My Favourite New Urban Legend.

I like a good Urban Legend even if 99% of times they’re clearly bollocks. Here my favourite new one at the moment, Polybius. Hasn’t beaten my all time favourite about a woman who worked in a post room of a business who tongue suddenly started to swell up bigger every day until she had to go to a Doctor. They couldn’t work out what was wrong and so ran test but everything checked out while her tongue got bigger and bigger. In the end they sent her for an x-ray and when they got it back they had to rush the woman into the operating theatre and remove what turned out to be a live, giant Cockroach that had been growing in her tongue. No one could understand how it had got there until a few months later when another lady from the same office came in with the same problem. Swelling tongue with a giant Cockroach growing inside that had to be cut out. They started to figure out the problem when it turned out they both worked in the same post room. They’re little post room in the office was in the basement and Cockroaches were not uncommon. They worked out that the Cockroaches liked to eat the glue on the envelopes they kept in the post room. When the lady would send out letters they’d have to lick the sticky bits that the Cockroaches liked to eat and because the Roaches spent so long on those envelopes sometimes they’d lay they’re eggs there. While licking hundreds of envelopes over time they would often get paper cuts on they’re tongues from licking the envelopes without care. The Cockroaches eggs would get into these cuts and then the wound would heal and they’d grow inside these Lady’s tongues. And then you finish by pointing out that most envelopes are at some point kept in giant warehouses in bulk waiting to be packaged and at night Cockroaches crawl over them and try and eat the glue on the back.

Better Or Worse?

One of the things I’ve really been trying to push myself on lately is if I don’t think something working right that I should try and make sure it works more to how I had plan it. I know that at some point you’ve just got to be able to let a page go but sometimes just a quick touch up can help. But then saying that sometimes it can make things worse and sometimes it just doesn’t do anything at all.

At some point I’ve looked at this reworked panel and decided it was much better, then looked at it again and thought it was worse and then looked at it and thought “well there not that much different really”. At the moment looking at it again, one of the things I think is better is that with more texture\dirt in the background it has pushed the two figures more to the front of the image and helped them stand out. Also it just made the background a little more interesting visually. Plus these scenes are set on an alien world were I’ve drawn all the other shots to look grotty and filthy and maybe the first panel a little to clean to fit in with the other environments that are before this shot.

Dead Space.

It strange how you can do something over and over again for a long time and still once in a while make one of the must basic mistake. I’m more or less happy with the panel above but the problem is that it going to have a speech bubble in it and usually when your drawing and mapping out an image your be very aware of this and try and leave dead space for them. I didn’t really plan this shot well enough and now when I come to letter it shortly I’m going to be covering up part of the artwork that I like. I guess I won’t know how bad the problem is or even if they’re a chance I could sidestep the problem altogether until I get on the computer and play around with it.

Luckily it not usually a mistake I make a lot, as I’m pretty good at leaving room for dialog but from time to time on rare occasion my judgement will slip. I don’t really know many other comic book artist, so I don’t really know if it a common problem or not. I tend to find just because you do something again and again it doesn’t mean you’re ever above messing up on the basics…sadly. I guess that the good thing about having a blog. I can post it here in all it glory where as in print you’d be missing chunks of the image that the speech bubbles would be covering up. Which is pretty much true of must of the images I post. Even if it just a bit of background detail or something that you wouldn’t usually see, you do get to see it all here. I knew this blog had to be good for something.

A Bloody Classic.

My Brother offered to get me a videogame for my birthday next week and asked if they’re were any I was looking out for. So I tried to think of a few I’m after and then he asked if I wanted them for my PC. Sadly my laptop not the greatest and doesn’t really handle games very well, but I did think about any PC games I’d still like to get and I remembered a game from the 90’s which I’d been looking out for, for years. I don’t think you can sadly get a copy now or at least for a decent price but I spent a fair chunk of my childhood playing Blood. You could kick zombie’s heads around and set evil monks on fire with a flair gun. When I think back to all the videogames I’d play when I was a kid I think Blood was probably the most fun. Like I said my laptop not really powerful enough for me to have kept up with the new shoot-em-ups like Far Cry or Half Life. Plus I’m usually so busy nowadays I’m lucky if I can found one night a month to set aside to play videogames but I’d happily free up some time for Blood. It was like a horror version of Duke Nuke em. Not many people seem to remember it and now only talk about Doom and Duke but people who did play it always remember it. I’m kind of hoping someone will re-release it for the PC for cheap and I can finely get my filthy hands on a copy. If any old PC game is screaming to be re-released it Blood. But then if they did ever re-release it I’d probably have to buy a new laptop to be able to play it anyway.I do have a copy of Shadow Warrior floating around somewhere. If Duke Nuke Em was Sci-Fi and Blood was horror genre then Shadow Warrior was Kung Fu. Not as good as Duke and Blood but still pretty good and very playable. I kind of got that working on my laptop. I don’t remember it playing to badly but not great. Plus I couldn’t get the sound or music working so I had to play it in silence, which kind of killed the charm of it.

I Think He’s Going To Eat Him.

The longer you watch, the more sinister it gets. Click HERE.

Hiding From The Winter.

Another action shot from my forthcoming short story.

Pretty depressing time with the credit crunch. Most of the good shops down our town went bust over Xmas. The only upside is theywere some cheap DVD box set’s going. I usually like to have something playing when I’m drawing and their so much good TV around at the moment. Box sets are a bit of a luxury to me but I did treat myself to the first season of Californication and I thought I’d give Seinfeld a try even if it has been over for ten years so I might be a little late jumping on that bandwagon. I’m also trying to watch the second season of Dextor on TV at the moment even though I missed the first and might see if I can pick that up at some point. Plus I was really getting into the Terminator series last year. It the cold, shitty winter weather and dark, wet nights that makes you want to stock up on good DVD’s and Books. I guess that one of the upsides of having Xmas and my Birthday in the winter. It a good excuse to treat myself.

I’m trying to talk myself out of buying a cheap Wonder Woman box set but it a loosing battle when I know I’m missing out on scenes like this> If you can say no to TV as good as that then you’re a stronger man then me. I know I’ll crack and order it at some point this weekend. I can’t say no to women wrestling men in monkey suits…. It’s a weakness.

Gunned Down.

Writing today’s post with fingers covered in ink and white paint. The white paint what you use to “white out” any mistake you make while inking and there were plenty to sort out today. I was trying out a couple of new things in the inking stage and while I was happy enough with the way they came out (just hope my heavy handed A3 scanner let’s them show up when I scan it) it did make a lot of mess that had to be painted out. Still it early days and I guess it all about getting your technique right or rather just making less mess.

Speaking of messy shots here one that I remember being a bit tricky. As I mention a couple of posts ago it a fine art getting that toothbrush splatter just right. I find it best to cut out some kind of mask to protect the rest of the page from disappearing under an inky snow storm.

Sticking with the trigger-happy theme of this post. Ever wonder what in those SUV’S that follow around important people nowadays? I would of guessed a load of blokes in sunglasses but this is way better.