Black Widow

This is an image of Black Widow I did back in 2010. I felt was less successful than Ms Marvel and Emma Frost that I posted back in the blog. Still she's here... I kept tweaking her face...

Morgiana

Another one from the distant past. An uncompleted or rather 'work in progress' of Morgiana from 'The 1001 Nights', the story of Ali Baba. Digital drawing in Photoshop. I loosely based this on a composition from an old copy of The Arabian Nights I have, but it went off in a different direction.

Floating Islands

And another oldie. Think I might dig out a few more and post them over the next few days... This was an environment idea. Before Avatar I must add, more inspired by Laputa and Rupert the Bear. (Edit: just saw I'd posted this further down in the blog. Oh well, here it is again then!)

Drawn and coloured in Photoshop. Not referenced other than for a pagoda.

'Sparrow Hill Road' cover process

As I'm currently working on the next Seanan McGuire novel I thought a quick breakdown of my working process for 'Sparrow Hill Road' might be of interest...

First stage, roughs. Quick 10 minute sketches of composition ideas. I wanted her looking to the left as this is considered looking into the 'past', and as a ghost I thought it appropriate.

After discussion, Seanan selected the top right, which was my favourite as well. So I tidied it up a bit:

I wasn't sure about the face or hair, but added a bit of quick tone:

Decided to work up the face some more and tighten up the car. Lots of ref as the model had to be specific, and working out of a flat in Manchester I'm restricted in access to 1952 Ford Crestline Sunliners (although I can get ref for a 1983 Ford Granada estate quite easily!) 

A bit of tone to work out lighting:

And then colour. Unusually for me I painted over the tone here in parts.

And the final! Thank you for looking!

The Shadow Glass

Well... I've been a bit quiet here... for good reason.

I'm just back from Chicago and C2E2! A wonderful few days that have left me tired but happy. It was also the chance for me to finally say that I am working as a self-creator on a 6 part comic-book for the superb Dark Horse Comics: ‘The Shadow Glass’. I hinted at the project further down in the blog, but it's grown a lot more since then. This explains why I’ve been so quiet with work, as essentially this has been gestating for over 18 months. It’s the story of a search for identity during the reign of Elizabeth 1^st, that is set very much in a real historical world but with fantastical and horror elements, however more details later.

Dark Horse gave me the opportunity to produce a C2E2 convention-special cover for the continuing comic book version of ‘Buffy: The Vampire Slayer’. The cover features Xander and Buffy but the reverse has a teaser for the ‘The Shadow Glass’. It will still be a while before the first issued will be available, but as I was in Chicago we decided to combine the two for this rather special one-off! Then all of a sudden I find myself sitting at a table next to Nicholas Brendon from Buffy signing copies of the comic! How did that happen!??

Anyway, this is the teaser and the cover together. Now that it’s all official I’ll probably start posting more updates as it develops. I am incredibly grateful to Dark Horse for this opportunity, for taking a leap of faith with me, and for being all round great people!