The Thing artbook

Got my hands on The Thing artbook, Approx 400 illustrations inspired by the unique beast that is the John Carpenter 1982 classic, commemorating it's 35th anniversary. An amazing monster of a book. Chuffed to have a piece in such a great collection.

It's brought to you by Printed in Blood and can be picked up here: 
http://printedinblood.com/artbook_thething.html

Yoshiwara

Have created this illustrated piece for Belfast-based newly established label Yoshiwara. They're focusing on releases of doom/stoner/metal and just downright esoteric material.

The name is taken from the club featured in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) so the direction was 'do something with art deco feel and if possible throw in something dark/fantastic/satanic'. Had a blast doing this as love Art Nouveau/Art Deco stylings and trappings and intersected with dark, murky stuff just made it all the more fun to work on.

It involved original ink elements such as figures scanned in, then a lot of background/environment stuff built up as vector elements in Illustrator, then colouring and textures applied and tweeked in Photoshop. Haven't really had the time this weather to build anything up in that time-consuming intricate fashion so was nice to get to work this up.

Below is illustration containing the Yoshiwara logo created by Will Broadbent, drummer of band Ogre who do a great line in Sabbath 70s-style heavy doom metal. They've released material through the Yoshiwara label. 

Rockin' Robin

A - Z: A is for...

 

I've had the idea floating about my head for some time to alphabetically create a series of illustrations of musical acts. Hopefully, utilise styles/techniques that are sympathetic to the subject matter in each case, but maybe more importantly, utilise differing working methods for the sheer sake of shaking things up for myself.

 

Lately I've got into a bit of a rut of doing comic-booky working method of creating clean inks, scan them in, clean them up, then flat colouring in Photoshop so it seemed that now was a perfect time to give this a go. There's no defined schedule on this or anything else imposed, so hopefully I put this to positive, fruitful use going forward.

 

With this series I want to be able to break a few eggs along the way, not be too precious and use whatever gets the job done, pencil, ink, watercolour, paint, vector, texture scans, maybe try out new techniques and materials. Basically rip it up and have fun. Regarding creating fresh work lately, have been a bit zapped with usual life and 9 to 5, so hopefully this project on the side gives me a bit of fire and incentive to attack the drawing board with a bit more relish.

 

Have been listening to a bit of old soul this weather, Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway, so there was little doubt in my mind to kick things off with the Queen of Soul. In a weird way, due to the recognition she's received and lack of obscurity think it's easy to be a bit dismissive of Aretha. Stuck on 'I Never Loved A Man' album while working on this, it's the definition of class with a side order of 'oomph'. Hopefully there's a little drop of that oomph that she delivers in this...



Sci-Fi Samurai

A recent commissioned piece...

The Funnies

The Depths

Death Disco Ball

 

An A3 print can be picked up over at my Etsy store...

Charlatan Tales... The End

It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights...

The third issue of my self-published comic material 'Charlatan Tales' is now out there in the big bad world. I've decided that this will be the final issue of material under the 'Charlatan Tales' banner. As the title hints, this was an open-planned vehicle for me to make things up as I went along and to have an outlet for producing pages of material. The first issue contained 5 self-contained pieces, ranging from a 1-pager to 6 pages. The second issue contained two longer tales at 9 pages and 18 pages respectively and now the third issue contains a single 28-page story in full colour. So I feel, it's served its purpose in giving me the outlet to stretch myself and limber up for doing more (semi) polished long-form work. And also, to be frank, it's been a bit of an indulgence which is getting less and less tenable to throw money at.

Below are the first 6 pages of issue three's story ' The Cosmic Plectrum'. My initial idea was to try and cram loads of fun/daft imagery, concepts and set ups into one story that would be fun and engaging to flesh out, without too much over-thinking or picking apart. The likes of Gilbert Shelton's 'Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers' adventures, specifically 'Idiots Abroad', where it careens from one crazy set-up to the next with a bit of sloppy satire thrown in to the mix, was a main point of fuzzy reference. Along the way, some genuine sentiment and my own half-baked world view crept into proceedings, hopefully fleshing things out a bit.

A lot of the stuff going on in this issue stems from interests and passions going back to my teens; hoary old rock references, psychedelia, dystopian sci-fi satire. Even the character of Spaceman first appeared in a school copy doodle going back roughly to maybe aged 17, and to be honest he hasn't developed much farther from that in the meantime, so this is definitely going to be the last time he appears on the page. Hopefully I can move on to fresh work putting new ideas, outlooks and ways of working into the toybox.

I'm really glad I committed to doing this in full colour, even though this took far longer than I initially considered, it's really made me appreciate the sheer scale of work a colourist has to do in modern comics. Where possible I wanted to ramp up old school garish comic book colouring and contrasts. Prior to beginning colouring, as a main point of reference and influence, I took in and soaked up a cherished, battered copy of Captain America 111 by Steranko. In future, I'd like to display more confidence in using more extreme colour choices and contrasts to ramp up the stylized possibilities of comic book visuals.

It can be picked up in the following outlets, who've all gratefully carried previous copies of Charlatan Tales:

Mega City Comics, 18 Inverness Street, London NW1 7HJ

Orbital Comics, 8 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7J
Sub City, 62 Dame St, Dublin 2, Dublin
Universal Books, Church Lane, Letterkenny, Co.Donegal

It can be bought online via my Etsy shop and also on Comicsy. Charlatan Tales no. 2 & 3 can be bought together for only £5 (+p&p).

All original ink pages are for sale at very reasonable prices, please inquire if interested.

I'm hoping to consider working on something more structured and more long-form, maybe a 48-page one off or a 3/4 issue series, or potentially working with a like-minded writer.

To the future...

The Cosmic Plectrum

Have finally sent the material for my third issue of Charlatan Tales off to print.

It contains a self-contained 28 page full-colour story 'The Cosmic Plectrum' containing my erratically occurring character 'Spaceman'.

Below is the cover artwork, hopefully update sooner rather than later on release and availability of the finished product.

The High Priestess

 

The third in my on-going trash comic book style re-interpretations of the Tarot card designs.

 

 

The previous two designs 'The Fool' and 'The Magician' have been used as the back cover illustrations on my self-published comic publication 'Charlatan Tales'.

 

I'm limbering up to getting everything in place for the third issue coming together, just got the cover design and a few designy bits and pieces and general clean ups to carry out.

 

Snowglobe

 

 

 

Happy Christmas!

New Empress Magazine - A Certain Nightmare Before a Certain Christmas

 

I've recently created a black and white illustration for the latest edition of New Empress magazine.

The editor had a few jitters about depicting properties that come under the ownership of a certain house of a certain mouse so this called for a bit of abstraction. The final piece turned a lot more abstract and basic (basic in a good way hopefully) than previous work for the magazine.

The Hollows via Emanata

A link via Emanata Comics to a 9-page supernatural tale created last year, 'The Hollows'.

It's scripted by actor/writer friend Mark Kavanagh. Further details can be found on this previous link.

Yay!

One third 'The Iron Giant' + one third 'Calvin and Hobbes' + one third 'Pacific Rim' = Yay!

 

Rough beginnings...