip pens - Eventually the school agreed that Nettle should just sit out of P.E. lessons.

Day 22 : mapping pen and brush pen - "It followed us home, can we keep it?"

I was hoping for this one to have a more scary feel, but the Mirror Twins seem to be too cute and are taking away from the horror of the black dog. I'm pleased with the composition though.

Day 23 : G-pen - Tree fairies of his type don't usually venture very far from their home tree, so Sweetpea has never seen a sweet chestnut before.

Day 24 : brush inking and coloured ink - I regretted not using coloured ink for the flames on day 1 every time I opened the sketchbook, so I finally relented and did a new version of the same concept, this time with coloured ink.

Day 25 : cartridge pen - Lottie is fairly sure she shouldn't talk to the Crow Boy, but she doesn't really want him to leave either.

Day 26 : mapping pen - Sweetpea's ear frills, like the leaves on his tree, turn brown and fall off in Autumn. Also like the leaves on his tree, they tend not to go at the same time.

Day 27 : fineliners and grey pens - The next three were all done while helping Sammy at MCM! It's very hard to find time to do anything else while at a convention, so I feel quite proud of myself for not falling behind. While we were on a bus Sammy requested some more pictures of Poppet's friends, 'with a musical instrument', so here are the two we didn't see in the teacup picture earlier.

Day 28 : brush pen and ink wash - Louise's house also plays host to a slightly alarming type of house fairy called Lob-Lie-By-The-Fire. He looks a little more frightening than most house fairies, but he just wants to sit by your fire and help with the washing up.

I still can't quite believe I managed to do this one after spending 9 hours selling comics in a packed convention hall, and a further 45 minutes on a bus.

Day 29 : fineliners and felt tip pens - I caught con lurgy so this was one of the hardest ones to do all month, I felt dreadful while I was drawing it! It's also very hard to draw when one has to stop every 5 seconds to blow one's nose. Still, it looks pretty good I think.

Leilus has a lot of features he could choose as his 'I am a demon' warning sign, but the tongue is the obvious best choice because it can be hidden inside his mouth. The stereotypical spaded tail would probably be the worst.

Day 30 : ink and water - Well, it seems I finally ran out of steam and had to settle for one that I really wasn't happy with. I wanted to draw Nat one more time because it was the last day, but I was still ill and didn't have the brain power to get him on model or work out a good composition. I probably should have used a different pen too, but I'd hardly used ink and water at all! I should have been sensible and opted for something with less risk, but these are the lessons we learn in Inktober.

One of the reasons Nat keeps his hair so long is that it's usefully prehensile.

Just a Hallowe'en picture still to come!

Part 1, Bonus Picture, Part 2, Hallowe'en

Inktober 2017 - Part 2

Day 11 : fineliners and grey pen - If you didn't want to share your fancy tea with the house hobs, you shouldn't have left it unattended.

Day 12 : brush pen and coloured ink - Demons aren't allowed to walk around in human shape without at least one tell-tale feature.

Day 13 : ink and water - If only it really were just sleep paralysis

Day 14 : G-pen (and a brush for the black) - Shasta's face is not the most comforting sight to see looming over you when you wake up in a strange, dark world.

Day 15 : mapping pen (and others) - This one is a bit of a hodge-podge, it's mostly mapping pen, but I used a brush pen for the black and the effects on the ribbons, and a fineliner for the string.

A bundle of oak, ash and thorn twigs tied with red string will ward off fairies, both good and bad.

Day 16 : gel pens - Wipe that glamour off your face Trispin, Ely isn't impressed. I have a super-fine gel pen (0.25) that I rarely use, so I gave it a try for the hatching on this one. I like it but it's just so scratchy! I had to keep stopping to pick paper fibres out of the nib.

Day 17 : fineliners and grey pen - Lottie's 'friends' snuck up on her while she was reading. Partly inked on a moving train!

Day 18 : brush pen and ink wash - Isaac knows a lot of sung prayers, but he doesn't remember where he learned them. This one was partly inspired by Heikala's lovely process videos, I'd never seen someone get such a fine line out of a Pentel Pocket Brush and I wanted to try it myself. I also found a spare waterbrush pen so I've filled it with diluted ink, which means I can use ink wash when I'm out of the house as well.

Accurate skeletal hand brought to you by A Colour Atlas of Clinical Anatomy, since I was drawing this one at work at the medical library.

Day 19 : cartridge pen - I draw Lena in shiro-lolita a lot because it looks cute, but in reality she and Lucas don't have a lot of money and this old, eyelet lace dress is the only party frock she owns. This is another one finished on the train because I was determined to go to bed when I got home.

Day 20 : gel pen - Oof. This one is definitely in the 'why have I done this to myself' category. I sketched it in the morning, but didn't have time to ink it until late in the evening, and it took until 1:30am! What's worse, this sort of cross-hatching looks like absolute arse until it's nearly finished, so for most of that time I didn't even know how it was going to turn out. Thank goodness it looks okay.

Someone walking past might not see the shadow, but it's there.

Part 1, Bonus Picture, Part 3, Hallowe'en

Inktober 2017 - Bonus Picture!

Day 9.5 : brush pen and coloured ink - I convinced a co-worker to walk home along the canal path with me, and we happened to see a grey heron along the way. She knew I was doing Inktober and asked if I could incorporate the heron and some Autumn leaves into the picture for the day.

I suppose really the answer was 'no', since I always try to draw my own characters during Inktober and I didn't want to break my theme, so I ended up doing an extra picture rather than incorporating the heron into the picture for the day. She was still happy with it though. I scanned it with and without the coloured ink because I was worried I was going to mess it up!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Hallowe'en

Inktober 2016 - Part 3

Part 3 of Inktober! I continued to struggle to find time to do these, but I'm happy with most of them anyway.

Day 21 - mapping pen : Autumn is a good season for fairy-spotting. I was absolutely exhausted when I drew this so I'm surprised it turned out okay!

Day 22 - G-pen and grey pen : I suspected my G-pen was misbehaving so I drew something simple to test it, I'm still not sure if something's wrong with it or not.

Day 23 - brush pen : I don't have a good bead on what Trispin's glamour makes him look like, possibly just cleaner? I was so pleased with the sketch for this that I think it was very brave of me to ink it with my brush pen, probably the pen with which I need most improvement. Inktober is supposed to be a way to get better at using ink after all!

Day 24 - G-pen : I had a long day and felt like drawing something cute.

Day 25 - ink and water : The Crow Boy has lots of friends.

Day 26 - mapping pen : I already drew Ely with her glamour on, so here she is without it. She's just as disgusting as Trispin.

Day 27 - brush inking and ink wash : I've never drawn the Crow Boy dolly-style before. It doesn't really suit him, which presents a problem because it does suit Lottie but they come from the same place so they have to be drawn in the same way. Hmmm.

Day 28 - brush pen : Spider is, on the surface at least, a very laid-back telepath.

Day 29 - cartridge pen : Spider is taking precautions with the tea tray, but Nettle won't drop those. I usually ink my dolly pictures with my G-pen, so I had a go with my cartridge pen instead. I think it looks pretty good.

Day 30 - G-pen : Just enough time left for Lena to show off another divination technique!

Part 1, Part 2, Hallowe'en

Inktober 2016 - Part 2

Here's the second batch of Inktober pictures for this year! I'm still finding it a bit harder this year than I did last year because my schedule has become very irregular, some days I barely have any time to draw anything (more than one of these was finished on a moving train), but I'm determined to keep going!

Day 11 - cartridge pen : Lena insists the fortune-telling works better if you use Nan's good tea set.

Day 12 - gel pen : The Crow Boy doesn't mean to be creepy, but he usually is anyway.

Day 13 - brush pen and coloured ink : I was out with a friend and she said "draw Poppet with a pumpkin", so here we are!

Day 14 - g-pen : Lena would probably have a whole wardrobe of dresses like that if she had the money.

Day 15 - gel pen : Tempting with fruit isn't the only way for a changeling to entrap unsuspecting humans. (Ely is also wearing her glamour like a sensible fairy.)

Day 16 - ink and water : Lena is able to use all sorts of tools for divination. She can get much the same results by scrying in a bowl of water, but a crystal ball looks spookier.

Day 17 - g-pen and grey pen : The Mirror Twins have an endless supply of creepy artifacts somewhere. That's probably some variant of a Hand of Glory, but let's not ask where they got it.

Day 18 - brush pen : I made a mistake with this one! I sketched it in the morning and did a first pass in mapping pen, then realised I wouldn't have time to cross-hatch it before work and also couldn't get away with bringing wet media to the library counter, so I had to re-do it in brush pen. Spider matches Nettle on day 4 now though, which is nice.

Day 19 - ink and water : Things look very different when Lucas looks through his bad eye. This is one of the ones inked on a moving train, I was at work from 10am to 9pm and I was determined I was NOT going to keep working on this at home when I really wanted to go to bed!

Day 20 - g-pen and markers : A companion piece for day 6. Child psychics can be a danger to themselves as well as others.

Part 1, Part 3, Hallowe'en