The Tale of the Chocolate Shop

I forgot to post this for so long. These are pictures from a little manuscript book I made my pal Nam last year. It was based on a twitter conversation about my trip to a chocolate shop. I wanted to make it as nice as possible (since I had… er… forgotten to get her a present for her birthday AND Christmas) so I painted the pictures onto heavy card pages, hand-lettered the text in my best rounded gothic, (still not very good, hahaha) and bound it all up into a hardback book. I forgot to take a photo of the finished item though. I think the middle picture of me in the chocolate shop is one of my favourite things I drew that year!

If you’re curious, the Tale of the Chocolate Shop runs thusly:

Once upon a Time, Sarah went to the Chocolate Shop. Sarah was going to be a Good Girl, and not buy any Chocolate. But then she bought some anyway.

The book was only 3 pages long.

Sabriel

This is an illustration I did based on Sabriel, by Garth Nix. At some point I’d like to do a whole series, but I’d need to have a lot more free time.

I also realised after finishing it that I've managed to contradict the text, which is something I try very hard not to do. (Sabriel climbs steps on the way out of the valley, but not into it.)  I'm pleased with the light effects though.

Rooftops

This is a little painting I did for my Grandma, on account of being a terrible granddaughter who forgot to make her a card this year. I wrote her a letter on the back.

I also remembered to scan it at various stages, which is something I've been meaning to do for a while. You can see the original idea doodle and thumbnail on a sketchbook page, and then the sketch, ink and paint stages of the finished piece.

I'm not completely happy with the colours, I think I inked it too heavily and made the whole picture too dark. I'll do better next time.

Zelda Notebooks

These are some tiny notebooks I made to sell at MCM. I'm not sure how I feel ethically about making money from fanart, so I compromised and only made 5 of each. Unfortunately that meant a few sold out before we remembered to take a photo of the table, so I thought I'd put them all up for you to see.

A lot of people didn't recognise the top three. They're the Minish, from Legend of Zelda: Minish Cap.

London MCM Expo

Last weekend Sammy and I went to London MCM Expo. We had a great time! It was much busier than we expected (a lot of people in Comic Village were surprised by the number of guests) and we did very well for sales!

The downside is that we sold out of a lot of stock, which has never happened to us before. We need to get a move on making something new before our next event at Manchester MCM in July.

Sammy has put up a lot more pictures and some descriptions of everyone's work on the Inspired blog.

What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? Spring 2013

This is my cover for the Spring 2013 issue of What's the Time, Mrs Woolf?, with and without the tracing paper overlay. We didn't set a theme this time, so I decided to go with a wolf (our mascot) and some Spring flowers (specifically wood anemones).

We took this issue to Bristol Expo last weekend and sold quite a few copies, so I'm quite happy with the cover. It seemed to catch people's eyes.

I've also started putting What's the Time, Mrs Woolf? up in my etsy shop.

Inspired Anthology 2013 - Cover

This is my cover for the 2013 Inspired anthology, Mixtape. I was very pleased to win the vote again this year, as the other cover was very good! I'm a little worried the colours won't be bright enough once it's printed, but we've never really had that problem before so hopefully it won't be an issue.

You can play two games with this cover. One is 'spot the character expats', I'll start you off by saying Iona from Patience is a Virtue is very easy to find. The other is 'spot which headphones were added in the digital colouring stage because Sarah realised the composition wasn't good'.

Inspired Anthology 2013 - The Music Cupboard

I've been working on two short comics for this year's inspired anthology. This is the second one, The Music Cupboard, featuring Poppet the House Hob. This time Poppet and her friends are infiltrating a human school, concealed in a cello case.

Poppet previously appeared in The Bad Fairy Bakery (which was also drawn for an Inspired anthology) and answers questions in What's the Time, Mrs Woolf?. The Bad Fairy Bakery is available to buy online, but you can also read it on this blog.

The finished anthology will be available at Bristol Comics Expo, London MCM Expo and Manchester MCM Expo this year.

Inspired Anthology 2013 - A Ghost Story

I've been working on two short comics for this year's Inspired anthology. It's themeless now, but originally it had a music theme, so both my comics are music-related. This is the first one I did, which is a simple ghost story. (My favourite kind of story!)

I've used this ink and water technique for a comic before, so I didn't need to do too many tests for this one. I think the floaty effect is nice for ghosts, but it's harder for the rest of the characters as I need to maintain a clear outline. I think I've improved since my last attempt though.

The finished anthology will be available at Bristol Comics Expo, London MCM Expo and Manchester MCM Expo this year.

Happy Easter!

I doubt there are many people who follow me here exclusively, but if you're wondering why updates are a little sparse it's because I wanted this blog to have fewer doodles and sketches, which are all I've had time for lately. If you're interested in such things, it might be better to follow me on tumblr.

Also here is a poem about Colt's Foot that I remember from school:

'I love Coltsfoot that they

Make their appearance into life among dead grass;

Larches, that they

Die colourfully among sombre immortals.'

Google informs me it's by David Constantine, which is weird as I always remembered it being written by a woman.

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.

Autumn 2012 Postcards part 2

These are the other five postcards I made for Thought Bubble, in my 'dolly' style. These are all my own characters as well, but they're not all as well developed. I was still aiming for a limited colour palette with these, and I think I was fairly successful. I definitely like my own work more with fewer and duller colours.

There's Coda, a young princess who suffers from an arranged marriage and is moved from her home in the mountains to her husband's kingdom, which is largely forested. Then there's those two creepy edwardian children from the Danse Macabre postcard, perhaps this is where they found their skeleton friend. Then Lena, sister of Lucas and possessor of the gift of prophesy, following a ghost lantern. A little witch in a field of eyes. Lastly, young Nettle and Spider, enjoying a psychic tea party (the best kind). Possibly Spider will read their tea leaves when Nettle puts the cups down.