Something old, something new...

In May of 2011 I shall be attending the Bristol International Comic and Small Press Expo. Please come along and say 'how do' or wibble at me in a manner of your own choosing. Alternatively buy something. This shall be my first Con (almost), so I am a con virgin! There will be other people who are prone to drawing attending, eg: Matt Dixon, Kevin Crossley and Dr Geof all three I am acquainted with, almost intimately, so there will be safety in numbers. I shall provide more information closer the time, some of it even relevant.

Now... a big post of mixed stuff, old and less old... First, something dark and bizarre... An image I started ages ago when I was going through my 'girls with swords phase' (it's a phase - recognise the fact! Like eating peanut butter and Marmite on Digestive biscuits is 'a phase', or Worcester Sauce flavour Twiglets is 'a phase'). I decided to tweak it into shape with the idea of making it into a mock movie poster, but it ended up being more like a poster for a play; some sort of pseudo occult classical nonsense. Used a few over-laid textures to age and 'atmosphere' it up.


The last Character of the Week (ChoW), a re-design of 'Barbarella' or Mrs Jetson as someone pointed out generously.



An old Character of the week, John Carter of Mars, from the Edgar Rice Burroughs stories. This probably could do with more time on it, but trying to keep the Chow's quick was part of the idea. Aah, girls at the foot of an heroic chap... (what's that all about then?)... how timeless...



Based on a song by The March Violets, 'Dress for You'. It's ketchup, she's a messy eater. Bit of a play with a brush or two downloaded from CGHub and supplied by the generous Ditlev



Another old Character of the Week, 'The Magus', based not so loosely on Aleister Crowley, A bit of a mish-mash this image, but I kind of liked the face.

And some sketchy stuff. A sky pirate and a couple of cowboys from long ago!

A drawing done for an art exchange anniversary thingy on GorillaArtFare. We each were given another artist to do a version of one of their images I got the wonderful Karla Ortiz. I chose to slightly cartoonify one of hers, and made a right pigs ear of it!
Finally a real oldie, an instruction I did sheet for one of the old Halcyon model kits, this one of Judge Death sculpted by the excellent Colin Batty

A WICKED Hallowe'en!

I felt Elphaba, The Wicked Witch of the West might be appropriate for Halloween! I did her 'pink', the fact she was green totally skipping past me, so added a green tint! Used a bit of pose ref, and a the usual Photoshop brushes. Have a good one, even if I'm being a bit premature!

Edit: Elphaba just got a Gold Award on CGHub! Thank you for that! :) I think the Witch of the South, Glinda, should be next, or maybe of the East and North seeing as those two don't get much 'airtime'!

Edit: Process gif HERE

Emma Frost and stuff...

No post for ages, so apologies. Long term projects and a house move have swallowed much of my time, so hopefully things will be steadier for now...

Marvel's Emma Frost - A little Mr Hughes inspired on the approach to the cape, but the rest is me own (referencing her costume of course)!



A personal piece based on a photograph by John Wright of actress Emily Fitch. I wasn't after a likeness, it was mainly the outfit and the pose I liked so just wanted to do something inspired by it.


Another image based on the same sequence of photographs from John Wright. Less like the original.



This was a Character of the Week on ConceptArt.org I never finished it for the challenge. The topic was The Queen of Music. I did mine inspired by the eighties band Strawberry Switchblade...


A very quick old ChoW, but I've not put it anywhere, I think. The Endless' 'Death' goes Emo... (Heavily influenced by Joe Chiodo) When I did this I forgot to up-scale my resolution so the original is very small unfortunately.


Thanks you for visiting! :o)

The Necromancer

I don't know what it is with Blogger but I have these intermittent periods when I can't see any images from any blog at all! Not just mine... any blog! The text shows up but not the pics...

Anyway, an inbetween jobs piece for 'Character of the Week' on Concept Art. A student Necromancer called Rosie! This was just for fun.

Io9 Article

Wow! I've been featured on io9! A friend sent me a link and I feel enormously honoured! I think I need to get back into some good old fashioned horror pin-up! :) Thank you to them!

IO9 FEATURE

Hoorah!

Frank Frazetta, Peter O'Donnell and Loose Ends...

Frank Frazetta 1928 - 2010

Gee, I'm bad at updating! Before I do, though, a word about Frank Frazetta, who passed on recently. As a kid I used to buy Conan books just for his covers alone. I was a bit more of a sci-fi geek than fantasy, but there was something about his work that struck a chord, as it did with many kids of my generation. There were few art collection books available then, unlike the way there is today, so I used to cycle the eleven miles to my nearest bookshop with a couple of quid in my pocket earned from shovelling cow/pig-crap at my weekend job on a farm. I would buy books by people like Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, John Wyndham, Bob Shaw, Robert Sheckley etc, but after a friend at school showed me Frazetta's work when he was copying 'Death Dealer' for art class (in those powdery school paints you used to get) I fell in love with the easy use of colour and the bizarre landscapes he used to paint. Impossibly proportioned Rubenesque women and pumped up seemingly steroid enhanced men (a friend once described as looking like a condom full of walnuts). The funny thing is I didn't want to paint like him, or at least his subject matter, big muscular blokes didn't really appeal. I wanted to draw X-wing fighters, The Starship Enterprise, Batman, and bizarrely images of Joan of Arc as well! But I loved his work, and like so many things recently, I've realised his artwork on those 'Sphere' paperbacks decorated my imagination as much as the spaceships of Chris Foss or Tintin or Asterix. Here's to you Frank!
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Peter O'Donnell 1920 - 2010And someone else who's death went almost unnoticed was Peter O'Donnell at 90, who created the wonderful Modesty Blaise in 1963. Modesty was a precursor of Emma Peel of The Avengers, and pretty iconic when it came to the depiction of strong women in comics. She was drawn by a number of artists but apparently every story, whether novel or comic strip was written by O'Donnell.


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Some old and new sketches, and things that will probably never be finished...
Dragon's Egg 1:Kid Pirates:

Some spooky scarecrows. Quite old these, but I've not put them on the blog.


Dragon's Egg 2:
Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion:


Erica, Zombie Killer Rough:


A 'Character of the Week' I never finished, maybe I should as it's almost there...


A slightly bizarre rough of Isis for a Character of the Week:

A personal piece: The Vampire Queen!


And finally a pic from junior school... many years ago! A combination of Star Trek and the Thames TV logo... why!?

Teddy and Beast

OK... so I said I'd update more often this year, what an idle promise that was! Sorry, but the muse has kind of been difficult to encourage recently. Sometimes it just isn't there... However here are two images from recent weeks. The first is an adaptation of a piece done to a brief. I spent a bit more time on it after the deadline and turned it into something else purely for me. The second is a bit (!) darker and is called 'Beast'. There is a bit of history to this image but that's another story, it's inspired by an old photograph of the mark of the beast!

Goodbye 2009

OK, well the year is nearly over, and thank you to people for popping in and visiting my blog. I can’t say how much it has been appreciated. I’m going to try and keep it more updated in the coming months, and also try to include more works in progress and sketches. It's been a dramatic and emotional year for me and my partner, so I'm glad to see the back of 2009, but it ended with her being declared clear of cancer of the throat a few days before Christmas after months of chemo and radiotherapy, so I raise a glass tonight to a great Christmas present and to better times ahead.

Anyway... scribbles... This was where my head was at after looking at Kay Nielsen's work and Florence Harrison a lesser known illustrator from the golden age of British illustrators. A bit of an experiment really. I include the sketch as well.

The Steampunk Harem & The Morrigan

A quick update. Two characters of the week from Concept Art.org The first is 'The Steampunk Harem' and the second is 'The Morrigan'. The full version and a crop, which bizarrely I felt looked a bit better flipped... weird... I have a thing for stone circles...

Happy Hallowe'en

A few days early, but a real rush job before other commitments. Vicky the Winter Witch started as a a personification of Winter for a Character of the Week on Concept Art, but I wasn't able to finish her for that. So with a couple more hours she's become a seasonal greeting! I think she must be Trish's sister from last year! Have good one whatever you do to celebrate! :)

Moonlight, you will say...

I was cleaning up a hard-drive and found this, something I started about 4 years ago. I know... another spooky girl in a long black dress! :) I never finished it, but decided to do a bit of noodling on it to make it at least presentable. So here's a suitably haunted image for Hallowe'en, or Samhain.

Alice

Er... Alice. The client said make her clothes shinier so I did...

Ella Hellbound

A couple of ChOWs from Concept Art.org, The Mesmer and Supercute. Ella Hellbound was just a piece for myself, and Mirror Mirror was done for the Chicks vs Guys Thunderdome also on Concept Art. The poem is by my better half, Rosie. It might be a bit difficult to read here...

Thank you again for stopping here! :o)

Various bits of Bumpf

Bit of an update... A finished Character of the Week from ConceptArt.org (Elizabeth Bennet: Pride and Prejudice) and some roughs from various others. Just sketches, but some were never finished. I'd like to work up the Arabian one sometime, Morgiana from The 1001 Arabian Nights.



Lizzie Bennet



Morgiana
Rough for a CGSociety Challenge
Alice and the Cheshire Cat
Prom Queen Killer rough
The Endless: Death, Delirium and Desire
Icarus getting an idea!
Puss in boot...

High School Prom Killer

Another 'Character of the Week' from Concept Art.org. Done between 'real' work things. Tiffany-May White with her sweet smile is the High School Prom Killer. Never happier than when she's stabbing someone! Rather gruesome, I know... but hey ho...

Death

Pop pop... a sketch based on a Character of the Week thing... Thank goodness for texture overlays... or maybe not! Should work it up... bed, tired...

Absinthe and Zombie Killers

I've not updated this blog in ages, so apologies. A job change for me and a serious illness in the family, which has taken over a large part of my life have slowed down my personal work. I've kind of hung around Concept Art, but that's been about it really. Anyway, without further ado, here's a picture of Erica the Zombie Killer (with a nod to Shaun of the Dead!) and the Absinthe Fairy.

Thanks! :)

Silhouette from Watchmen

Well I've not been here for a while. Lots of things going on in my life which are making things very bizarre right now, but I decided to do something just for myself today, so here's a real quickie, Silhouette from WATCHMEN; the recent movie version of Alan Moores brilliant graphic novel. She made a real impression (!) during her brief appearance in the film. I thought I'd do a version of her with a 'nod' to Mr Elvgren.

Thank you to all who've popped in and commented most kindly.


In the movie Silhouette and her lover get a bit of a rough ride to say the least. An interesting perspective on this is here, and in the links within:

BRIGHT LIGHTS AFTER DARK

However she does get the best scene in the opening credits, and perhaps even the movie (gif by Sonnete):

Baba Yaga

Finally got a new laptop after the last one went poo shaped on me, so I have internet at home at last and... I don't know whether it's me or the site but Concept Art is eluding me tonight. I can't seem to get on, so I'll post my Character of the Week here. Baba Yaga. As usual, Photoshop...