Experiments In Terror (Part 3D.)

This 3D image is me trying to be a bit fancy. With only part of the image now in the third dimension. I think it worked out well. It’s a bit fiddly only making certain parts of an image 3D. But hopefully worth it. If any of my old pin ups were screaming out for 3D treatment it was this one.

Enjoy.

Speaking of 3D. I’m hoping to update my laptop and get a new one in the New Year. As this laptop (the one I’m writing on right now) has only one USB port, I've never been able to get a Webcam for online chatting (no big loss) but since I’m hopefully getting a new one soon I was thinking of splashing out on one of those new fancy 3D Webcams as well. For a few days I was like “Yeah, fuck it… I’ve got some money saved up, I’m going to treat myself for once.” I’m always left behind when it comes to gadgets. It would be nice to be ahead of the curve on this one for once…Until it dawn on me I’d buy it and then only the people on the other end of the Webcam would be getting all that 3D goodness. Unless you both have one, all you’ve done is paid to give someone else a 3D treat. In theory it would be smarter to buy one then give it to them to use.

I won’t be posting anything from Project B.O.B. this week, but will start posting new work again in the New Year.

Merry Xmas.

Merry Xmas everyone.

Hope you all have a good one.

I’ve got about another hour or two of inking tonight and then it’ll be all Telly and Christmas junk food for the next couple of days…nice.

Bright Eyes.

I guess you’d call this shot a close up or an extreme close up. I do like to throw the odd close up\extreme close up into a strip every so often. Here my latest.

Experiments In Terror In 3D (Part 2.)

Time to get those 3D glasses on again.

Been hard to find time to get on my computer and do anymore of these. But here’s another image that's been given the 3D treatment.

Try not to look at it too much without 3D glasses on or your probably give yourself a killer headache. My eyes always feel like crap after spending too long making these.

Hallway Action.

Another new panel from Project B.O.B.

Thanks to anyone and everyone who’s been checking out my Deviant Art profile this week. And a big hello to any new readers, who may have found this Blog through a link on my profile… HELLO!!!

New Online Gallery.

Decided not to renew my website and move over to a Deviant Art Account. A million times easier to update and cheaper too (and by cheaper, I mean free.) My Deviant Art Profile can be found here>

http://andrewreed.deviantart.com/

I’m still updating it, but I’ve already got an online gallery going.

My new favourite website is Look At This Frakking Geekster. Say goodbye to the rest of the day as once you start, you just have to keep scrolling through their older posts. It’s like a beautiful car crash or something. You just can’t look away. I crack up every time I look at this site.

Experiments In Terror In 3D.

Been experimenting lately with the idea of doing some 3D artwork and after playing around on the computer for a bit, above is my first effort. I know 3D will probably be back out of fashion again by the time you finish reading this post, but I was pleased with how well this image turned out. I hope to turn some more old images “3D” soon.

I’d love to do a 3D Monster book or something one day. Weird, creatures just look cooler and weirder in 3D.

So grab your 3D glasses and enjoy (they’ll need to be the classic Red Eye, Blue Eye style ones.)

Mr Moon.

Just a small panel today. In fact I think it’s one of the smallest panels I’ve ever drawn. It’s tiny on the page (but big here for some reason?).

I’ve finished all my Xmas shopping already; I just cheated and ordered everything online at 3AM in the morning, one night. Been taking it a little bit easier this week as I’ve come down with a cold. I woke up on Tuesday with sinus pains that could kill a Rhino. I’ve still been working but with plenty of breaks and cold\flu tablets. Been using some of my down time to play Shinobi 3: Return Of The Ninja Master. Now that’s a classic game. Just right for a cold winters day, while your hyped up and buzzing on flu tablets.

Floating Head Shot.

I’m a big fan (or at least becoming a big fan) of the floating headshot. You can’t use it too often, but it a nice shot to throw into the mix every once in a while. No background, no panel outline, just a head floating in space.

Who Again.

Been watching a lot of the free programs on Blinkbox lately. They’re mainly BBC programs. Been enjoying watching Stressed Eric, which was a great UK, cartoon from the late 90’s that no one seemed to watch. The good thing about Blinkbox is they also have some early Dr Who up as well. Including what I think is one of the best Dr Who stories of all time, The Tomb Of The Cybermen.

Well worth a watch and free too.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

Group Shot.

I’m about just over a third of the way through issue 1 of Project B.O.B. and looking back over the artwork for the first third of the story, I think this above shot is important, as it’s by far the best group shot in the book. It kind of reminds me of the poster for Deliverance where you have a creepy, before and after shot. The first image on the poster is just a chilled out, group shot, which was kind of what I was after here. This is my chilled out, group shot before everything starts to turn nasty. It was also just a shot to show what a weird bunch, this group is.

I drew this panel when I was feeling like complete shit. I really didn’t want to be drawing but I forced myself and fully expected the shot to turn out crap, but luckily I think this is one of the best panels so far. Just goes to show, just because your feeling like shit doesn’t mean your artwork can’t be any good. Sometimes I feel really in the mood for drawing and can’t wait to get to the drawing board and then the artwork itself just doesn’t look as good as it should. Sometimes it pays to force yourself to work. But then saying that I’ve felt like crap whilst drawing before and what I’ve drawn has been crap. It’s a gamble.

Forgot to mention on Friday something I heard while I was out DVD shopping which cheered me up. A noisy couple were walking past (you know the type) and they were in mid-conversation when the girl groans and goes-

“ Not Lord Of The Rings”

and the guy goes, sounding very smug-

“ Yep, I’m gonna teach you some history.”

At which point they both go into an awkward silences.

That good old part of English history, when we were all three foot tall and lived in the Shire, fighting Orc’s.

I’ve Got To Stop Scrolling Down.

Another post about a pet hate of mine (this time non-art related).

I was online Xmas shopping last night. Looking out for stuff I might want or buy other people for Xmas. I haven’t really given it much thought lately but the last couple of years, I’ve been smart enough not to leave it till the last minute and this year I was hoping to do the same. This year I’ve really been getting into boxsets of DVD’s and there’s a few I’ve got my eye on. So I’m looking some of them up and whenever I’m checking out the price, I always see which one is cheapest, if it’s new and if the sellers got a good rating. Then once I’ve done all that, I nearly always scroll down the page to see what the most someone’s selling it for. I don’t know why, as it always winds me up. Who are these people that want silly money? And does anyone ever actually buy anything from these people? There was a company wanting nearly £90 for a season of Seinfeld on one site. A boxset that goes for about £15 in shops, maybe a bit cheaper online and someone’s charging nearly £90 for that same boxset. Anyone asking for over the retail price always seems a bit cheeky and pointless, but who thought someone would happily pay six times over the normal price? I know there’s a lot of idiots in the world but even so. To get to that seller, you’d have to scroll through all these other sellers offering it for retail price or cheaper. How do these people stay in business? If something out of print like a book or something, or just hard to come by then I could see someone seeing a chance to up the price tag. Next time your shopping online and you want to put yourself in a bad mood, just scroll down and let the bad vibes start to flow.

Speaking of paying more for something then you should. I was out today looking at DVD’s and came across a movie called House By The Cemetery. I’d seen this film on TV a couple of months ago and thought it was alright. A bit slow and puzzling but had it moments. I see this film on DVD, all the time for cheap. You could easily pick it up for about £3 maybe cheaper. So why did I fork out £8 for it today? Will, because I saw they’d re-released it with this cover.

That is one funky cover and in true Italian poster art style nothing like the film. Not only does it give away the look of the monster (which you never see until the very end of the film) but also at no point does he stand over a naked woman in a cemetery in the film. In fact, I don’t remember there being any nudity in that film. And I’m pretty sure the monster never leaves the house or basement for that matter. But anyway, that is some lovely (is lovely the right word?) cover art. It always better when they use original artwork then something knocked up on Photoshop.

I also bought a copy of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. Partly because I like Hammer Horror movies, partly just for the title, which I’ve always liked and partly because it was cheap. But again mainly for the gorgeous cover art.

Going Up.

I have a pet hate of drawing stairs or people on the stairs. It always slows down the action for me in a story. I try and either avoid stair shots or keep them short. I’m ok with this shot (otherwise I wouldn’t be posting it) but as a rule, I dislike them.

I figure most if not all artists have a few pet hates when it comes to drawing. Like cars, animals, backgrounds, ect, ect. When I’m doing a comic, I try and write in at least a couple of scenes that I know will force me to draw something I’m not to happy doing. Forcing me outside of my comfort zone. Why? Because I secretly hate myself.

I always love to find out what other artists hate drawing. It not really something most artists will tell you about. Maybe they think people will suddenly think they’re bad artists, because they can’t draw guns or planes or sexy woman. I’ll share one more of mine, so maybe one day other artist will be a bit more forthcoming with theirs and spill the beans… ready? I hate drawing cats!!! I like the idea of drawing cats, but whenever I do they always look a bit retarded to me. I never drawn a shot of a cat I’m happy with. But at least at the moment, I’ve drawn a stairs shot I’m ok with.

The Kidnappers.

HA HA HA, I haven’t seen this sketch since it first went out on DR Who night ten years ago. I’d forgotten all about it until I saw it the other day online. It does slightly break my bitter, little heart that I don’t know a single other Dr Who fan personally. I had no one to email this to when I did rediscover it. I should really aim nerdier when it comes to friends.

Sticking with Dr Who I can’t wait until The Waters Of Mars this Sunday. Those Water, Zombie, thingies look like a decent Who, monster. Be good to see if it is as scary as some people are saying.

I also see today that as part of channel 4’s 3D season they’re showing Friday The 13th Part 3D and Flesh Of Frankenstein in 3D. How cool is that? I’ve always wanted to see Friday the 13th Part 3D in 3D. I’ve never seen a 3D movie before or at least a feature length one and certainly not a horror movie in 3D. Not really had the urge to see all these new 3D movies like Up that have been out lately (unless it was Russ Meyers 1976, Up. That's one film that should get the 3D treatment.)

The Ugly-Bugly Parade.

I have to say out of all the characters I’m drawing for project B.O.B. this character is the most fun so far. He goes by the name Raymond Moon. Mainly he’s so fun to draw because I tried to make him ugly looking. Unlike most times you drawing someone in a comic, you don’t have to worry about making these types of characters look cool or sexy. It more fun to see how ugly you can get someone looking while still making sure they look realistic.

If I had to sum Raymond Moon up in one word it would be unsavoury and I’m having fun trying to get that across in the comic.

Good Luck (Your Need It.)

Finally got my first wave of submissions posted out today. It took me a lot longer then I’d planned and way more effort and money then I would have liked. First finding hard-backed envelopes has become a big deal. There used to be a couple of places in town I could pick them up (like the post offices for one), now I have to make a big trip to a stationery shop tucked away in a part of town I don’t usually go to. I thought this time I’d try and be a bit clever and buy in bulk, so I bought ten of them. Problem was when you buy something in certain shops, they don’t give you a plastic bag, instead they give you these little arty, paper bags. They look nice with there funky pattern on them but if you get caught in the rain they offer as much protection as… well a paper bag. Needless to say on the way home I got caught in a storm that came out of nowhere and seemed to end the moment I got home. I managed to keep the pricey, envelopes pretty dry. Maybe one or two got a bit of water damages. So then after feeling in forms and printing off all my work over an afternoon, I finally had my submissions ready to go. Only problem is… postal strikes. I could still post them but I thought I’d wait until a day when the strike wasn’t on (the strike started the day I was ready to start posting.) so I held onto them until this week. I heard on the news, they were saying a lot of post was getting chucked, secretly to help with the backlog. I thought they stood a better chance if I waited and wouldn’t end up in a bin round the back of some sorting office somewhere. So yesterday I went down and tried to post them. You have to use these machines now and post them yourself. I didn’t really like the idea but I thought I’d have to learn sooner or later. Sadly it would be later as I fucked up the first three and had to return home defeated with a slightly lighter wallet. After spending twenty minutes last night redoing (and using more of my now precious, hard-back envelopes) I was ready to try again today. This time I got someone there to show me how to do it. Another annoying point is you have to fill in these tiny, little sticker documents for airmail, which I’m guessing, if anything going to go tits up this time it’ll be them. At the end, the guys nodding and going “see, it not that hard really. It just going to be a lot more useful.” And I’m politely nodding but in my head I’m thinking, “God, I miss the days when you could just buy hard-back envelopes without going on long adventures and when you could just hand your post to a bored looking woman behind a desk.” I guess it’ll all be worth it, if they turn up where I sent them… But with the luck I’ve had so far it’s a big IF.

“Snigger.”

Yeah it childish, but seeing the new OGC logo has cheered me up on this grey Monday. Am I the only one who thinks they should keep it?

Full story HERE.

Chummy.

Sadly didn’t have time this year to do a Halloween E-card. Really like the one I did last year and was hoping to turn it into a yearly thing, but I’ve had very little free time recently and to be honest I’ve been wracking my brains in the little free time I did have to think up a decent image and I just couldn’t top last years. Maybe with better planning I can do one for 2010 even if I have to draw it in the middle of the summer and then hang on to it for months.

Annoyingly project B.O.B. that’s been taking up all my time lately is a horror story but so far, I’m only just over a quarter of the way through the first issue and haven’t yet had to draw anything too spooky that I could have used for a Halloween E-card.

I can at least post this latest shot however. Enjoy and HAPPY HALLOWEEN for the weekend.

Standing Around.

I like this little panel. Maybe not the most exciting shot ever put down on Bristol board, but there’s something about it I like. It was a shame when I got round to lettering this panel, that most of it got covered up. So enjoy it here in all it glory.

You Win Society.

I know when I’m beat. I’ve been trying to avoid it, but nothings been happening on Myspace for months now. So I’ve set up a Facebook account. If you can find my profile maybe I’ll see you on there. I’d post a link but I can’t even find my own profile online (strike one, facebook.) Who knows if I’ll last on Facebook. Part of me says I should get a Twitter account and make it the unholy hat-trick… part of me says I should just delete all my online accounts and go live in a cave in the woods.

Sod It!

I don’t often get the chance, but I thought “Sod It” I’m going to post a full page today. Pencilled, Inked and Lettered. The whole lot. I thought this page was one of the better ones and gave a good insight into how project B.O.B. is shaping up.

Hopefully going to be sending out samples to publishers very soon. Just as soon, as I’ve written the dreaded synopsis… I’m reading all these online essays on what makes a good synopsis at the moment. It a pretty big project so it deserves a nice, meaty synopsis. I’ve got a basic idea of what I’m going for with it. But I’m still not looking forward to sitting down and writing it…

I Want One.

The Tauntaun sleeping bag looks so cool.

Now In Sound…Well…Words.

Fonts.

Been enjoying my slightly less work intense week, this week. Spent the last couple of days just playing around with Fonts on the computer. I never really felt that great about my own lettering and it’s only now that it starting to come together a lot more. I also had a break through this week in figuring out how to add new Fonts in Phototshop. A few years ago I download some funky Fonts I wanted to play around with in Photoshop. Fonts based on the type from movies like Evil Dead, Dawn Of The Dead and Shaun Of The Dead as well as other. So at some point in 2005 I downloaded a whole folder full but when I got them on my Mac I couldn’t get them to work through Photoshop. I tried for ages and then just gave up. It only now towards the end of 2009 as I come to start lettering my latest work that I remembered this unused file on my laptop. (I should mention at this point my latest story is a horror story. I keep forgetting to mention that whenever I do a post.) So to cut a long story short I just played around for ages and ages trying to get them working and it paid off. Most of the Fonts worked. The only down side now is I’ve uploaded so many into Photoshop the list now ends at ‘P’. My next big challenge on the computer now is to found out what happened to the rest of the alphabet and my new Fonts.

Apart from now being able to have a good crack at doing a decent title page with some new funky fonts it also means I can now move away from the dreaded Comic Sans. I don’t think Comic Sans is as bad as some would have you believe. It kind of like Skoda cars in the 80’s. Sure, when it blown up it looks like shit and doesn’t really work for anything outside of Comics. When I see it on a leaflet or ad blown up and maybe in colour or something you really see how ugly it is. But when it only 3mm tall in a word balloon it not that bad. I’ve tried loads of different Fonts over the years but they were all sadly from a select group I’ve got to work through my copy of Photoshop. Many of them were a hell of a lot more fancy looking then Comic Sans but maybe didn’t read as well on the page. You could write pages on what makes a good comic book Font. To me, the type shouldn’t be fighting the image for attention. Your eye should go to the image then the text. I’m not talking about big flashy action sound effects here, as I tend not to use them much and that’s a whole different debate. Just the basic word balloon. When your reading a web comic or sometimes an actual comic and more thoughts gone into the Font then the artwork itself, it kind of pisses me off. I still think the best lettering for comics is hand lettering but sadly I have to fall back on computer fonts as I was born with the handwriting of a retarded chimp.

Another downside to computer fonts is the price. I don’t really know a lot of other comic book artist but does anyone actually buy fonts? Since I’ve got new fonts working in Photoshop I’ve been checking out some different Font websites and damn they’re pricey. The whole rules about when you and can’t use Fonts is a little lost on me.

I’ve only started lettering my artwork today so it a little to early to post anything from it. I’m hoping to finish them off over the weekend, so maybe next week I can. Until then I’ll post this latest shot. I’ve got to remember to use silhouettes more in my comics. They look good and are a lot quicker to draw.

FALSE!

As a rule I’m not a big fan of drawing vehicles. I try not to avoid doing them and when It’s time to draw one I try and make the shots a little better every time. I think the above mini bus shot is the best I’ve done to date. If more of my vehicle shots come out like this then I’d be a lot happier doing them. Maybe throw in the odd car chase once in a while.

It’s going to be nice to relax a bit this week as I’ve been drawing like a mad man these last several weeks trying to get the start of B.O.B. done. I plan to chill out a bit this week. This week it going to be all scanning, cleaning up artwork in Photoshop and lettering the pages I’ve done so far. I’m not going near a pencil this week and I’m not staying up half the night drawing till the wee hours.

Talking of the wee hours (which is sadly when the best TV is on) been watching some more of the American version of The Office recently. I remember watching the first couple of episodes when it first started and finding it really bad. I gave up on it after a couple of shows. I think it was on BBC 2 and I think they even took it off after a few shows (I could very well be remembering that wrong... oh wait, looking on Wike it says Season 1 was only six shows long…anyway) Never has a sitcom gone from so bad to so good so quickly. Plus the theme tune really catchy. The thing with sitcoms is they usually need a couple of seasons to get going. It worth watching The American Office just for Dwight Schrute alone. I’m becoming a big fan.

The Late Night Note Game.

My memory is bad. It’s as simple as that. If I’m trying to remember something and that something doesn’t keep popping it head around the corner to remind me it exists regularly I’m more often then not going to forget it. So when something important like an idea or something comes along I really need to note it down quick before it goes again. Problem is most of my ideas or the only time I remember something I’ve forgotten to do is usually late at night when I’m trying to get some sleep. So I tend to leave myself lots of little notes I’ve scribbled for myself while half asleep late at night. When I get up the next day I found these notes and half the time I’ve can’t make out what I’ve written (There’s a good early Seinfeld episode with this same theme.)

So here the game. I woke up today and found I’d left myself a couple of notes last night. One note was a reminder of a TV show I wanted to look up on the net to see if the boxset had gone down in price or gone on sale recently. It simply the title of the show which I wrote down while half asleep to remind myself to do this today. When I found it again earlier it was almost unreadable to me. It took me a second to remember what I had written and if I wasn’t the one who had wrote the note I doubt I’d know what the hell it said. So I’ll post this one word TV show below and you can try your luck to guess it.

Answer HERE.

How’d you do? I know pretty unreadable right? Now you see why I never hand letter my own comics. My wide awake handwriting is only a little bit better then my half asleep scribble.

B-Movie\Exploitation Movie Posters (Part 4.)

OK. End of the month, which seems like a good point to wrap up these movie poster posts. Hope you’ve been enjoying them.Probably one of the best posters I’ve come across lately. In fact if I were to do a top ten posters of all time this would very likely be in it. I love the fact it black and white but the plasters are the only things in colour. Or the fact that under the title of the film it got “Obviously” in brackets. Or just that it got classic Hammer Horror cleavage in it as well. Also it kind of goes well with a previous post I’ve made about Dracula and sticky plasters.This poster is worth a look if only for the top tagline aloneFirst saw this poster on the back cover of the collected edition of Vol 2 of Cinema Sewer that FAB Press have been putting out lately. Again not to sound like a broken record but it all about the design in this montage scene. As the viewer looking at this poster you’re about to get a kick to the face, clubbed with a gun and a quick panty shot all at once.

Blink And Your Miss It.

My latest effort from B.O.B.

I’d say more about this panel but it the end of the week and my brain is running on low. I do like this though. It a very basic but in some ways it works better then some of the more complex shots. Which is a shame, as the complex shots probably take a lot longer to draw. Sods law I guess.

I have noticed in these early pages there’s a lot of gesturing going on. Everyone looks like they’re on a game show showing off the star prize or something. I guess it because as the whole set up is being introduced to the characters it’s also being introduce to the reader. Still I’m looking forward to getting to a point when I can move the body languages on a bit in this story. I should have written a mud fighting scene or something to kick this story off.

You know what new Who is missing these days? Vomiting Cybermen. You really have to look out for it in this clip at the end but that Cyberman blows metallic chunks. I never noticed it while watching the Five Doctors before. It’s very sly.

The full, classic Raston Warrior scene HERE. If there a better massacre in Dr Who history I haven't seen it.

B-Movie\Exploitation Movie Posters (Part 3.)

Going back to good montage images. Above is another poster I think works well. You can’t beat a good Kung Fu montage. Probably a pain in the arse to draw with all the figure work and foreshortening you’d have to do. But great end result.I watched this film the other day again. I think it got a lot going for it. I’ve previously posted a poster for Mudhoney (which they change the title too) but I guess this must be an earlier poster as it called Rope Of Flesh here. Not a bad poster but it does suffer from the very basic problem that it gives away the ending of the film. It like if the poster for Jaws was a shot of the shark exploding as Brody shoots the gas tank in it mouth.Looks like a bit of a Star Wars rip off to me but I still really want to see this film. Reminds me of another Star Wars type movie I saw a few months ago called Spacehunter: Adventures In The Forbidden Zone. Staring a young Molly Ringwald. I can’t find anything on this movie and it doesn’t look like it out on DVD (not region 2 anyway) but it wasn’t a bad movie at all. Not great. But not bad. Worth a watch.

Conner Party?

If this previous frame was the introduction of the men in this story. The above image is the first time you meet the first of the female characters.

This was one of the first shots that came into my head when I was thinking up this story. I thought it was a good image to kick off the story with. Set the tone.

B-Movie\Exploitation Movie Posters (Part 2.)

A quick post tonight. Just so I can move these B-Movie\Exploitation posts along a bit. And just so I get away from the drawing board for a few minutes. Ms. 45 Here one film on the list I have seen. Years ago, but still… A rape revenge movie about a gun-wielding woman who for some reason dresses as a nun. Can’t remember why she does.

Me and a friend would watch a lot of these types of movies when we were teenagers. Clockwork Orange, I Spit On Your Grave, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Those films are now all out on DVD uncut. I don’t remember Ms. 45 being any worse then those films and yet you still can’t get a decent copy of it on DVD.

The poster itself has a nice basic design about it. It goes for shock more like something you’d find in a horror movie poster or something.

Follow the above Wiki link for a better plot summary and an alternative film poster, Which is also pretty cool. I think this is the French poster for the 70’s remake of King Kong. I haven’t seen it for years but I think it’s the 70’s Kong where he fights a giant snake as it a Dinosaur in the original. At no point do I remember him fighting a giant shark however. Now that one deleted scene I’d like to see.

An English Gentlemen.

If you draw Comics long enough, you find you end up drawing the same things over and over again. Someone getting punched, Two people shouting at each other, Someone firing a gun, etc, ect, But I think this is the first time I’ve drawn someone kissing someone else’s hand. Just because it was something a bit different I enjoyed drawing this frame a lot.

This shot in some ways was really all about trying to get the body languages right. It fun to introduce new characters to an audience, which is what I’m doing at the moment with these early pages. Trying to make early suggestions about what kind of people they are. ‘First impressions’ I’d guess you’d call it. That’s the fun part of doing the beginning of a story. You don’t know who’s, who yet.

Been jumping on The Walking Dead bandwagon this week. What with everyone raving about it and a TV series in the works I bought and read the first two volumes this week. I have to say the idea of doing a Zombie story as a kind of on going soap opera does work really well in a comic. I read through both Volumes in no time at all. It’s one of those stories’s where you just want to know what’s going to happen next.

B-Movie\Exploitation Movie Posters (Part 1.)

Here my plan. Since I don’t have time recently to sit down and wrote a big post on B-Movie\Exploitation movie posters. I thought I’d do them in shorter posts throughout the rest of September. Hopefully this will work out better in the long run.One thing I’d love to do at some point with my artwork is a decent montage scene. Above is probably one of the best I’ve seen for a while. B-Movie\Exploitation movie posters tend to have the best and worst of them when it comes to montages. This poster is by far one of the best. I guess the secret to a good montage shot is in the design.Nothing says B-Movie like Frankenstein blasting an Alien with a Ray Gun in Outer Space. This poster couldn’t be more B-Movie if it tried. I really want to see this flick. I know it'll probably be god awful but still...I’ve not seen this movie. I heard bits about it. I think it an early Troma movie. I really like the basic set up of this painting. The look on the face in the box is great as well. Looks like something out of an EC Comic. Most horror posters tend to have a dark palette. In some ways this poster is more creepy because it so bright. It cheeky, light heartedness is also one of the darkest things about it.

Meet The Gang.

Been working hard these past couple of weeks and I’m glad to say that I think it about time I started posting artwork from my latest project. This project is still going by the codename ‘BOB’ and it been a lot of fun to see the start of this story coming together over the past two weeks.

Above is the first group shot where you first meet the guys in this story.

This is the first time since college I’ve done a story on U.S. sized board (10” by 15”) and I have to say in many ways I’m enjoying working smaller. I maybe feel I can control the page a bit better in U.S. format. Which appeals to the control freak in me more. Also I always hated the idea of doing fewer panels per page but I have to say now I’m actually doing it I’m enjoying not choking the page with to many frames.

It's A Shame.

I’m glad there seems to be more comics around recently with major bookshop now all having Graphic Novel sections and so on. But I have to say it does suck a little that the only European comics in these sections tend to be Tintin and Asterix. I know with European culture being more open sexually a lot of these books might be a little to hot to handle for a lot of shops but then so can a lot of Manga’s and there all over high street bookshops these days. I don’t know if it the more cartoony style with Manga that lets them off lightly where as European comics are more detail heavy. But not all European comics are erotic and I can’t help but think there got to be room for the odd Moebius Graphic Novel or something in modern bookshops.

One artist I love but can never get a hold of his work is Guido Crepax. His books seem to be like gold dust. The only work I’ve seen of his is artwork on the Internet and a copy of his adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde I got my hands on a couple of years ago. But luckily I’ve read they’re re-releasing his adaptation of The Story Of O at the end of the year just in time for Xmas (unless Amazon are playing bizarre mind games with me).

I also found recently this video about Crepax on Youtube. I don’t know what going on in this video or what being said but I just try and enjoy the pretty pictures… like most times I’m watching something on TV.

Staying On That Theme.

After Fridays post I got curious as to what the poster for The Werewolf Vs The Vampire Woman looked liked so I looked it up on Google. It not a bad poster at all and it nice to see an Ink and Pen drawing being used as a poster. But my favourite bit is the tag line on the left. “See it with someone you hate.”

This poster reminds me I need to do another post on B-Movie\Exploitation poster at some point. I don’t think I’ve done one this year but I have been finding some good ones about online and saving them in a folder.

Just heard the news today that Marvel have been acquired by Disney. WOW! It going to be weird to see how that develops in the coming months.

KA-BOOM!!!

To buy myself some breathing space before posting anything from my latest story (which thankfully I was able to start earlier in the week) I thought I’d post a panel from a previous story to fill the gap.

Nothing kicks off the weekend like Zombies (including a Zombie Baby in carrier) and an exploding cooling tower.

I reckon Zombies will probably be out of fashion by 2010. They’re everywhere at the moment and for the last few years. I don’t know if it’ll be as bad as the 90’s when they’re just didn’t seem to be any good, new Zombie movies or comics about but I reckon they’ll be a lot less of them around. Saying that I still really want to see Zombieland. If only because I heard Bill Murray had a cameo as a Zombie.

Not half as much as I wanna see this movie though.

It All About The Little Plastic Grips.

Been using these new Maped Rubbers recently. They cost a bit more then normal Rubbers and you only get two in a pack. They have this weird plastic centre which to be honest looks nice but I’m pretty sure you could get through life without little tiny plastic grips on your rubber. They do have a couple of other things however going for them. Firstly they’re pretty tough. The Erasers I usually use are cheaper but tend to crumble and come apart when you start rubbing out with them. Which is why in College I could never get in to using Putty Rubbers. I prefer hardier Rubbers that you can press down on and won’t snap. Secondly, one of the Rubbers is teardrop shaped which is by far the best shape for rubbing out little details on artwork. The other one is round and better for rubbing out large areas. You can buy packs of other Rubbers in four for cheaper but one of the four is always a coloured rubber like pink or green and when you use them on Bristol Board they always leave a coloured skid mark across the page that you can never really get rid of, so upon opening the pack I usually just have to bin the coloured one right away and then one of the Rubbers will always be one of those 50% Pencil Rubber 50% Ink Rubbers which means 50% of that Rubber is no good.

I’m going to stop there as writing a Blog post on what Rubber you use is a bit iffy, but writing a long Blog post on what Rubber you use is unforgivable. I’m not sure who reads this Blog but it seems to get hits and I’m guessing some of them are from other artist. But in case that post was a little lost on you here a humorous Gif as well.


Gifs at Giftube.com

The Shape Of Things To Come (The Third.)

That’s seven characters now and all male so hopefully the above character sheet will even things out a bit.

I’m hopefully very close to starting this project now. Thumbnails are being double-checked, references is being collected and pencils are being sharpened. I’ve also found a couple of new sites to download Podcasts off (Podcasts are the best thing to listen to when you draw) and with any luck I should be able to make a start this week.

Fingers crossed.

Wikipedia Is Kind Of Sexy.

Cut to the chase HERE.

Personally I think all porn should be turned into Vector Art. It just so bloody classy.

The Shape Of Things To Come (Part Deux.)

A group character sheet of some of the cast of a story I’m trying to flesh out at the moment. I think of all the story’s I’ve worked on so far this story probably has the largest amount of characters in it to date. It one of my favourite parts of the process making up designs and personality for characters.

This new project is going by the codename ‘BOB’ at the moment. I’m in the very early plotting and very rough thumbnails stage. Turns out it going to be a bit longer then I’d originally planned at first. How it will all pan out I don’t know but I’m going to try to keep the plot to a reasonable size hopefully. Partly because I don’t know if this is one of those projects I’ll be doing little by little over the years or if I’ll get lucky and able to dedicate some serious time towards it. I’d love to have a proper crack at doing this story as I think it could be something a bit special but I’ll just have to see how it all plays out over the coming months.

An Important Question.

The Shape Of Things To Come… Maybe.

These last couple of months I’ve been doing the odd pin up for my portfolio and bit and bobs, but what I’ve really been doing mostly is trying to develop some ideas a bit further. Getting some prep work together for future stories. Making a lot of notes and drawing up a lot of design and character sheets. Below are a couple of recent character sheets I’ve been working on for one story. Two led characters and a Mr Magoo looking supporting character.

I maybe don’t always feel I do as many design and character sheets as I should before starting a story but I’ve certainly made up for that these past couple of months. I can’t really post some of the tastier design sheets as I’m not one of those people who thinks just because you post something online someone going to steal it however I also maybe don’t think it would be the smartest idea to post up ideas and designs before you had a chance to do anything with them. But hopefully I’ll have the chance to post them up one day a bit further down the line. But I’m happy for now to post some of the recent character sheets I’ve been working on.

TV Party.

Errrr, if that above title reference is a little lost on you click HERE.

Was shopping late night a couple of nights ago for DVD boxsets of good TV shows online when I saw they where putting out an early Avengers boxset later in the year. It wasn’t so much the boxset itself that caught my eye as the tagline they’d put under the review section-

“Extraordinary crimes against the people and the state must be avenged by agents extraordinary.”

Now that a tagline. That line was so great it made me wish they had a decent Emma Peel period boxset I could buy. I can't remember too much of The Avenger while growing up and to be honest I’m pretty sure they mostly just showed The New Avengers rather then the classic series.

My telly watching habits tend to be all over the place at the moment. Partly because I don’t really get much free time and it just easier to watch things at odd times online or on DVD instead. I catch odd episodes on late night TV of shows and then wonder if it worth risking buying the boxset of that show if I’ve liked one episode (lately I’ve been wondering if it worth shelling out for Deadwood or the US version of the Office after seeing bits of them on late night telly.) I’m a big fan of boxsets but they cost a lot and I hate to splash out on one only to find it a bit shit. I bought Firefly a month or two back because I’d heard so many people say it was so good and I was worried it wouldn’t live up to the hype. Which to be honest it didn’t. I’m only half way through it saying that so I might fall in love with it fully by the end. Not that I’m not enjoying what I’ve watch so far. It a lot better then most modern Sci-Fi shows. Some times hype helps a show sometimes it maybe raises the bar to high to begin with.

Finally caved and bought Wonder Woman on DVD. If only so I could watch the Wonder Woman Vs Gargantua fight in context.

I also see they’ve remade V. I only saw a little of V when I was young but didn’t it take place in the future? I remember it being like a horror version of Star Trek or something. Maybe I’m remembering that wrong. Or maybe I’m remembering the later series. I’ll have to see if there’s a decent boxset of the 80’s series about I can get.

Invasion.

I don’t usually give my artwork titles. To tell the truth it doesn’t even cross my mind half the time until I’ve scanned it and have to name the file. But with this image I think the title would have to be ‘Invasion.’

No Way.

It’s nice to be back online. It’s even nicer to be able to check my emails first thing in the morning when I get up even if it only Play.com and Amazon emailing me at the moment trying to make me buy more things I don’t really need.

My latest nasty habit is constantly looking movies up on Wikipedia. If I see a film on TV or buy a new DVD it not long before I’m looking it up on Wiki. It gotten so bad I’ve even started looking up films I want to watch now. I’ve wanted to watch Maximum Overdrive again for a while now. I saw it years ago and lately I’ve been wanting to watch it again. So for no good reason apart from that I looked it up on Wikipedia and was reading about the movie when I came to the trivia section and around fact number ten it reads-

“While shooting the scene where the steamroller rampages across the baseball diamond, Stephen King requested that the SFX department place a bag of fake blood near the dummy of a young player who would be run over by it. The desired effect would be that a smear of blood would appear on the steamroller and be re-smeared on the grass over and over, like a printing press. While filming the scene, however, the bag of blood exploded too soon and sprayed everywhere, making it appear as if the boy's head had also exploded. King was thrilled with the results, but censors demanded the shot be cut. According to the TNT MonsterVision broadcast of the movie, when King showed the uncut footage to zombie film director George A. Romero, Romero was nauseated to the point of actually vomiting.”

George Romero throwing up at a movie gore effect? I find that hard to believe. The guy who made all those Zombie movies where Zombies eat flesh and people get pulled apart like soggy tissues. In fact he always seem to get off on the gore in his films. I would of thought if anyone on the planet would have the stomach for it, it would be him… But then again it is on the Internet so… I guess it got to be true. Your not allowed to lie on the Internet. There’s probably laws against it or something.

Been listening to 8Bit FM a lot these past couple of days. I used to really be into Internet radio when I first got on the net but don’t really listen to it that much now. One problem is good web radio stations tend to appear then disappear very quickly.

Back Online.

So a couple of week’s back I was awoken by the loudest noise I’d ever heard in my life. While I was sleeping a summer thunderstorm was raging outside and lighting must of struck a little to bloody close. It was like being woken by a bomb going off. And then just as I was getting over that rude awakening the silence was then broken again by the sound of a fire truck honking it horn as it was unable to make it way down the street as cars were parked to far out into the road on either side blocking its path. Why someone had called a fire truck I don’t know. Sure lighting must of struck something in the area but as far as I know nothing was on fire and what the lighting hit I still don’t know. A car outside? A lamppost? who knows? Just glad it wasn’t me.

Anyway that was just the start of the fun. After getting up the next morning I turned on my laptop to check my emails and found it was on battery and when I turned it on at the mains it was still saying it was on battery. Great I thought. The power led has crapped out and I was going to have to buy a new one again. I’d only replaced it about a year and a half ago. “I’ll just quickly check my emails and then switch it off to save the battery,” I thought only to find it wasn’t letting me onto the net either. At the time I wasn’t sure but after a few stressful days of checking with phone companies and Internet companies it turns out my modem had gone as well. For the last couple of weeks I’ve had to check my emails in Internet cafes (nothing like paying to check your emails when you know you’ve got the Internet at home.) It all been very crappy and stressful but I’m back online now (for the moment at least) with a new power led that keeps falling out (really poorly made considering how much it was) and my Brother got me hooked up with a new modem… well a new, old modem. My laptop doesn’t do routers and my Internet provider doesn’t do modems. It was all one big headache.

So I’m back online and trying to catch up on it all. I’ve got emails to deal with and podcasts to download. A few weeks back I kind of got hooked on listening to them when I draw and apart from not being able to check my emails (which I found super annoying, almost to breaking point) I think I missed being able to listen to podcasts as I draw a close second.

Hopefully get some new artwork posted up soon as well. Just as soon as I get a chance to scan them. I put some of my newer pin ups, up on my Myspace profile the day before everything went tits up so check them out if you haven’t already.

Kissy, Kissy.

I think the summer heat must be getting to me when I start drawing things like the image above. Lovesick, hideous Monsters trying to steal a kiss. I blame it on heat stroke.

This image put up a bit of a fight in places and for a while I was a bit worried it was going to get away from me and I was going to end up messing it up. The weird thing is it wasn’t the hideous creature on the right that was the problem but more getting the look right on the women on the left. Actually the Monster kind of fell into place pretty easily even though I hadn’t maybe planned him out as well as I could have. Where as the women (maybe because I just wanted to get the right reaction in her look) I kept having to go back to again and again. There’s always the question of when you should let a piece of artwork go. Especially in comics when sadly time is a big factor. As I look at it now I’m pretty happy with it but knowing me I’ll probably look at it again at some point today and something will no doubt bug me about it.

I really hate drawing in this heat. It to hot and to nice outside not to try and enjoy this rare weather, so when you are stuck indoors it seems a bit wrong. I usually try and wait till night to start doing any artwork but even the nights are boiling.

Beat It.

It hard to do anything in this summer heat. Even walking has become unpleasant with the sun beating down on you. Even writing this blog post is harder then it should be. So I was walking along the street yesterday feeling light headed from being so hot from the blazing sun and trying to get a move on because I’d forgot to put on any suntan lotion before I left the house. Ahead of me I spot three guys. Shirtless and drinking beer, just walking down the road. You might never see any Goths in the summer but for some reason these lager louts, thug type love the hot weather. So I’m walking behind them when I notice one of them is wearing a single white glove. “What the hell is that about?” I thought to myself. Here this sinister looking lager lout type walking around on a boiling hot summers day with a single white glove on. And then it kind of dawn on me. Michael Jackson died last week. Maybe this guy is doing it to show he’s in mourning or something. Now words like ‘touched’ or ‘moved’ may be a bit strong but I found myself feeling a strange kind of respect for this guy. I’m no fan of either Lager Louts or Michael Jackson but when you hang out in a group people don’t like you to express yourself or do your own thing and certainly not if you’re ‘one of the lads.’ Those guys all look the same, dress the same. This guy may have looked a bit of a dick with his single white glove but he was doing his own thing and it made him stand out in this rough looking group. Maybe it was the intense heat but I found myself having for the first time in a long time a grudging respect for this thuggish looking stranger who had the balls to walk around on a hot summers day wearing a single white glove (even if he may well have only been wearing it to be ironic) it was a bold statement for a guy like that to make… but then sadly as I got closer I saw it wasn’t a glove at all. He just simply had his hand tightly bandaged. Probably hurt it from punching to many people in the face.

He’s Behind You.

Been trying to fatten up my portfolio again lately. Above is the latest effort. Had a lot of fun playing around with texture on this one. Hope it shows.

Something, Something, Something Of The Dead.

More Zombie action.

Here a question for you. How many copies of Night Of The Living Dead do you own? Not the 90’s, Savini remake just the original. Without checking I know I have it at least three times on DVD. A good version in a black tin case with extras. I bought a cheap horror movie compilation DVD for a version of Flesh Eater it had on it and that also had a copy of Night Of The Living Dead as well. And then I have the 30th Anniversary edition where they put on a new, awful score and shot some terrible new scenes and cut them into the original. And then I have it at least twice on VHS. The first copy I ever saw which a friend taped for me off satellite TV and then years ago I bought the ‘colorized’ version as well. To be honest it looks like it’s been ‘colorized’ with crayons.

Every time I see a good horror box set now because of the copyright being in the pubic domain they always have a copy in there. It getting harder and harder to dodge getting that sixth copy.

New videos of the life size Gundam in Japan are appearing all over Youtube. Now that how you should celebrate a 30th anniversary.

Better Be Dancing Midgets In It.

Wow this would be a pretty good idea. Plus since it would be on the Internet I could actually watch it inside of just hearing about it.

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0835522/

Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned.

I think this is going to be my last big Robot shot. Like I said previously the amount of time I put into designing and planning these Robots to how many times they actual appear on the page was a little off but I had a good time doing them and researching giant Robots. I think these shots work well considering it was my first stab and here a nice big shot to end on.

Makes you almost feel sorry for the poor tiny Zombies.

Can you imagine what it would be like if they’re really were giant Robots in the world? What would that look like? Probably a bit like this.

Real Life Is A Lot Less Graceful.

Remember that bit in Street Fighter 2 when for a bonus round you’d have to smash up a car? Remember wondering if anybody could do that in real life? To be honest I prefer the car smashing stage from Final Fight. At some point this week I’m going to find a spare hour to play Final Fight again. So glad they’re starting to re-release old arcade games for home consoles. Hopefully one day they’ll re-release The Simpsons arcade game.

Big Foot.

Zombie meets giant robotic foot.

It isn’t going to end well for one of them.

Oh No She Di’int.

Probably the most awkward bit of TV in recent times.

http://rightwingvideo.com/?p=1117

Wish real life was more like TV. Look how quickly instant karma swings round with it bitch slap of justice in this clip.

Robots Of Death.

Giant Robots taking out hordes of Zombies and a Dr Who pun in the title. This is indeed a very geeky Friday afternoon. Hopefully geeky good not geeky bad. Wait is there such thing as geeky good? I don’t know… I’ve got a splitting headache from inking all day and I need a lay down.