Soulless Voodoo Guy Sketch.

It was a nice treat when an old college friend got in contact a year or two back and it turned out we were both just starting out on doing an original graphic-novel each. Mine a 96-page modern horror story. His a 100-page story based on a character he had created during college. It was nice to know someone else was in the same (or at least very similar) boat. It’s been nice swapping pages back-and-forth and checking in to see how it was going since then. Chatting about how far we’d each got and the different processes we were both using. At one point during one of these chats, I said if his book was going to have a pin-up section (I love a good pin-up section in a graphic-novel) then I’d happily do a page for it. I’ve not really had any free time this year just gone to follow up on that offer. These pass several months have been spent doing Issue #3 (or pages 48-72 if we’re sticking with the idea of a 96-page graphic-novel.) Also my friend’s style is very unique, and I did start to wonder more and more if I could pull off drawing his character in my art-style. It’s something that’s been dogging me for a few months now. When I found I had a bit of free time this weekend, and an urge to do a bit of sketching in my sketch-book, I came to the decision that rather then jump right into doing a big pin-up, I’d maybe test the waters first by doing a sketch, to see if it could be done. I have to say I was pretty pleased with the result. It came out a lot better then I thought it was going to. It’s only a head-shot, but it did clear up in my mind how his character worked drawn in my style. I found doing this sketch a big help. It was a big relief to know I could do a take on his work. It was also nice to draw someone else’s character, something I rarely do and wish I had the chance to do more.

I hope to get a proper pin-up done at some point during 2012, but for now here’s a tastier. My friend’s (Dave A.K.A Otis P Jive Funk) deviant-art page can be found HERE. Why not check it out for some of his great artwork, and to see how good or bad you think my take on his character (who’s called Soulless Voodoo Guy) is. Dave’s style is coming from a lot of different places. There’s a bit of Dave Cooper in there. Bit of Matt Groening. Bit of Tim Burton. His art also reminds me of LEGO at times for some reason. It’s great stuff and worth a look.