The Walking Dead - Michonne (II)

Another study of the actress Danai Gurira as Michonne from The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead - Michonne

The Walking Dead's Michonne, played with a fantastic one-note scowl by Danai Gurira on the AMC show. She's getting a bit of stick from some online quarters, moaning about the lack of a backstory, emotional range or even dialogue, but personally I think that's the point of the character - whoever she was before is irrelevant and she's truly found her calling in life now, as a completely relentless badass with a samurai sword. She's a Man-With-No-Name-type, a mythic character almost. Seriously, what's not to like?

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.

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'.

Corporal Starkweather

About six weeks back I posted this. That has now evolved into the above, which I think is pretty much there now.

SIX endpiece

Last year I illustrated Ryan Henry's superbly disturbing zombie horror novel 'Six'. Towards the end of that process, as well as doing the front cover, he requested one final illustration, which was this.

It was a hugely enjoyable project and I learnt a lot, so I was delighted when he contacted me again and asked for a couple more for his next project - a novella called 'Two' which features - you guessed it - two more survivors in a 'sidequel' of sorts.

I'm currently finishing up these new illos and will hopefully be able to blog the results soon.

 

You can download 'Six' for absolutely bugger all here.

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. 

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.

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.

Alternate Lucy

Revised character sketch for SIX. Rough version, and with muted colour and inks.

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.