Mind-Flux.

Sticking with last weeks love\hate theme, I present my latest pin up. It’s been a while since an image has been as painful to draw as this one. This image was just one problem after another. I drew it in landscape at first so I had to spend time light-boxing it onto another sheet of Bristol board (twice now I’ve done that and both from the same sheet, which is now looking very unhealthy.) Then I couldn’t decide what should go inside the bubble. At first the villain was just going to be making them fight, but once I’d pencilled the outside of the bubble, I found that idea a bit underwhelming. So I thought about it and I had what I thought at the time was a killer idea. I drew a gutter line splitting the balloon in half and then drew in each half a peril scene. In one the two superhero’s sitting on a pile of TNT. And in the right side them dangling above a piranha pit. I spent at least two or three hours on these scenes. I spent an hour alone drawing all those sticks of TNT. Problem was when I was done I knew it wasn’t right. For a start the two peril scenes looked tiny, and this was on a A3 sheet. When I scanned it and shrink it to A4 you’re just not going to be able to make them out. At this point I’d had enough. I gave up. I knew when I was beat and I decided to cut my losses. Only problem was, I couldn’t think of what else to draw. My mind was blank. I had some very piss poor ideas, but nothing worth drawing. One of my ideas were Superheroes in a Hot tub ( I’d like to think when Heroes do get into Hot tubs, they take off everything apart from their masks.) thinking about it, I thought maybe this is what should go into the bubble. It’s very much a peril scene and a hopefully a little funny. Hopefully this move stopped it from being a complete waste of time, but it’s been a rough time, trying to beat this image into something.

Looking at it now, damn it… why didn’t I move that rubber duck to the right a tiny bit.

Ok, time to put this whole nasty mess behind me. I’m not even sure if I’m going put this one up on my DeviantArt page.

Strange Taste.

I’ve been falling in and out of love with this shot for a while now. Sometimes it’s my favourite shot from the story and sometimes I can’t even look at it. I have that problem a lot, but for some reason, more so with this panel. It’s a tricky one.

It’s weird… the older I get (and therefore hopefully the better I get) the less I like my own artwork. When I was late teens/early twenties, I thought my artwork was brilliant. I look back on that work now and I want to weep, it’s so bad. But at the time I thought it was great stuff. It maybe evening out a little bit more over the last couple years. I still think OCT is one of the best things I’ve ever drawn and it’s a couple of years old now. I thought by this point, heading into my late twenties, I’d be at that point were magic flows from my fingers every time pencil touches paper and something special would happen, you know?

I always wonder if truly great comic artist know they’re great? Do they always look at their artwork and think “yep…still awesome, still got it.”

I’m starting to feel shitty now, I’m going to go watch some Batman Porn to cheer myself up. Why are girls dressed up as Batgirl or Catwoman so sexy?

Plants Vs Zombies.

Been hooked lately on the awesome Plant Vs Zombies. It has taken what little free time I have and gobbled it up. This game is genius in the same way as games like Worms or Lemmings were. Just really, really playable. I think you can download a free trial off their website (it only lets you play for a short while, but the good thing is, when I bought the full game, somehow it knew where I’d got to and I could start from there.) Saying that, I have got far enough into it now that it’s starting to get really hard. Those Zombies riding dolphins are tricky bastards (words I never thought I’d catch myself typing.) This is the first videogame in a long time, that I’ve really fallen in love with. You can also get it for your iphone, but I’d find it a massive headache to play this on a tiny screen, as so much is going on that you have to keep an eye on. Also the music really good on this game.

Also on the gaming front, I’ve finally got a controller for the new Doctor Who game that the BBC are putting out next month. Sadly I don’t own any games that need a controller… but I have one… sitting unused in its box. Looking sad and untouched.

And Marine Cuisine has now been put up on my DeviantArt page. Why scroll down the page to check out artwork, when you can just click a link?

Marine Cuisine.

Around the end of last year, I started to get a real urge to draw something other then what I was working on. I wasn’t bored with the project, but you just start to want to draw other things when you’re working on a long project. Then for Christmas I got the Walking With Dinosaurs boxset and really got the urge to draw some Dinosaurs.

I kind of chicken out at first, once I did get some free time. But this week I gave it a go and above is the result. I started by mapping out the image too far down the page to begin with. So I had to light-box all my rough artwork onto another piece of Bristol Board, so I could move it up the page. It was annoying at the time, but I think the layout of this image is good, so worth it. I also spent ages inking this one. Just trying to get the line-work and shadows as strong as I could.

Also what really made me want to draw this was I’d been watching a couple of other Dinosaur boxsets over the last few months. One late 90’s one, with Jeff Goldblum narration and some of the most dodgy CGI I‘ve ever seen (I think it‘s called When Dinosaurs Ruled.) And a really good one called Jurassic Fight Club. I’m on the last disk now, and this series is amazing. I think it’s got a different narrator on the UK version and they changed the name at the last minute to Dinosaur Secrets (sounds like Jurassic smut to me. They should have a Raptor on the front in sexy lingerie or something.) You can check out a clip HERE.

He Didn’t Wash His Hands.

I’m not sure what you call this shot, or if it actually has a name. When you split a background up into a series of frames and have people or things move through them. But it’s a shot I should use more. It’s a nice effect. I’ve always been a fan of this shot.

Also got round to putting up Death By Ray-Gun on my DeviantArt page, this weekend.

Enjoy.

Life During Wartime.

One of the best movies of the 90’s was a movie called Happiness from 98. Maybe one of the darkest comedy’s of all time. I never thought they’d make a sequel (it didn’t seem like the kind of film to have a sequel.) So I’m really looking forward to a movie called Life During Wartime. Mind you, this is a sequel where every character is now played by a different actor. One character has changed race and they’ve all aged at different rates…or something like that. It sounds like a bit of a head fuck, but I do want to see it.

Also on BBC1 next week is a great and underrated 70’s movie called Prime Cut, starring the great Lee Marvin. I don’t think there’s a Region 2 copy of this film out there, and it’s an really underrated movie. If you like films like Dirty Harry and Point Blank, give it a go. They really need to put it out on DVD. This movie is so unknown, I can’t even find a trailer on Youtube for it. I think this is probably one of my favorite gangster movies of all time.

Death By Ray-Gun.

If you’re a fan of people getting shot with Ray-Guns and turning into skeletons, then you’re in for a real treat today.

During my recent brain drought I did come up with this idea last week. I’m a big fan of the “death by ray-gun” scene in TV, movies and comics. So here’s my take on it. I did play around with the idea of having the guy being shot by a Dalek, as the first time I ever remember this effect was in the 80’s in Remembrance Of The Daleks. But I’m hoping one day to collect all my pin up artwork in an artbook and I don’t know the legal rights if I start doing “fan art” so I tend to avoid it. Plus Daleks look like a massive pain to draw.

I think now the best “death by ray-gun” scenes, are probably from Mars Attacks. Apart from the red and green skeleton colour effects, they’ll still brilliant.

I do love drawing people getting vaporized, but drawing a correct skeleton is a lot of work…fun…but hard. I get the feeling this may be a theme I come back to again.

Just been checking out this Dead Fly Artwork Gallery on i09. Reminds me of an old friend who used to keep a dead wasp glued in his sketchbook in art college. At the time I thought it was sick, but maybe he should have ran with it.

Brain Drought.

You could count the hours I’ve spent drawing this week on one hand and still have a digit left (probably your thumb). I wanted to rest up a bit this week and I’m happy to say I feel a little less like a zombie now. Still a little short on inspiration, but I’m sure something will turn up. I was dieing for some free time to do some pin up work over the last few months, and now I have it, my brain’s dried up. I’m just enjoying the down time at the moment. Watching some DVD boxsets and not forcing myself to draw so much.

Speaking of Boxsets. I was over the moon when I heard this week they were releasing the last two classic, Cybermen stories this year as a boxset. I haven’t seen Silver Nemesis for over twenty years. And I’ve never seen Revenge Of The Cybermen. I was kind of hoping they put them out together. Never thought they would.