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.

Journal Pictures and Degree Show madness

I finally got round to scanning some more of the pictures from my journal, so mooch on over to flickr to take a look at strange scenes from my life.

In other news, my degree show is going well so far.  It all looks really good up on the walls and I think we've got a lot of good work in our class this year.  Sammy's put up some nice photos of work by the Inspired crew, which includes me, or you can find out more on the university website.

It's weird to think that we're almost done after three years of work, work, work.  It seems to have gone really quickly, but at the same time 1st year feels like a lifetime ago.  I've enjoyed the course a lot and I finally feel like I wouldn't be ripping people off if I charge them for my work, which is a big milestone.  I can't quite believe how much my work has improved since we started.  (Of course then I look at other people's work from my class like Sammy, Jamie, Nathan and Rob and think 'Waargh they're all so much better than me! Panic panic flail flail' but I'm told that's normal and healthy in a creative field.)

I hope some of you can make it down to the show!

Degree Show and a Fairy

Hey peeps, my degree show is on this week and I forgot to say anything!  Here, have a fairy to quell your terrible rage at my thoughtlessness.

The private view is today, but the show is open to the public from 10am-4pm for the next week, closing on the 9th.  Hopefully at least one person who isn't on my course reads this blog and will trundle down to Pittville campus (that's in Cheltenham) to see our lovely pictures, not to mention the work from all the other courses.

If you need previews, you can see a collection of the illustration class's work HERE.

do you ever think about toes?

I think about toes.  I love the bony parts of people's bodies, including hands and feet.  The knobblier the better.  This lovely pair belong to my friend Lily's boyfriend, who was kind enough to sit still so I could draw them.  I'm completely in love with how long his toes are, it's like an extra set of fingers!

Tragically, this one is mine.  Those are blisters.  If shoes are designed to be worn with socks you really should wear them with socks, as it turns out.

(Yes, I sketched my blisters.  What else am I supposed to do after 3 years of art school?)

Gorse and Skullgirl

Until I get round to scanning some of my work for my final projects at university, I thought you'd like to see some more children's work.  These are Gorse and Hephzibah, who've appeared before, and Skullgirl who you should recognise from the header.  She has a name now, Lamentation Obedience, as in 'people lament your existence and it's your place to be unquestioningly obedient.'

Journal Pictures

Since I realised the other day that I update my personal blog even more infrequently than this one whenever I'm busy (which kind of defeats the point since people who worry about me, like my mum, start bugging me for news) I thought I'd start uploading my journal illustrations on flickr instead.  I might even get really wild and put some of the better ones on here, but for now you can find all the ones I've put up so far in handy little sets over there.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahfogg/

yet more postcards

 These are some more postcards I made for promotional work, since I realised I had no black and white work in my children's style that wasn't incredibly old.  I discovered, to my delight, that the sort of hatching I used for Patience is a Virtue comes out really well with this line art, so I'm very pleased with them.

Incidentally, the foxes are from a story I very vaguely remember from my childhood, about a fox whose husband dies.  Her suitors all have more and more tails, but she eventually marries one with just one tail. It had beautiful illustrations, but we got the book from the library and none of us (me, my sisters, my parents) can remember what it was called or who wrote it.  If any of you know anything about it I'll love you forever if you can help me find it.

Skullgirl

This will look a bit weird under the new header, but I thought you might like to see the whole image.  I actually painted it specially to crop a header out of or use as a background, like a GEEK.

This is a new-ish character affectionately nicknamed Skullgirl until I manage to choose her a proper name.  I'm leaning towards a really depressing puritan name, I quite like Tribulation, Lamentation or Obedience.  (Sorry-for-Sin was vetoed by my sister.)

What do you all think of the new layout?

More Postcards

These are the other 5 new pictures I took to the London Book Fair as postcards.  They were meant to be in my normal illustration style, but still appropriate to give to children's book publishers.  I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out, the colours came out very well on the cards.