Edgar Allan Poe & a Murder of Crows

A companion piece to my 'Lovecraft & Friends', and another one I'm doing as a limited edition print. Only making 20 - leave a comment below if you're interested.

Spot of colour

Life demands and the regular day job have been conspiring to keep me too busy/demoralised/bloomin' knackered to do a great deal of artwork this past month, but I'm slowly gearing up for a creative spurt again. Got the cover art for Owen Watts' 'Psychedelic Journal of Time Travel' roughly thumbnailed, plus a couple of nice comic projects on the horizon, so I'm warming up with a couple of quick things. Planning to do a bunch of new 10 minute portraits later today too, so watch this space.

In the meantime, here's a drawing I found on deviantART, by a talented Canadian guy who goes by the moniker JesusFood. Loved this pic so much I asked him if I could have a go at adding some colour, and he was up for it, so here it is.

Lives! Lives for The Master!

A couple images from Coppola's 1992 adaptation of Dracula, and an evil Bilbo thrown in for good measure.

Vincent Price as The Joker

Next illo for The Occultists podcast. Owen suggested this and as soon as I saw the phrase 'Vincent Price as The Joker' in print, it had to happen!

Horror pics - inked & toned at last!

Had an exhausting few weeks and been fighting off the lurgy continually, but here at long last are the 3 Hammer/Universal horror drawings from last month inked up and toned. Inspired by Dark Horse Comics Patric Reynolds' masterful ink & wash work, I decided to try my hand at something similar with the Mummy pic. This was inked with a Winsor & Newton series 7, a larger Pro arte 5/8" brush and a toothbrush for the splatters. Quite pleased with the results actually, but then I got the fear and went back to the Pentel brush pen for the next 2. Will practice though.

War in Hell II

This one's pretty much a straight homage to Ben Stenbeck and Dave Stewart's work on 'Baltimore', the latest title in the ever-expanding Mignolaverse. Although I wasn't the biggest fan at first, this book has really grown on me. Stenbeck and Stewart in particular compliment each other perfectly, and by the latest adventure (the chilling two-parter 'Dr Leskovar's Remedy') seem to have achieved a perfect symbiosis.

War in Hell

A work-in-progress, but pretty much there now. Getting my horror fix before I embark on that new pro colouring gig. Inspired in part by the Great War flashbacks in Ian Edginton's Ampney Crucis Investigates in 2000AD and by more general Lovecraftian themes (Lovecraft of course being a direct influence on Edginton).

Judge Dredd - American Vampire

Haven't drawn Dredd for ages and this idea popped into my head the other day. The tagline works better pre-Day of Chaos mind.

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?

TWO book cover art

Now that the colours on Paradise Mechanism are all done I can get back to some eariler projects that I had to put on hold. Not least among them, the cover art for Ryan Henry's survival horror novella 'Two'.

Although I've been away from this for what must be the best part of a couple of months, ideas and influences have been percolating at the back of my mind the whole time. In particular, I've been thinking about how I wanted this to be a bit different, not just a run-of-the-mill depiction of a scene from the story. And it's not a comic book - it's prose this time, so I'm going for a more design-based outcome now.

Been studying a lot of cover art by Dave Johnson - a guy who, along with Mike Mignola, has to be one of the best cover artists working these days. Yes, it's comics they generally produce covers for, but they both infuse their work with a very strong sense of design, making them simple, bold, iconic and high-impact. There's also a dash of Hitchcok/Saul Bass going on here too.

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.

American Werewolf

Practicing quick tones in PS.

The Walking Dead - Shane

Favourite character in a show that's getting better and better. Brush pen with tones and colours added in PS.

Helena

Another one I've managed to finish up this week (God bless half term). A companion piece to Corporal Starkweather, this will feature in Ryan Henry's zombie horror novella 'TWO'.

Bela Lugosi as Dracula!

This one is on A3 so I had to photograph it rather than scan it.

Carpathian Vampire Elder

Started this last Autumn after reading Kim Newman's excellent Anno Dracula. He's one of Vlad Tepes' elite guard - wearing the canines of fallen rivals on a string around his neck to prove it. If there's any justice the book will be adapted into a multi-million dollar HBO miniseries - it totally deserves to be.

Zombie Girl

Profile pic for a new facebook page that Matthew 'Locust of Death' McLaughlin is launching, where people can 'document' their experiences of a zombie apocalypse. I'll post a link when it's up and running.

Wolfmen print

Andy Bloor - art editor at Accent UK, comic artist and all round nice guy - asked if I'd have a go at colouring his frighteningly good Wolfmen 2 cover so he could have a few prints made in time for the Bristol con. Here's what I came up with.

SIX cover - from roughs to finished artwork

Working on the cover for 'SIX' at the moment. So far, I only have one cover under my belt (issue 7 of Paragon), so it still fells like a big deal for me to tackle one. I had a pretty clear brief for this - the author had a very specific image in mind and even provided a rough sketch to work from, although I have changed bits and given it my own stamp (I hope). This was put together to make sure the composition works and to try laying down some quick colour, although so far it's missing the vital ingredient: the shambling hordes!

Phase 2 - tighter pencils, repositioning the figures, adding a few zombies.

Phase 3 - inks, plus some quick colour and dirty textures to evoke that post-apocalyptic feel. Need to balance the overall tones, add more flat colour then shading and highlights.

Phase 4 - building more colour. Thought the faded logo on the factory was a nice touch, although it won't appear on the final artwork as the factory is a specific location and processes something else entirely.

Phase 5 - flats are finally finished (bar camo pattern on the middle guy's pants), and a final texture added to get an idea of how the finished might look. Of course, I've yet to really get stuck in with the shadows and highlights, so the final one may look totally different.

Phase 6 - shading and a few highlights, and even more texture! Think it may be complete now... we'll see.