Full Page.

Just posted a full page from Issue #2 on DeviantArt. That makes it three pages from Issue #1, and now three pages from Issue #2 to be posted there.

The latest page can be found HERE.

I’m well into Issue #3 now, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to post as many panels and pages from the final two issues. Everything kind of comes to ahead in these last two, and there’s hardly any pages that aren’t choked full of spoilers. I guess I’ll have to figure that out in the not too distant future. Until then, enjoy what I think might be one of the creepiest pages so far.

The Eyes Have It.

I’ve noticed that Graphic Novels (especially the B.P.R.D. and Walking Dead ones I’ve been reading of late) have a single panel from the comic on the back-cover. A shot that sums up and hopefully intrigues potential readers. I have to say if I can ever get this mini-series collected, this would have to be the forerunner for that spot. It might be the creepiest shot so far, I think. Most of the horror in Issue #2 comes from scenes that are gruesome, but I like this shot more because it’s just plane creepy (or at least that was what I was going for.)

I should also point out, on a side-note, that the character has a lazy eye. Just in case you thought I sucked at lining up eyes.

Looking forward to watching this tonight as part of the Fright Fest season on FilmFour.

I Saw The Devil.

I need to see this film. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. I went online last night to order it and ended ordering Candyman and the 70’s BBC adaptation of Dracula instead. How did that happen? (probably because those DVDs were both cheaper.) I need to re-watch Old Boy again, soon, too. Such a good film.

Such A Nerd.

New shot today from Issue #2. We’re getting to the final pages now. I’m treading very carefully so as not to give too much away.

Also I forgot to mention I tarted up my Sushi-Girl picture on DeviantArt yesterday. Replaced the crappy line-work from an A4 scan with the original artwork. Also, on my laptop the colours looked a bit bright so I took them down a bit. They looked just right on my Mac, but whenever I transfer them over, the colours seem to go really bright for some reason. Colour balance is my new ultimate foe.

Was enjoy this new Tumblr I came across this morning. Hot Chicks Misidentifying As Nerds. I haven’t met a genuine hot nerdy girl for a while now. I’m starting to think they’re like the tooth fairy or big foot. Or worse yet, just moved on to the next fad. I’m not sure if ‘Geek Chic’ ever really caught on in the UK. I’m not seeing a lot of this when I’m out and about. Sadly, my faith is waning. Come on, Cosmos, prove me wrong. I want to be proved wrong.

Here my ’such a nerd’ story. I’m such a nerd that over the past few days, I’ve just been reading the fuck out of Stephen King’s Cell (a 473 page book which I started late Monday and finished late last night.) I’ve spent so many hours this week laying on my bed with my upper body resting against my head-board at a weird angle, that I now have unbelievable neck and back pains. I can’t turn my head left or right without it ending in agony, and I can’t lift my arms above shoulder level. I couldn’t even turn over last night in bed. And sod’s law, I don’t seem to be able to reach the problem areas with my trusty tube of Deep Heat.

Word to the wise, if you really are doing something nerdy, you’ll know because it usually ends with you not coming out of that situation looking so great.

It was a good book. however, which is somewhat of a consolation. It’s kind of weird reading a Zombie post-apocalyptic story where the main character is a comic-book artist. Thanks to this book, I’d be rubbish in a Zombie waste-land, right now. I couldn’t move my head left or right to check for oncoming Zombies. Climbing, aiming a gun or swinging a blunt-object is probably not on the cards for the next couple days, either.

If I Had To Pick.

I go through a lot of Podcasts in a single week. I can usually tell how much work I’ve put in that week, just by how many Podcasts I’ve gone through. I’ll start the week with about twelve, thirteen and I’ll be lucky if I have any left by the end of the week. But if I had to pick my favourite one, it would probably be this one. They’re so good, they’re the only Podcast I’ll re-listen to every so often. I’ve listened to the Mark Gatiss and Edgar Wright ones a few times, now.

Is it wrong that I think this movie actually looks quite good?

Take 2.

Well, I started the week with this image, so I may as well end it with it. Having already spent a fair amount of time colouring in the background for this, I decided to finish it. I only started colouring this so I could drop the marker pen version over the top, but when that didn’t work, I liked what I’d done so much I decided to carry on. I haven’t had a chance to do any colour work for ages, but being a bit burnt out lately, it was a nice change of pace. Made me wish I had more time to get on the computer and do more work in colour.

I maybe spent a bit longer on this then planned, and to be honest there’s still a couple of things looking at it now I’d change. I find so little time for colouring up my artwork that it would be nice to start hooking up and seeing if I can get proper colourist maybe colouring a few pieces down the line. Or in the future, free up a giant space of time and really have a go at becoming an awesome colourist, failing that. I had such a blast doing this one, if I could spare the time, I’d have another crack on one of my other Pin-ups.

DeviantArt copy HERE.

Pen Play.

Something else I worked on last week while I was laying low was testing out my new markers. I bought some for sketchbook work, but soon found myself wanting to try them out on a finished piece of artwork. With Sushi-Girl And Friend, I always feel I cocked up the inking stage a bit. I think my inking has come into its own in the last couple of years, but here, it maybe got away from me a little. Which is a shame, as the design and concept has maybe been one of my favourite to date. I think I may have been breaking-in new brushes and dip-pen on this image, which I always find is the kiss-of-death. So I’ve always wanted to see what it would look like coloured. If I can’t go back in time and un-fudge the inking (I’ve even thought about redrawing the whole image and doing it again a couple of times), I’d at least like to see it in glorious colour. Bad ink job aside, I do like the monster design and more-or-less how it turned out. So when it came to picking an image to colour, it had to be this one. It’s a shame hardly anyone uses markers in comics anymore, as I had a blast doing it. That said, one massive draw back is once you’ve put a colour down, you’re stuck with it. Also, it’s brilliant to colour by hand and feels a lot better then colouring on computer, but takes a lot longer with markers, and doing large areas is tough going. Plus you can only use the colours you own, whereas on a computer, it’s any colour you want.

There’s also some water colour pencils and fluorescence pens going on in the mix. I thought I might scan it in and colour the background on computer, but after playing around for an hour or two with it, I just couldn’t get the balance right and it always looked a bit off, no matter what I tried. So I’ll post it CG free. I was going to paint in the background with water colour paint, but it’s just normal printer paper and would go all horrible. I didn’t really have a back up plan when the computer colouring didn’t pan out.

I’m fairly happy with bits of it, and plan to try and master the marker. For my first real try, I thought there was some nice stuff going on. At one scary point I thought I’d messed up the mouth, which I had left till last and would have meant all the time colouring the rest first was for nothing. But thankfully, I think I managed to pull it back to looking half-decent at least.

Best Laid Plans.

Planned to get a lot done this week, but just ended up eating Ice Cream and watching season 1 of True Blood mostly this week. Didn’t realize how drained of energy I was until earlier in the week, when it hit me like a truck. I was trying to get the ball rolling and just crashed. I’m feeling better now after a bit of a rest and did managed to get some work done in the end, but it’s been a strange, old week.

Didn’t help that this week also, both my MP3 player and TV started to give me major technical problems. I think I’ve got round my MP3 player problem for the time being, but it looks like I’ll have to replace my TV. Which is both really annoying and a tiny bit exciting (I made myself a promise that every time I have to replace my TV, I’d numb the pain somewhat by adding some extra inches to the screen-size. I’m a man, and that’s the kind of promises we make to ourselves.) Not to happy about this latest dent in the bank-account however. Had been trying to put some money away.

Just A Thought.

I try not to get too nerdy on this blog and keep those nasty, geeky thoughts to myself, but here’s one I just have to put out there. Wouldn’t Nikolai Valuev of been an awesome Bane in the upcoming Batman movie? Just look at him. The guy shaves with an axe for God sake. If ever a man was born to play that part, it’s him. I know the actor who is playing him is very good, but when you see those shots of Bane being the same height as Batman, it just feels wrong. You want him to be a giant, like in the comics.

Anyway, I guess that’s neither here nor there, and technically it would just be stunt casting. Probably better to stick with real actors. But still…

Anybody wanting a follow up on my last post, I walked pass those mystery bags again on Monday. They were strangely still there, only now looking a little bit lighter (but not that much lighter) and a bit ravaged. The A4 note now had written at the bottom “To take away.” So it either wasn’t porn and the dirty trick hadn’t worked, or people were just going through the bags and taking what they considered to be the good stuff. To take someone’s second-hand porn is a bit iffy… but to sit there in the open, cherry-picking the best mags, is just bizarre. It makes something grotty, even grottier. The guy even put them in nice, fancy cotton bags.