So Long 2008.

I’ve tried but I can’t really sum up in words how I feel about saying goodbye to 2008. It was neither a fantastic year nor a horrible one. Maybe it’s just that Christmas and a nasty dose of the winter vomiting bug I got a couple of days later that has drained any remaining energy. Maybe it the fact that it’s still 2008 at the moment. Truth is I’m just not sure. But what the hell I’ll try and end the year being positive.

This year had its ups and downs but I felt a lot of important things moved in the right direction this year. Can’t say they’re weren’t some sour moments in 2008 but I can think of happier ones as well. Some people have that hanging kitten “hang in there, baby” poster above they’re desk. I have this image above mine to cheer me up>

Well… no I don’t. But it did make me laugh when I first saw it. I have no idea who this guy is or what kind of life he lives but I bet his a positive person.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL.

Merry Xmas.

Wishing you a Merry Xmas.

Christmas shopping all done. Unhealthy snacks are stocked and the presents are all wrapped. I think I’m just about ready for tomorrow. Hope you have a good one.

At Knife Point.

Another panel from my latest story. This shot is very different to how I thumb nailed it. I was coming in at this shot at a weird and awkward angle but when it came time to draw it just wasn’t working so I simplified it and to be honest I think it looks much better for it. It not a particularly big panel either when you see it on the page so it annoying when you waste time on a small shot and you just can’t get it to work. Some times if you can’t get a frame to work the best thing you can do is just simplify it.

2008 nearly over and by far the funniest thing I’ve seen on the net this past week is this list of 15 minute of fame celebrities of 08. I missed a few of these new stories through the year and to be honest some them are just messed up. Like the man who rang 911 when Subway didn’t make his sandwich right.

http://www.iheartchaos.com/2008/12/19/2008-a-year-in-15-minute-celebrities-i-heart-internets/

Out Of The Shadows.

New artwork from a strip I’m hoping to get done over Christmas. I seem to be drawing strange creatures more and more lately. Here my latest creeping out of the shadows.

One Day.

My newest ambition. To one day be able to bend a Frying Pan. You’ve got to feel pretty good about yourself if you could pull that trick off. It something to aim for (like Bush at a press conference) the only set back is you’d probably get through a lot of Frying Pans and they’re not cheap. But worth the investment just for the bragging rights alone.

Full Sample Page.

I was going to put up a couple more panels from my sample page but then thought since I’ve already put the whole page up on my website I might as well post the whole thing as I rarely get to post a complete page on my blog. Like I said before there was a couple more pages to go with this but to be honest it works pretty well just as a single page. I’m not sure when I’d have the time to finish it anyway. I’ve already moved onto something which I’ll start posting shots from very soon hopefully. But back to this page which I drew because I kind of felt I needed a page like this to fatten out my website. Not drawing pin ups for I while I kind of got carried away with them and had more then I did sequential pages in the end. I had this idea for a very short story and this would have been the first page. I just used it as a chance to try out a couple of things. Play around with the layout and storytelling a bit more with this page. Something I’d like to do more in future work. I kind of like the way the slow witted beast the mans on and the eye patch wearing woman come out in the end. Who knows maybe at some point I will finish it or something. Time is a massive factor in these things. I tried to clear some time this week so I could get a big chunk artwork done and then along comes a bloody form in the post out of the blue that needs filling in, eating up more time. I just feel very out of sync at the moment. I can’t believe it Christmas in a couple of weeks. It still feels like November to me.

Another film from the 80’s that back. This time not a remake but a sequel (everybody used to slag sequel off for not being as good and only there for the money but since most movies are now remakes sequel seem a bit more classy.) Pretty much everything I said a couple of days ago in my last post but replace the words Friday The 13th with Terminator 4.

Friday The 13th Trailer.

A remake or rather a rebooting as some people have called it of Friday the 13th. Have to say I hated the idea at first mostly because Michael Bay was said to directing. But now I’ve seen a couple of trailer and with Michael Bay only producing it, it looking in better shape. Just have to wait until 2009 to see.

Nightmare Image.

Nightmare because it took twice as long to draw as maybe it should have. Had the thumbnails and basic idea sketched down and started drawing the Zombie in the foreground but when it came to the background it kind of got a way from me for a while. My idea at first was to just have someone (some funky looking chick) shooting as the undead closed in around her and this was what I spent ages trying to get down on the page. I drew and redrew it but to me it was always lacking something and I was never really happy with the figure work or the look of the Zombies. The top thumbnails show what I was going for.

After a couple of nights of getting no where’s with this shoot I decided to be brave and rub out what I had been drawing and start again the next day leaving only the foreground Zombie. I went right back to the thumbnail stage and decided it would be a better image if I had the character hanging off something shooting down. I quickly got together some reference for an industrial setting for the background and to give the funky lady something to hang off. This change of direction felt a lot better and made the image much more exciting as well. I think the design of this shot is a lot better then what it would have been. What I really wanted was for this to be an action scene and I had decided pretty early on that I was going to try and get a splatter effect going in this shot. A lot of flicking of Masking fluid with Plastic cutlery to get those blood sprays. Since it was Zombies I thought it needed to be a bit gruesome.

Anyway for all the problems and wasted time this pin up throw up I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out all in all. There were a couple of points where I thought I might just give up on this shot and move on to something else but I’m glad I stuck with it and even liked it enough to put it up on my redesigned website.

Website Updated.

New artwork and look at>

http://popculturehaditcoming.com/

Yo Joe!!!

http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-20-stupidest-gi-joe-vehicles-ever/

I had number #15 The Devil Fish. Lost all the missile’s and all the stickers rubbed off after a while but still. Worth following this link just for the cool 80’s toy box painting.

These Killings Are Obviously Ironic.

Something a little different tonight.

I’ve posted thumbnails and roughs before but I don’t think (or can be bothered to check) if I’ve ever posted layout images before. When you’ve spent ages drawing a background or need to get something in just the right place without messing up what you’ve already drawn, sometimes the best thing to do is get your layout pad out of get it down in rough on that and then light box it on to the page. A lot cleaner and you don’t have to risk your drawing or rub the wrong bit out.

The above Uzi loving lady is from a forthcoming images. I just liked this rough figure layout and thought it looked pretty cool on its own. Will post thumbnails and final image soon, so you can see what she’s firing at.

Those Bloody Aches And Pains.

Come down with the flu like everybody else seems to be lately. I say flu; I’m not really sure what it is. More just a load of sinus pains, headaches, tiredness and general aches and pains. Not really moving very far from my bed these last couple of days. still managed to get drugged up enough on Beechams to keep the aches at bay long enough to get some artwork done last night. Will try and do like wise again tonight.

I know it nearly Christmas because I’m getting daily (some times more) emails from Amazon and Play trying to get me to buy stuff for Xmas. Every time I open my emails they’re a new one from them. And the sad thing is I know it won’t end until after the January sales next year. It been going on now for a few years so it almost like a Xmas tradition.

I think in my last post I said I was going for a Sergio Leone feel with this page and this is probably the most western shot. Man riding over a hill. Ok the landscape had to look a little alien but I think it still firmly in Western territory. If comics had a soundtracks there’d be a electro Ennio Morricone jingle going on over this scene.

Take Aim.

Back to the sequential side of things today with a panel from a page I’ve just finished. It a kind of Sci-Fi, Sergio Leone style I was going for with this short story. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to expend on this story or keep it a kind of a single page sample. It all a bit up in the air at the moment to be honest. I’ll be posting other panels soon.

I think my main aim for the rest of the year is to try and update my website before 2009 as it been in need of updating for a while. Maybe try and get another image or two done and then just total redo the site with new work. Maybe concentrating more on the artwork I’ve been doing over the last few months. That my plan for what’s left of 2008 anyway.

Both Depressing And Hilarious.

Does a court really need to be involved if you want to have an imaginary Bride? If you get divorce do you have to just burn half your stuff?

http://suicidegirls.com/news/geek/23388/

Robot Wars.

Sometimes you’re think of an idea you just can’t shake out of your head until you get it down on the page. Had this idea of a couple of old school Cybermen beating up a Strom Trooper a couple of months ago and have been trying to find time to draw it ever since. I thought some people might find it funny.

I think it would make a nice T-shirt design or something but if I ever did get some printed up it would probably end up with George Lucas chasing me down the street with a Lightsaber and a pose of lawyers. I might print one up for myself at some point.

{Note} Notice how through this whole post I dodged the old Cybermen vs new Cybermen debate. I just went with the classic design, as it was how Cybermen looked when I was a kid watching Dr Who. Do they look better now a days? Hmmm it a tough one.

More Movie Posters.

Some more movie posters of the cult\B movie\Grind house\ Exploitation kind. I’ve posted some previously this year that can be found HERE and HERE. And here some more. As with most movies of these kind I bet the films usually aren’t half as good as they’re posters themselves.

Here a pretty cool poster for the Russ Meyer film Mud honey. Looks a bit modern and funky to me for some reason.

Wishing You All A

Hope you have a good one.

Warming Up For Halloween.

Getting in the mood for Halloween by taking the Friday the 13th quiz. Spent way too much time as a teenager and in college watching Friday the 13th movies so I can live with 9 out of 13 or 69% on my first try. The website says the average score is 46% so my teenage and college years weren’t a complete waste of time…well…kind of…but anyway. Feel free to try and bet my score.

Friday the 13th Score: 69% (9 out of 13)

Stop And Go.

Not a lot of artwork to post at the moment because lately I seem to be doing all those much needed to be done jobs that don’t seem to leave much to post on the visual side. Stuff like re-lettering an older strip and trying to write and thumbnail new story’s. Plus the one bit of art I have done lately, I can’t post until the end of the month (hint, hint as to what that is) but will be well worth waiting for I hope.

Yeah I start to feel a bit weird if I haven’t drawn anything for a while so I really need to dig my heels in and get some thumbnail’s sorted. What happens is you tend to have several ideas at a time and you have to chose which one you want to put time and effort into developing. It a bit like picking which horse you want to back in a race and hoping it doesn’t need shooting in the face before the finishing line.

Hate to leave a post all words and no action so here something to brighten up your cold, wet Sunday. If you’re not impressed by these then you just can’t be impressed full stop.

Doc Tease.

God knows I love the Internet but the one thing I’ll never get use to is this modern thing that gossip is news. Seems like you can type anything nowadays just to make a good story and it doesn’t even have to be remotely true. I’m not saying a seven Doctors reunion is 100% impossible but it all just sounds a little to good to be true.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/3183974/Seven-Dr-Whos-set-for-reunion.html

Speaking of cult TV. A friend and me are trying to work our way through the Twin Peaks box set at the moment. I know I’m a little late on this one (by about twenty years) but Sherilyn Fenn is smoking hot. I never envied a cherry stroke so much in my life.

{Note} for some reason the first ten seconds of this clip is just black, but hang in there.

Day Out At The Beach.

Well I did put up a smaller copy late yesterday on Myspace but here a nice proper copy.

Don’t think I added anything that wasn’t in my roughs with this shot. Pretty happy with the way this turned out but I’m sure after I’ve looked at it a bit longer I’ll find bits to be unhappy with. I was pleased with how the creature turned out in the end. Oh and the poor guy loosing an arm. Think I’m going to quit while I’m ahead on dissecting this one.

More Thumbnails.

Some thumbnails of an image I’m just finishing. Unlike my previous Pin up last week the design for this one were a lot more detailed as there was more that needed to be sorted out before I started. Unlike the other two this image actually has some background detail for a start.

This is my first very rough idea that I just scribbled down in my sketchbook. It was just literally a few seconds, very quick doodle (and looks like it to). Just a scene in my head that I tried to get down quickly before I forgot it.

This second set of roughs was just for fleshing out the little details. Trying to make the creature in the centre less goofy looking for a start. Sorting out the placement of figures in the fore\background. Also trying to figure out good body languages for people being thrown and running around. Also with the second set of roughs I start to play about with tilting the image.

Will post finished image at some point over the weekend.

Thinking Of Buying A New Car?

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2008/10/the_ecto1_is_on_ebay.php

Next thing you know they’ll be selling Millennium Falcons and Back To The Future flying skateboards on ebay soon.

Noir…ish.

Well my hands are covered in ink stains and white out which can only mean one thing. I’ve finished another images.

This pin up also came together pretty quickly from when I first did the thumbnail below. I only did one rough thumbnail for this and then pretty much moved on to the drawing itself, as the lay out and idea of the shot were very basic.



I was trying to play around with using black\shadows on the character in the foreground in this image. The guy in the background was a bit tricky. Tried to be careful so as to get him just right. Some mean fore shorting going on, on that figure.

Untitled.

Because I can’t think of a title for this piece so untitled seemed like the way to go.

This picture came together pretty quickly for me and I had a lot of fun drawing this over the weekend. Really want to do a couple more pin ups in the next couple of weeks. Make up for not doing any for a long time. Just playing about in my sketchbook at the moment trying to come up with a few ideas.

Thumbnails Of Things To Come.

Some thumbnails of an image I’m just finishing at the moment. Decided to do some pin ups to flesh out my portfolio a bit and just have some fun, as I haven’t done any full-scale images for well over a year now. Certainly not since I’ve started this blog last year anyway.

I’ll hopefully post the finished images in a day or two and you can see what it looks likes completed. I was thinking of posting the thumbnails late last week but some how posting them before I’d even started the drawing seemed like tempting fate so I held them back until it was more or less done and I wouldn’t regret mentioning it if it had all gone tits up when it came to drawing the thing.

Dry Brush.

So the scene called for the lead two characters to come across a blood trail outside a cave. When it came to the shot of the blood I wanted to have smeary, natural look to it and after thumb-nailing the scene I racked my brains on how to pull that effect off. My first thought would be by laying down the ink with something other then a brush. An object like a screw or the other end of the brush itself (which would have been messy to clean up afterwards but anyway). I had a couple of tries before hand but nothing really seemed to work. It was only a small shot but I wanted it to feel sinister and real. I can’t remember how I came round to the idea of using the ‘Dry Brush’ technique. Not really a style I’ve tried before when inking. I’ve always liked it in other peoples work when used well i.e. artist like Sean Phillips and so on. It maybe lost a little of it effect through being scanned but I was happy with the result and see in what other ways the dry brush technique can be used in my inking style in the future. I’ve got a couple of ideas lined up I want to try out. Will post any successful ones in the future and burn and cry over images that don’t.

Yum, Yum.

Couple more shots today from my most recent short story. Eating grub around the Bonfire with your Spork.

Garbage Pail Kids.

HA HA HA!!! I used to love these things. When we were kids my brother and me used to buy a pack each after church on a Sunday. The gross picture and the weird smell the card used to give off used to make me feel sick when I used to look at them. Plus the dry bit of gum you used to get with each pack, which didn’t look edible.

































I’m hoping one day they’ll collect all the old 80’s Garbage Pail Kids cards and release them in an art book or something. They were a thing of beauty…in a really, really ugly kind of a way.

Shorts In Court.

Who would have thought wearing short shorts in court would get you locked up? Some how I’d bet if it had been a male Judge, she might have gotten away with it.

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=33569

Carry On Camping.

I guess my camping trip a couple of months ago must of stayed with me on some level as I wrote a short scene in my latest story taking place around a bonfire. Well actually we weren’t allowed to make a bonfire as freezing as it was so maybe not. If I was really basing it on my trip I’d have a guy fully clothed wrapped up in a sleeping bag trying to read a book by wine up torch while he’s eating Nik-Naks. But on some level I’m sure that was where I was coming from with this scene.

This first shot was one of the first images I thought of when loosely thumb nailing the story. Nothing says post apocalyptic story like having a bonfire in the ruins of an old abandoned house.

River Crossing.

Nothing-manlier then crossing a river waist deep with your riffle held above your head………. Well expect maybe ripping a phone book in half while riding a motorbike with a blindfold on. But, errrr I haven’t drawn that image.

Smile.

Don’t often have a chance to draw people smiling in comics. Let alone drawing smiling Aliens.

BAM!!!.

The following image is probably the most ambitious shot from my latest short story. Certainly the largest panel from the whole story. I wanted a really strong action image, which is what I was going for with this. Have to say with all the panicking and planning that went into this shot, it actually came together a lot quicker then I thought it would. This usually seems to be the way when your drawing Comics. And then panels that you thought were going to be quick and easy to draw tend to turn out to be nightmares in the end. Not that drawing this was a walk in the park but I kind of knew what I wanted to get out of this shot which always makes it a lot easier. This was one of the first things I had to draw for this strip so there wasn’t a lot of sitting around dreading it. Luckily it wasn’t a long period from drawing the thumbnail to having to draw the final image itself.

Speaking of thumbnails I thought I’d also put up the thumbnail from this image as I haven’t done that for a while and I keep meaning too. I don’t think I change very much if anything from the original first quick sketch.

When this is lettered the guy at the front will be shouting something useful and relevant to the plot, but to me he’ll always be screaming “Five rounds rapid.” If you didn’t get that reference it’s probably for the best I’d say.