it's like the sixth day of christmas so festive doodling is still legit, right? something else i submitted for this month's issue of meow because i'm a super keen keno.

shit composition is shhhhhiiiiiittttaaaay!

hoy hoy!

phoah 2009, where the hell did you go? did anyone else find that year came and went WAAAAAAY too quickly for comfort? oh well, happy 2010, y'all.

in other news, clearly i just don't have enough crap on my plate between university, story boarding web/comic booking and life in general because i've started working on another comic project. it's a really little neat story written by Janek Steifer featuring more zombies you can shake a boom stick at. inking and colouring duties are courtosy of the super pimp Craig Thomson (check him out over athttp://www.fishadder.com/). exciting!

anyway, here we've got some rough character designs and the wonderfully loose pencils on page one.

last of the robot heads we had to make for the digital media work shop. many thanks to a library book i can't remember the name of for supplying all the bits n' bobs that make this image. god, this makes me want to dabble with collage some time.

there is a tragic lack of bowler hat action in this picture.

belated merry christmas, y'all! hope you had a good one!

submission for this month's meow.

a smidgen of the piddly amount of research i did for the highrise project.

god, do i love those buildings round the barbican. they're just so delightfully soulless and monolithic and there's just _SO MUCH_ going on with them.

...being able to draw a straight line would really help when it comes to psychotic architecture.

more from the illustrator/photoshop work shop. this rather dapper chap had to be made in a combination of the two.

clearly the novelty of bowler hats had yet to wear off.

more mole skin left overs! ugh, there's is such a big fat backlog of stuff i've been meaning to upload here.

bits and pieces from the reportage project we did last term. i think the aim of the game was to document as much of holborn as humanly possible. i totally didn't use this as a chance to indulge my horribly voyeuristic, people watching tendencies.

hoy hoy!

last tearm they made us embrace technology and learn how to use all those artsy programs by way of robot heads. boy illustrator, you aren't half counter intuitive, are you? still, even if it feels like you're trying to draw with wet spaghetti i think i may have wrapped my brain around it... maybe.

hmm. i ordered a copy that program waaaaaaaaay back in october. it still hasn't arrived. combined with the house being burgled the fuck out of last week, this has been a good time for material goods!

bowler hats! making the world a snappily dressed place since 1849!

the last of the preview pages... and i just realized i've gone and uploaded these things just a little backwards. dang-nabit.

anyhoo, once again, you can check out the version with dialogue over at http://renegadeartsentertainment.com/comics/turning-tiger/
or
http://www.myebook.com/ebook_viewer.php?ebookId=17303
you can check out all the other good stuff they've got going on at renegade arts over at http://renegadeartsentertainment.com/

a redicuosly massive thank you goes out to alexander finbow for letting me cut my teeth on this.

and more pages. holy shit is drawing rocket trails fun. unfortunately, the same cannot be said about super massive war bot HUDs.

p.s. note to self. learn how to draw women.

hoy hoy!

exciting news! i think the first issue of turning tiger is going up tomorrow... and by up i mean online and as such that means it's absolutely free so do you really have an excuse not to give it a look?

some of the pages went up in previews a while back so i've been given the okay to post some of it up here. you can check out the version with dialogue by ricmond clements and lettering by Jim Campbell over here -> http://renegadeartsentertainment.com/comics/turning-tiger/

bleh. the lack of motion in the bottom pannle of that first page is paaaaaaainful. it's rediculouse how much i learnt over the course of drawing this issue.

old guff from the mole skin. these were done wwwwwwwaaaaaaaay back in... autumn of last year? anyhoo, every sunday there's a farmer's market up at alexandra palace. it's delightfully middle class. there are also hundreds of dogs. i don't know, bringing your mutt, which is essentially just a bottomless stomach on legs, to a place swarming with meat and cheese seems like something of a cruel practice.

p.s. we didn't go and see 2012. the show sold out so we had to settle with the decent 2. i remember the first one preeeeeeeety intense. this was not. if you like rapid quick cuts to sharp pointy things going into soft gooey things then this is the movie for you. however, if you measure your movies by little things like plot, charaterization and, you know, acting, you'd do well to avoid.

that said, the unintentional hilarity was hilarious. there is nothing quite like watching a pack of women hacking off a man's arm with a pick axe and showering in the GOUTS of blood spraying from the unfortunate appendage like they were in a panten pro v advert.

more cover thumbnails, where in you act like you know something about graphic design!

so very, very tempted by the one of the guy going for a little pavement diving but yeah, not terribly universal. it's an ittsy-bittsy, teeny-weeny part of the book and not all that integral (other than hinting that things are going to hell in a handbag rather sharpish and illustrating the despondency of the high-rise residents). oh well.


in other news, i think we're off to see 2012 tonight. i'm praying for a shit-fest.

gggggoooOOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!

more stuff from the current project they've got us working on. since all the interior illustrations are all VERY character-centric, i wanted the cover to have something to do with the setting. besides, something like that seemed more all-encompasing than blah blah blah blah.

that first design is total milk toast. maybe it could have been worked into something a little more interesting.... but we'll never know since it's totally getting blown off in favour of the 'HO SHIT PERSPECTIVE!' idea.

albeit with slightly nicer lettering, obviously.

sketch book work for the current project. mmmm. messy, messy thumbnails.

but yeah, when it came to it, i found the scenes featuring royal were the ones i was itching to jump to right off the bat. i think i might have a thing for drawing snobby, aloof types.

scrapings from the mole skin.

carrying on the spirit of the t in the park doodles, i went to see amanda palmer when she played at union chapel.

my god. it was electric. couldn't quite believe that the keyboard was still standing by the end of it. if she's playing near you, you'd better be there.

i also may have ended up dropping a stupid amount of money on a painting by the totally bitching daniel van nes (http://www.nessed.nl/biography.html) that was auctioned off at the end of the show when the original winning bidder flaked out.

huzzar for impulse buying?

part deux of the jekell and hyde project.

this got real OTT real fast. also, nothing makes you feel like a right sociopath real fast like drawing little girls being squished underfoot on an over crowded train.

best part: hands down those funky, funky lamp posts.

more dicking on starbucks. don't know WHY this seems to be something of a reoccurring theme- those boys and girls in green do a bang up job of keeping the general public all jazzed up on dangerously caffeinated/sugary beverages!

derived from the fact that coffee houses have become the bastion of the wireless office. huzzarr for the wonders of the communication age! also, why does everything look 1000x more pimp on brown paper?

and once again, it's birthday time. god damn, too many people are born in november. how fantastically un-chic am i to also be celebrating mine tomorrow?

anyhoo, this one's for you mr. hassan, you craziest of party animals. hope you had/have a good one.

hoy hoy.

our current project's to do 6 pages worth of illustration + cover for a book of our (limited) choice. here are some INCREDIBLY rough (and quite possibly plagiaristastic) thumbnails for the latter. i was really digging that first one too till i realized i'd just subconsciously re-hashed the cover for michale chambon's the escapist.

currently working on a cleaner version of the twin towers nod.
...
huzzah for originality!

t'was ben's 22nd this weekend. as such, it was crappy, unflattering card time again.

back from our first book based illustration project. we were given a wee slither of text from jekell & hyde that we had to thumbnail the shit out of and then come up with three 'rough' illustrations. it's kinda meh. i'm particularly digging the complete lack of flow between the separate segments.

... go logic!

more aftermath from the reportage project. this image is severally lacking in zombie action.

hoo boy, that's some ugly ass typography. also, nothing gets the heart racing quite like sending coke flying all over the work you've got to present for assessment in five minuets.

warning: this image contains astronomical levels of twee. gah! totally should have done something with the spokes because this is more stationary that a rymans. BOOM BOOM!

this is why you shouldn't be cheap and try to weedle your way out of dropping four pounds or so on an anniversary card.

a very happy all saints day to all. it warms the cockles of my heart that the christian church recognizes the importance of 90's girl bands. O HO HO HO.

more scrapings from the mole skin. hands down that gherkin doodle is The Greatest Thing i will ever draw.

man, i am totally not blowing off eiting the never ending animation project by pottering around on blogspot.

me thinks a certain someone has been doing an utterly shite job of updating this wee slice of the internet...

anyhoo, the order for the last couple of weeks has been reportage, resulting in a couple of pieces that might hopefully end up in an exhibition put on by the illustration department.

has any one else noticed how fucking _mental_ the coffee shops and what not get round lunch time? good gravy, it's worse than sharks in a blood bank.

idea fishing for our animation project. came up with some wonderfully intricate plot featuring abusive onimatipea before i realized that after effects is the devil's animating program of choice and i was probably going to end up doing nigh on all of this by hand.

...

yay?

but either way, chalk this up as another victory for the Keep It Simple, Stupid school of thought.

yo!

so the second year illustration students are in charge of this wee zine called meow that showcases a selection of works from across the three years. this month's theme was portraits, and what would be a more viable reason than that to sit down and doodle the 16th president of the US of A?

skimming through his wikipedia article and boy, did it suck to abraham lincoln.

i think this might also signify the end of my previously totally rebutted advances on the pen brush.

mole skin junk. need to make a serious start on uploading that thing to here since the poor book looks like it could disintegrate at any given moment.

just some pissing around on paper during the edinburgh fringe. be amazed and astounded by ticket reference numbers and poorly organized book keeping!

it was tavi's 21st party this weekend. being too much of a scatterbrain to find the time to go out and get a card, i ended up drawing this wonderfully unflattering visual representation of the birthday girl. shockingly, we're still on speaking terms.

but seriously, good times were had by all, especially her boarder line insane neighbors who called the fuzz on our asses only after the shin ding had pretty much wrapped itself up. way to go guys, way to go.

final design of the as of yet un-named vigilante for nick's film project. hopefully this won't look as goofy as fuck when it comes to putting it together.

more as it happens!

may i present to you something totally bitching?



here be the alternate cover for issue 1 of turning tiger, the book i'm doing for renegade arts and boy does it kick ass. hats off to simon coleby and vicky stonebridge for doing such a bang up job on this. it certainly kicks the stuffing out of my comparatively paltry effort:




best part: funky robot knee cap anatomy.

but yes. you can color me all shades of excited. still no exact release date but i think this is going to be going out some time in december. more news as it happens.

ciao!

so wait, since when were there pandas on your course?

*insert profound insight here*

...gerard way?

but seriously, if you're ever drawing someone while they're drawing you. do it on the same drawing board. hilarity will ensue.

so yeah, we didn't actually get around to drawing any models in the scud but we did a whole load of exercises about all the different marks you can get out of *insert weapon of choice here* and how they relate to the texture of things... hence the somewhat patch work nature of this stuff.

IN LIFE DRAWING, DRAWING DRAWS YOU.

hola!

so once again i'm an art student. term kicked off last week but this shit didn't get real till yesterday. so far though, it looks like it's going to be a tone of fun (though the work/uni combo could be a little... interesting).

anyhoo, every tuesday we get some life drawing action on. FOR THE WHOLE DAY. this gets me very excited, specially when you take our super enthusing life drawing teacher into account. that man brings art techno-babble to life.

and yet more from the cull. don't worry, we're on page 17/22 so there shouldn't be too many more of these.

bbbbbbbbut probably not given my knack for fudging things up. was kinda sad this was getting cut... till i took another look at the left third. seriously. wtf, mate? way to tweak rob's pose into something totally unfeasible/goofy because you didn't leave enough space *slow clap*

in my defense though, most of the rough pencils for issue two were done in a nigh pitch black room in edinburgh on top of far, far, FAR too little sleep.

hola. long time no speak, mostly down to the fact that once again, i am a real student. granted, they haven't actually got us doing any work yet (this shit gets real come monday and i'm totally psyched)but already the combo of uni and work it totally kicking my ass. this is going to be fun.

but anyhoo, in the mean time enjoy some truly awful character designs. nick's been good enough to let me have art duties on a short film he's trying to put together. it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun and hey, i get to draw demented, grizzly cowled vigilantes. perticulalry digging on the lobster johnson rip off above the hoodie-sporting dude center bottom.

in the mean time, check out this fantastic slice of the internet http://www.1988crazy4cult3.blogspot.com/. being a total slut for movies and illustration, this site gets two thumbs up. i'd give it more, but that breaks the bounds of human physicality.

do over. god, this is so much better than the last stab... being on topic helps too.

also, COLOUR!

no more ships for a while though.

and yet more fallout from the great, editorial cull on issue two.

issue one might be breaking out december 1st. i am alex's sense of giddy excitement.

a friend of ours is off to the ukraine for the year to max out her russian skills. we figured the least we could do was make her a bon voyage card.

wow, is it me or does this borrow rather heavily from the covers for the scott pilgrim books? also, ukraine is most defiantly NOT soviet russia, so what's up with the color scheme/bears?

did you know that the national animal of mauritius is the dodo? OH LOL!

#THE MORE YOU KNOW#

aaaaaaaand this is why you don't skim through briefs. turns out i'd got completely the wrong end of the stick with this so yeah, expect a redone version some time in the not to distant future. oh well, what the hell. this was done in a haze of sleep depravation so it's pretty sucky, particularly when it comes to the placement of the figure on the page and the execution of the pose (which aren't mutually exclusive).