Late night doodles

Christmas round-up

Done as a few xmas pressies for various friends and family. Particularly enjoyed the Lansbury/van Dyke commission.

More Slaine doodles

Shoggey Beast

A few years ago when I decided to rekindle my love affair with all things 2000 AD, my first move was to buy Warrior's Dawn, the first Slaine collection, and leafing through the glorious artwork by Massimo Belardinelli, Angie Kincaid and - most of all - Mike McMahon, well, the nostalgia was immense.

McMahon is undoubtedly my favourite comic artist of all time, and his stint on early Slaine (around the same time he was drawing 'Monkey Business at Charles Darwin Block' & 'Block Mania') etched itself onto my fragile young mind like nothing else (with the possible exception of Cam Kennedy on Rogue Trooper).

Anyway, within this faultless and highly recommended volume is a story entitled 'The Shoggey Beast', and here's my depiction of said beast (based quite closely on McMahon's I must admit).

A work-in-progress

Colour rough character design for a spin-off from the zombie horror novel SIX I illustrated earlier in the year. Author Ryan Henry has been working on a novella that takes place in the same continuity and this time focuses on two more survivors.

Still beset by a multitude of technical problems, and STILL haven't moved house. The latest clusterf*ck involves my wacom's pressure sensitivity refusing to work despite spending hours looking for drivers and restarting and restarting the PC.

Anyway, this is the best I can do at the moment really. 

German soldier

My effort for the weekly themed art blog last week, from the iconic photograph of a German soldier during the Battle of The Bulge. 20 minute pencil sketch.

Ampney Crucis

Last one for now.

Harry Absalom

Another one for today (well, this was actually inked a few days ago). I had the idea to try my hand at some 2000AD characters I've never drawn before. One of the standout strips so far this year has been Caballistics spin-off 'Absalom'. Here's the man himself.

Jack Dancer

I drew something! Life continues to conspire against me at the moment - computer still dead, things packed up for the impending house move (then discover it's been delayed), but I managed to sketch this today. Took a lot longer than I wanted, and it's not great, but what are ya gonna do - I'm rusty! Got a couple more I'm working on too, just to help get back in the swing of things.

Durham Red returns...

...Well, to my blog at least. Drew this a couple of months back, and was going to make some more changes but then my laptop bust (I'm still without a computer, but working on it). So because it's been too long since I posted anything, I thought 'what the hell', and here it is. It was inspired by a Durham pin-up drawn by that erstwhile gentleman and scholar Kev Levell.

Le Marquis

Did this while on holiday in Anglesey last week. Took my laptop but not scanner (obviously), so this started as a quick messy pencil sketch which I then photographed and inked digitally in PS. Recently finished the collected volume, and it's grand.

Hellboy Wormbait

 

Just Hellboy beating the tar out of some over-sized worms. Thanks to Jim Campbell for the SFX.

Gyrocaptain

Another quick one for TWTAB. This week's theme is proving to be great fun.

You're dog-meat, pal!

Drew this today for The Weekly Themed Art Blog. Another character I've been wanting to draw for ages, the current theme (1980s Action Movies) gave me the perfect excuse.

Sadie with cigarette

Cop studies

Last Road to The Backwoods

Second promo piece, evoking the mood of the backwoods...

The Sheriff

He's a pipe-smoking man

 

My starting point for this character - the agent who arrives in a small town to investigate a strange disappearance - was the actor Fred MacMurray, although there's also a touch of the Brosnans about this study. Unintentional, but not entirely inappropriate.

Last Road to The Backwoods

I'm getting excited about this strip now, so here's the first of a few promo images I'm going to do. What secrets lie beneath the fragile veneer of the town of Archangel? And who's blood is that?

Sadie study

Sadie and her red dress

She's the femme fatale, obviously.

Dredd portrait

On a bit of a roll at the moment with these grey wash pencil portraits, so I thought I'd give old stoney face the same treatment. It's a nice break from all the period folk too. Took about 30 minutes.

And here they all are together

Well, some of them anyway. A few more to design yet, then I think I'm gonna have a crack at a pin-up as a sort of promotional piece.

And more character studies

More character studies

Character studies

More character studies, quick 10-15 minute pencils sketches which are then quicly toned in photoshop. Really enjoying the looseness with these.

The Curator

Another character sketch. Guess who this one's based on?

The Doctor

Another character design for my next strip.

Samurai

Lords of Death

Time for another John Carpenter pic I think.

Preacher commission (with greytones)

 

Spent all day on a new Durham Red pin-up, then toned this up (without the wacom I might add) in about 20 minutes. Guess which one I prefer?

Hellboy doodle coloured

Quite pleased with how this turned out.

Hellboy

Worked on a Hellboy scene last night, then quickly sketched this afterwards at about 1.30 in the morning. Quite like it.

Man With The White Eyes

So as you may be aware, I have an 'illustrator' page on Facebook, and when I noticed that the number of 'likes' was approaching 300 the other week, I decided to do a free sketch for whoever became the lucky 300th. I threw it open to them - what would they like me to draw? The answer, from a very nice Polish lady, was a picture of 'Zly', or the 'Man with the white eyes' (its english language title) - a polish postwar novel that features a sort of Zorro-type outlaw guy. I confess to not having read the book at all, and it's a pretty obscure request I know, but this is what I came up with. As I say, absolutely no idea how accurate this depiction is, but I thought the noir-ish route was a safe enough bet!

More character sketches

The Agent

Second character sketch.

The Deputy

First character sketch for an upcoming strip.

To tide things over

A wee pencil sketch of the actress Jean Marsh (who will always be Queen Bavmorda from George Lucas' crappy fantasy effort 'Willow'), as a young lady. What a beauty!