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.

Groucho in space!

A recent commission - the brief was the 3 words in the title of this post, the rest was left up to me! The result is a blend of certain influences I've been absorbing lately: Plague of Frogs-arc BPRD, John Carter, Moebius and The Creature From the Black Lagoon. Colour-wise I wanted to try something slightly different, at least in terms of the palette used, hence the hazy pinkish cast which is supposed to evoke the strange light on an alien world.

Joel Fleischman

For my girlfriend's cousin's boyfriend, who incidentally I used to be in a band with, work with and live with. Did you follow all that?

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.

Beat Takeshi

Working fast... pencilled in 5 mins (see that here if you're interested), inked in less than 10, tones and splash of colour added in PS in around 5 again. Really like the looseness.

Warm-up - inked portraits

Had a good month of colouring and now I want to get back to some actual drawing, lest my faculties wither and drop off. Inked up a few more recent 10 minute portraits to loosen up before carrying on with a couple of commissions.

These ones are Dashiell Hammett, Harpo Marx, Joe Strummer, Michael K Williams, Alan Turing & Sissy Spacek.

All for sale as usual (apart from Joe - he's promised to someone already), A4 on nice cartridge paper and priced £12.50 plus postage.

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.

Bob Dylan commission

The third of my latest batch of commissions - to go with Jimi and Marilyn. Really pleased with how these turned out.

New inky portraits

Been a while since I did any of these - great practice for keeping it loose. L-R: Bob Dylan, Harry Dean Stanton, H.P. Lovecraft and Jimmy Stewart. Each one is for sale for £12.50 plus postage.

Jimi Jimi

Another commission - part of a set of 3 (Marilyn, Jimi and Bob Dylan).

The Bride

This one's a birthday pressie for a relative.

Marilyn commission

The hair's not quite finished yet...

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.

Bruce Lee

In a moment of rare repose, right before destroying some motherf*cker (probably).

Grace Kelly

Today's warm-up inks and tones.

American Werewolf

Practicing quick tones in PS.