Gone Fishing.

Can’t really say I’m not glad to see the end of last week. I wouldn’t say it was the worst week of my life or anything close to that but lets just say I’m glad we’ve moved on. The main problem being that I’m in that period now where I need to start thinking up new ideas to be getting on with. Ideas for short stories and maybe a couple of pin up. I normally don’t have a problem doing this but last week my brain well of creativity had gone dry. Must ideas come to me while working on other projects. So while I draw one thing I’m always thinking about what I want to jump onto next. Now this did happen while I was drawing my last comic and I sketched down some ideas at the time but when I recently came back to them I had maybe lost heart a little in those ideas and felt maybe I could do better. I liked the idea (big mistake) of just throwing out what I had and seeing if I could come up with something better. And so this is what I decided to do.

Now I’ve read that David Lynch book ‘Catching The Big Fish’ and a very good book it is, but the idea of coming up with ideas being a bit like a fishing trip maybe makes the situation seem a little bit more romantic then it sometimes is. A nice sunny day out on the lake in your little boat of dreams. It’s all a matter of time before that big idea takes the hook etc, etc. This wasn’t really how I found last week. I just wanted something to be getting on with and for the first time in a long time I found myself at a loose end and not really sure what to do with myself. I did all the things you do when you want to come up with something. I went for walks. I tried to do other things so my mind could wonder and when none of that helped I just sat with a sketchbook and pen and tried to doodle an idea into existence but nothing happened or rather any ideas that did happen weren’t the tasty fishes I was after. Don’t get me wrong I like free time as much as the next man but I also like to get to the end of a week and feel like I can look back on that week and feel I’ve got certain things done. But nothing really seemed to be coming together last week. It reminded me more of something I had heard someone say that trying to write when your not feeling creative is a bit like trying to make yourself go to the bathroom when you don’t need to. Just painful and unpleasant. Which is pretty much how I’d sum up last week. Painful and unpleasant.

After a couple of days of no good ideas it started to get to me and as the week wore on I started to feel lower and lower. I wouldn’t say I’m out the woods yet, but over the weekend I did have one idea that I’d like to develop over this week. It’s a pretty big idea even for a short story and also means I’m going to be drawing things I’ve never even tried to draw before which is always dangerous. Because of the concept it going to need a lot more developing before I can start then any of my previous strips. Plus towards the end (and at the start now I think about it) it got every comic book artist worst nightmare to draw. Large crowds scenes. Which anyone who has had to draw one will tell you are pretty hard going on the nerves. Anyway I really hope this idea pans out over this week as I’m in no hurry to return to that constipated fishing trip that was last week. I guess ideas maybe flow better when you can give them time to come to the surface on they’re own and also maybe sometimes it about what part of your brain your fishing in and how do you pick up your fishing gear and change spots when the fish just aren’t biting?

Tough On Crime.

Was cutting up some more magazines for my reference file recently and came across this in an old early 90’s copy of National Geographic. The caption reads “A vulture pecks at the eye of a man, possibly a criminal, who has been stripped, tied to a tree, and has had the skin peeled from his face.” ...Yikes!!!

{NOTE} forgot to mention it was taken from an article on objects found from a Royal, two thousand year old tomb in Moche, Peru. In case you were looking for more details. That’ll teach me to blog and watch Dexter on TV at the same time.

Getting Closer.

Said I wasn’t going to post anymore from my last sequential piece for fear of giving away too much of the ending but I’ve been really wanting to post this shot for a bit. It not often that what you have in your head matches what ends up on the page but the look on this chicks face comes pretty damn close to what I was after. Not 100% but closer then I usually get. Say about 85%ish.

Dead Stranger Danger.

One of the sad things about modern society is having to prepare and protect children from the dangers of the real world. It sometimes the case that there’s things that you don’t really want to talk to children about and feel like when you do your chipping away at what’s left of they’re childhood even if it is for they’re own good. Nowadays it feels like earlier and earlier we’re having to prepare them and sometimes it a struggle to guess what’s the right age to bring up these issues. For example what age do you start to prepare Children for the dangers of a Zombie attack? A question all parents must ask themselves at some point. I can only thank God that this video from Japanese TV is only a test as tying a plastic toy dinosaur by a bit of string to a door frame is a flimsy attack at best.For some reason I love lists (I think it’s a guy thing) and by far the best place for lists on the Internet is Cracked.com For some reason I just seem to take information in better if it’s in the form of a list. This is the best one I’ve read for ages, maybe ever. 5 way’s your common sense’ lies to you. It’s one of those things you read and it all a bit to close to the bone. Number #4 The Nirvana Fallacy is spookily close to how I’m feeling at the moment. So many times lately I just want to sit back and wait for that big idea. It that whole letting yourself off the hook to easy. “The longer I wait, the better the idea will be when it comes.” It’s one of the worst feelings in the world to put hours and hours of work into something and at the end of it feel like it didn’t work as well as it could have and there’s no one to blame but you. To avoid this feeling sometimes it’s just easier not to start in the first place. My only saving grace is I’m pretty good at forcing myself to do work. I may have played the “I’ve got a headache” or “I really need to watch this programme on TV” card my fair share of times but all in all I’m pretty good at keeping things moving forward (says the guy who hasn’t posted any artwork this week.) I’m differently guilty of Number #1 Special Pleading as well. Sometimes when I’m in a really shitty mood I sometimes think everyone else was merely put on this planet to piss me off or get in my way. Luckily it a feeling that doesn’t last long but I guess sometimes it’s just easier to see yourself as someone with an important goal in life and everyone else as just more like furniture. They’re just floating through life unlike yourself and your busy lifestyle and sometimes you’ve just got to break the rules everyone else must follow. Which when you really look at it doesn’t stand up on it own and really shows you to be a bit of a dick. It’s always a shitty feeling when you’re on the other end of it as well. When someone's maybe trying to get away with something and they seem to be able to justify it in they’re own minds, yet you know if the tables were turned and it was the other way round they’d be just as pissed off or upset if it was happening to them. You can let yourself off a lot of things in life with the right shitty excuse. : Moral of this post? Making excuse=BAD. Manning up to your problems even if sometimes you come out of it as the bad guy\girl or it means your going to have to make more of an effort in life=GOOD. Dressing up as a Zombie and chasing small children around until they look like they’re going to pop from fear just for a TV show=GREY AREA.

Evolution Of The Bat Logo.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Unlucky.

Again it not April yet but this feels like one of those bad April fools gags. You know you’re unlucky when your own acne picks on you. Click here. I’d recommend a fringe.

War Tongue. Part 3 of 3.

I’ve come to the conclusion that art is a bit like keeping in shape. And that different parts of your skills as an artist are like they’re own little muscles that make up your anatomy as an artist. Right now my pencilling and inking skills are hopefully in pretty good shape (or at least getting there) because I’ve put a lot of time into them. And I try to keep an eye on all those little things that go into being a comic artist like figure work, perspective, layout of a page and so on. But to be honest I’ve had so little time to do any colour work recently that, that particular muscle feels flabby and very out of shape. I think that if you don’t regularly work on or ignore certain skills in your artwork, it not like riding a bike were you can just jump back on. You’re probably going to be a bit rusty. It would be more like jumping back on your bike after months of sitting on your arse watching TV and getting slack only to have to enter the Tour De France the next day and wondering why you can’t keep up with everybody else and lets be honest if your trying to be a professional you don’t want that.

So I’m well aware that my colouring muscle has become flabby and unused when it came time to colour this image. First thing I did was reread a short book I had on colouring that I had picked up in college. I just flicked through it and tried to remember how to do different effects. Second thing I did before starting was I just watched some colouring tutorials on Youtube. Some were good some were awful. I think it does help a lot just to watch other people colouring. I knew my first try would probably be awful so after a while I just deleted it and started again. Hopefully working out most of the mistakes on the first try, the second one went a lot better. I was trying out new things in colouring this image that I’d never tried before in previous artwork. I can’t say I was always happy with my coloured artwork in the past. This time I just tried to keep it simple and bright. With my artwork over the last few years I would put texture in with the computer where as now I try to suggest texture more with the brush in the inking stage. It just feels more right trying to do it on the page rather then on the computer. The problem with photoshop is once you first get a copy you want to try out all the effects and filters. My approach above was a lot more casual. More about the colours themselves then flairs and bright effects. Once I feel like I know what I’m doing more with just the basic colours then maybe I can move on to those things. I hope to do some more colour work soon so watch this space. I’ll end by posting everybody’s favourite. The colour artwork without the line work over the top. It doesn’t look as unusual as it used to as so much artwork is done on computer now and so many artist now just colour they’re line work without inking it.

P.S. If anybody knows or could suggest any good books or tutorials online on colouring comics. I’d love to hear them.

War Tongue. Part 2 of 3.

I can’t really post the pencilling stage as I pencil so lightly it usually wouldn’t even show up when I scan it, so onto the finished inked image. One of the strange things about drawing this is that the first part is an extreme close up of someone’s face. It felt a little weird having to draw a face on a big bit of A3 board. Your whole head isn’t as big as an A3 sheet let alone your face. Then the second part of this image is the battle taking place on the tongue. So from drawing something bigger that in real life is actually smaller it’s then a case of drawing something that would be massive in scale on a very small surface. I confess that at one point while drawing the Battle scene I did have a quick look at a couple of Where’s Wally books. That tongue battle isn’t anywhere close to being as big as one of those where’s Wally pictures and it still took me ages. Makes you think how long those books take to draw. A long bloody time would be my guess. It hard to remember which took longer to draw. The face or the battle. I got a nasty feeling it was actually the battle scene even though it only takes up about 20% of the page. Doing tiny little detailed scenes like that does tend to get on your nerves after a while. All those little tiny gunshots and landmines under the skin of the tongue. It also a case of trying to keep everything in scale. Making sure one soldier isn’t twice the size of the others.

Also managed to get my dirty hands on a pad of Bristol board recently from an art shop. Never used the stuff before because I could never found it. I was in an Art shop at Xmas picking up a present for a friend and found a pad. Been wanting to try Bristol board out for years and this image was the first time I got a chance to draw and ink on it. To be honest there’s not a whole lot of different between it and the usual card I use considering how much more it costs. Bristol board handles ink a little different and it seems to dry quicker. I’ve only used a couple of sheets so far so the jury still out. I haven’t tried to do a Sequential page on it yet either.

Be Afraid.

See how far you can scroll down the page before it all becomes a bit too uncomfortable. Link HERE.

War Tongue. Part 1 of 3.

Thought I’d break these posts up into three stages over the next week or two, so I can show the different stages in more detail. I’ll start with the thumbnails. To be honest I could have done with maybe doing a couple more of these during the planning stage. It worked out fine in the end but once I’d had the idea, I was so keen to get onto the final image I maybe jumped the gun a tiny bit to quickly. I always try and keep my thumbnails quick and simple but I don’t like to move on to the final image until I’m sure what I’m doing with it. I knew what the basic image was going to look like (nothing to complicated, just a close up of a face with a tongue sticking out.) but the battle scene that was happening on the tongue was maybe left a little under developed in the thumbnail stage. Actually I say a close up of some ones face isn’t very complicated but in fact it can be one of the hardest things to draw and now I think about it, battle scenes aren’t really that easy going either.

You can judge for yourselves how well I draw close ups of faces and tiny battle scenes soon when I post the next step.