Gentlemen Ghouls

Something ghastly stalks Highgate Cemetery...

First rough sketch for a new comic project. It's been far too long since I drew an actual strip, so this weekend I sat down and thumbnailed the first 5 pages of my new project with writer Martin Hayes.

Yep, Hammer Horror is a BIG influence on this one.

Vanguard #3 cover art preview

A griffin! Haven't drawn this kind of beastie since I was about 15 and stayed behind after school to play Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with my fellow nerds. I used to get to draw everyone's characters for them too, used to love that. Can't beat a bit of fantasy/mythology.

This is a detail of the cover for the upcoming issue 3 of Irish small press comic Vanguard. A work-in-progress too, some bits to add yet.

El Bigote - La Noches De Los Muertoads!

Here it is, the finished cover art for the next El Bigote (mis)adventure through the Mexican afterlife. As mentioned in the previous post, this was pencilled by my hombre El Chivo, and (digitally) inked and coloured by myself. Note to self - don't ink things this complex in PS ever again - takes soooo long! What was I thinking? Nah, seriously though, I chose to do it this way just for the challenge really, and to gain experience in digital inking. Must try to master Manga Studio at some point though - by all accounts it's much better for inking.

New 'El Bigote' preview

Currently inking up this bad boy, roughs again provided by El Chivo. This is a tiny detail of a hugely intricate cover/pin-up to promote the next adventure of the undead quillslinger - 'La Noches de los Muertoads'. Just for a challenge/spot of masochism, I'm inking this digitally in Photoshop. Which is taking an age, but if it was too easy it wouldn't be any fun would it?

Kid Tiger continues

Another ongoing colouring project. This is my favourite panel from page 4. To see the full page and catch up with the strip itself, head over to James Corcoran's blog.

Another slice of El Bigote colour!

A special illustration by the very talented SKD to promote 'The Pantless Pistolero', a sort of one-off origin tale of one of the freaky bad guys from 'El Bigote'. When trying to evoke the Mexican afterlife, I find myself gravitating towards a palette of sickly-sweet/putrid pinks, purples and yellows. Another one I really enjoyed colouring.

El Bigote - Shaky Kane cover (colours)

2012 is turning out to be a great year so far - I just got to colour this fantastic cover by none other than the legendary SHAKY KANE for an upcoming issue of El Bigote (the excellently titled '13 Dead Federales'). Whilst working on this I kept remembering how Shaky's art used to grace the pages of 2000 AD in my formative years, and had to keep pinching myself.

If you haven't already, go check out El Bigote here and here.

PARADISE MECHANISM teasers

Details from a selection of panels from my forthcoming collaboration with Dave Hitchcock, Paradise Mechanism. Although initially unsure whether my style would blend well with Dave's beautiful greyscaled artwork, I think we established a pretty effective partnership. My influences on this strip include French comics such as Orbital and that godlike genius of comic-colouring Dave Stewart.

Another page from Dave Hitchcock's PARADISE MECHANISM

This is my favourite page so far, and probably the best colouring I've ever done (objectively speaking). See more of Dave's awesome work here.

19 pages are in the bag now, with 20 nearly done - only 6 more to go.

Paradise Mechanism

A page from a project I'm tackling this month - adding colours to 26 pages of Dave Hitchcock's glorious ink and pencil work. The strip in question is slated to appear in something rather special - a new digital comic project from 'V For Vendetta' artist David Lloyd. I can confirm that I'm ridiculously excited about being a part of this.

Kid Tiger pin-up (colours)

Pages 3 and 4 of Kid Tiger are imminent, currently being finished off by the rather excellent James Corcoran. When they wing their way to me, I'll be adding colour again. In the meantime, here's a superbly drawn pin-up drawn by James and coloured by me.

El Bigote - One Sore Loser

After my stint inking and colouring the cover for 'El Bigote - A Tequila-drenched Reckoning', Matt McLaughlin (writer and creator of the strip) invited me to contribute a pin-up of the character for a future issue. This is what I came up with - the undead quill-slinger kicking back in his favourite local hellhole, enjoying a relaxing game of poker with some poor schmuck who's clearly bitten off more than he could chew (and who looks very familiar come to think of it). The woman behind the man is the mysterious and deadly Rita Moreno - more of her coming soon in the comic too.

Kid Tiger - colours

My good friend and ex-Fractal Friction compadre James Corcoran is producing this excellent Boys' Own adventure style strip for Starscape comics online, and he asked me if I'd be interested in colouring it. I couldn't resist, there's something wonderfully old-school and earnest about James' drawing, and the premise of the strip is pure costumed-hero goodness. These first two pages show our Kid getting into a spot of bother with the rather nasty teddy boy villain Vincent Vyle. 

Beyond making the tiger costume orange (obviously) James allowed me complete freedom, citing only the muted palettes of Daves Stewart and McCaig. Funnily enough, I've been idolising these two for some time now, and this was just another reason to say yes and experiment with a simpler approach. More pages to follow soon.

Jikan - Stowaway preview 4

My 3 pages for this Jikan story are now in the bag. Here are a couple more panels to be going on with.

Another Jikan preview

Getting massive satisfaction from drawing this Samurai badass. So much so I just offered to draw a couple more pages. Here's a preview from another page of 'Stowaway' by Dirk van Dom.

El Bigote - anatomy of a cover

Stage 1. El Chivo provides the pencils, having done the leg-work in terms of the overall idea and composition (this is a wraparound cover btw)

Stage 2. Inked with my Pentel brush pen

 

Stage 3. Greytones are added digitally to give more depth

 

Stage 4. Blocks of colour are added in Photoshop (the part of the process that's known as flatting)

 Stage 5. Final colours - highlights, shadows and textures are the last things to be added

Then it's off to Bolt-01 and Owen Watts for the logos to be added, before the comic heads off to the printers very soon. I've already seen some of El Chivo's roughs for upcoming El Bigote adventures and I'm really looking forward to inking those too.

Jikan - Stowaway preview 2

 

Another panel from my Jikan page - still a work in progress. I'm experimenting with combining the simplistic inking and tones with a bit of light texture (plus I've got to add another figure to this panel yet).

Jikan - Stowaway

My first page of sequential comic art in over a year is starting to come together. I never intended to have such a long break from it, and since starting this Jikan page I've realised just how rusty I've become. Drawing all these portraits has definitely helped my art overall, but it's also hindered it at the same time. Background details, full figures, hands, clothes, panel composition, focusing in and pulling back just like you're directing a movie, and just plain drawing things smaller - I'd truly forgotten how much planning and effort goes into even a single panel. And that's what we have here - my first panel in too long, for a page I'm doing for Paragon's time-travelling demon slayer Jikan.

I used this for a couple of things - first to knock the rust off all the above skills I've been neglecting before I start planning the pages for the first episode of my magnificent octopus 'Last Road to the Backwoods' (with the Emperor), and second to have a bash at a very different style. I've been becoming more and more obsessed with the genius that is Mike Mignola, so decided to try a style that, although not directly copied is certainly influenced by him. Thinner lines, blockier shapes, flat areas of solid blacks etc. Keeps me from boring myself, just churning out the same thing over and over again.

El Bigote cover art - WIP teaser

One of several projects I'm juggling at the moment, here is a teaser of the cover art for the forthcoming independent comic 'El Bigote', which is written and drawn by my good friends Matt McLaughlin & El Chivo respectively. El Bigote takes place in the mexican afterlife, and from what I've seen so far features all manner of insane characters, shoot-outs and shenanigans

El Chivo pencilled this magnificent wraparound cover and I was asked to ink the sucker. Now, inking other people's work is not something I have a lot of experience with, so that in itself was reason enough to say yes. Add in the fact that El Chivo's art is pretty flippin' dynamic and full of humour and menace, plus Matt's a great up-and-coming writer with a gift for memorable characters and I was sold.

On top of inks, I'm now part-way through colouring the cover, and have also agreed to take on the mantle of ongoing inker for the next batch of actual comic pages. It never hurts to broaden your arsenal does it? (is that even a phrase?)

PARAGON #10 Cover Art

I proudly present the cover art for the upcoming issue 10 of excellent British small press title Paragon. The actual cover is slightly different - editor Davey Candlish requested a deep red background as opposed to the grey-blue one I've used here. I quite like this one personally, so thought I'd show it here - and when the comic comes out you can see the red version.

The brief was simple - a montage depicting the 4 main characters featured inside the issue: Icarus Dangerous, Mekko-Sapiens, Spencer Nero and Jikan. Had the most fun with Jikan, and just had to give him the spotlight! I also begged Dave to let me include Battle Ganesh - who doesn't feature in this particular issue - simply because I love the character.