The Dark Knight

Another collaboration with the mighty Dave Hitchcock. He was commissioned to draw this wonderfully moody piece and after I commented on Facebook he asked if I fancied colouring it. There was absolutely zero chance of me saying no, so here it is.

With Dave's work, because the linework is so lovingly rendered, a lot of the tonal stuff is already taken care of, so as a colourist I have to bring something else to it. The important things are the colour choices and the textures rather than any real rendering.

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.

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 - 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.

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.

More SIX characters

From the top: Father Carter, Graves, Kowalski, Lucy, Maggie, Zak. Quite happy with how these have turned out.

Zak

2nd Character design for 'Six' - Zak, the loner

Lucy

First draft of a character for a survival horror project I'm illustrating called 'Six'. Some changes to be made yet.

Second draft. Getting there now.

 

Third draft - added colour.

Get well soon Carlos!

My contributions to the get well soon comic put together by the Legendary Mark Howard, and featuring contributions from many fans and pros alike.

One of my proudest moments - the guy designed both Dredd & Johnny Alpha. To think of 2000 AD's golden years is to think of Carlos Ezquerra - the two are inseparable. And of course he's still kicking ass now, ably assisted by Ezquerra Jr.

Also, this gave me the chance (thanks to the invite from Bolt-01) to collaborate with the man who created Judge Dredd - the one and only John Wagner himself. The above page was written by John with linework by Bolt-01. And that fact is going on my tombstone.

Walking Tall

My good friend Kev Levell recently drew this monumental picture of Judge Dredd - it was so good in fact that I felt compelled to lend my colouring services to it.

Don't go near the ice

Matthew McLaughlin - talented scribe and all-round bloomin' great guy - asked me to produce a scene from his wonderfully chilling short story 'The Stars Were Bright Over Siberia', which can be read here: http://www.alienskinmag.com/flash18.htm

And this is what I came up with. Really enjoyed this, got well into a bit of digital painting this afternoon. Most pleased with the night sky, but not sure if the original darkened pencil lines fight against the overall image a little. Still, mostly pleased with this.

It's nearly Friday folks

And you know what that means - yep, time for another slice of Fractal Friction.

Artwork for this page was provided by that erstwhile gentleman James Corcoran who sadly now  is on an FF hiatus until November, but we'll be keeping his seat warm and look forward to his return.

I've coloured this page, and in record time (for me), so it might look like something of a departure, but anyway I'm quite pleased with the results.

Make sure you check in with the FF blog tomorrow to get your weekly fix.

James' blog, if you haven't see it already is here: http://james-corcoran.blogspot.com/

And Fractal Friction is here: http://fractalfriction.blogspot.com/

But you knew that already, right?