2010 has left the building

So 2010...
It's all over bar the drinkin'.
Didn't have as much in print as I'd liked, although I did pencil a newspaper strip for a whole year over at the the Birmingham Mail (see link..blah blah) and I was interviewed, again for the Birmingham Mail.
So not too bad I suppose.
Had a few bits and bobs pop up but nothing major.
Mostly the year was taken up with me working on two huge graphic Novels-
6 Months and Hard Country.
And I'm about halfway through both of 'em.
So what's to come next year...
Well hopefully there'll be the two graphic novels of course and there'll be two AccentUK books out in 2011 and I'm in both of them. I'm drawing a couple of short stories that I hope I can place, I've done all the layouts to the Death Race comic by Bluewater Comics, that I'm hoping is out next year.
Plus a couple of projects that I'm trying to finalise. So it'll be a busy year then.
I also plan to go more conventions and actually spend some time with old friends that I haven't seen in a while.
And I'll try to post more on this here blog thingie, even if'n it's just the odd sketch.
So as a teaser, above are bits from the strips I hope to come out next year.
and on that note...
2010, I bid you adieu.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Poor Santa ain't bin the same since 'e cut 'imself shavin'!

The Explorer and the pig. First page.

So here's the first page inked.
Not much detail cuz I didn't want to smother the colours when (or indeed if) I colour 'em.
A bit of detail the pig's name is Craig...but it's not intregal to the story, in fact the explorer just calls him "pig".

The Explorer and the pig.

I was reading Mike Mignola's excellent book " Mr Screw on Head and other stories" the other day.
A fantastic read and I thoroughly recommend it to one and all.
Anyway, y'all know I'm bogged down with all these huge projects that take up a vast amount of time to finish, well after reading Mr Mignola's book I decided that I want to do a small story that's just a bit of fun.
Nothing serious, nothing deep,
Something that's got a real clean cartoony look, so I came up with a 3 page short called the "Explorer and the Pig".
It's all been all sketched out and I'm just about to start inking it and really I don't want it to take any longer than a week to do.
My plan is to colour it, very simply and then post it on here so y'all can have a read.
So we'll see how it all goes.
Obviously the two sketches are of the Explorere and the Pig. I let you work out which is which.

Hard Country detail

Some panels from the first Issue/22 page chapter of Hard Country fer y'll to gander.
Still working like a madman to get the first two chapters finished fer Chrimbo, especially now that I've got other stuff to work on (more on that soon).
I'll be showing more Hard Country stuff as I finish the pages.

November already?

Hard Country page one (illustrator)
Hard country page one (Manga Studio)

I know, I know...not much posted recently....
And I've got no excuse really. Still doing bits and bobs, although I'm waiting for three scripts, including the fourth chapter of 6 Months.
I'm still halfway through me 4 page "fly tale", but I was getting a bit frustrated on one of the pages so I decided to put it away fer a bit and start work on the second chapter of Hard Country (me extra long western that I've bin working on ferever) .
Anway, finally typed up the working script from all the bits of notes and such, I'd got lying about, which meant I could start on the layouts to issue two.
I did 'em pretty quickly too, and they went well.
OK, I had to juggle and crop a few of the panels to get 'em to fit in the 22 page chapter, but overall I were pretty pleased with how they turned out.
Then I did the pencils, or to be more precise, the breakdowns, cause me plan was to do most of the drawing in Manga Studio when I'm actually inking the bloody thing.
And it was all going tikkety boo, until I noticed that the inking on chapter one (in Illustrator) didn't match the inking in chapter two (Manga Studio).
Not a big surprise really.
I couldn't leave it and I didn't want to ink in Illustrator any more so I did what any self respected obsessed artist would do...
I 'm inking chapter one again... in Manga Studio.
This'll be the fifth or sixth time I've done this bloody chapter, but I have to say it's the best so far.
So that's been me month.
There are one or two other things in the pipeline..more as they develop, but fer now, unless I get the script fer 6 Months soon or the other two scripts I'm waiting on, it's me working on Hard Country till chrimbo.
I'll defo get the two chapters finished and maybe get the third issues layouts done...
Which may see it done fer next year instead of 2012.

Death Race

I was asked a couple of weeks ago by me good mate Paul Birch if'n I wanted to do the layouts on the new Death Race comic coming out from Blue Water Comics.
'Course I said yea, I'll have a go, I can't seem to say no to anything and I've done the first 2 issues.
Actually looking forward to seeing it all come together, and what Mel Smith (the artist on the book) will do with me layouts.
So here's a few pages to show.

Sketches

As I haven't done any sketches fer a while I decided to doodle a couple.
And here they are.

BICs Boys

Four grumpy men reminiscing about past Comic conventions, cheaper comics and smaller waistlines.

Interviewed

I've been interviewed for the Birmingham mail Speech Balloon blog and it'll be online on Thursday. So you'll find out quite a bit of boring stuff going on in me life way back to the late sixties. Least there'll be some art to have a look at in case you get bored with all the words.

A minor distraction.

Ok, Ok I haven't posted fer a while, but I have been a bit busy, honest.
So the third issue/part of Six Months is done and dusted, but you knew that, cuz you all read the last posting.... You did read the last post didn't you?
Anyway, while I'm waiting for Jim to finish the script of part 4, I thought I'd spend some time on one or two other projects that I've got waiting in the wings.
And this short story is one such project.
A little four page tale of survival that was actually written for Insomnia's latest anthology book.
However it was to late, I missed the deadline and so it remained in limbo...fer a bit.
But cuz I've got a bit this "spare" time, I thought I'd have ago of drawing it.
It was originally from an idea, written by my mate John Halfpenny, as a single page horror tale.
But I like the idea so much I stretched it to 4 pages, mainly so I could do this big "reveal" on page 3..
So it's not finished, work in progress and all that, but I thought I give a sneak peak of how I do me art.
So these are the first 2 pages and I hope you like 'em.
There is the possibility of it finding a home when it's done...but we'll have to wait and see.

6 MONTHS, issue three, inked

Here are 6 pages from the now inked and finished part 3 of 6 Months.
Not too much to say about 'em art wise, other than I enjoyed working with all the tone.
Inked in Illustrator, but I think when I finshed all the 6 parts I'll probably use Manga Studio fer anything else. The lack of a rotate tool in Illustrator really knackers me wrist.


So I hope you'all like what you see.

Finished

Well I've finished all the main inking to issue three, just gotta letter it and "tone" it up.
So here's the double page spread finished...
But without the words, well I can't give everything away now, can I?

Inked but soooo small.

And here they are, all inked up.
This 2-page spread is almost done, but I thought I'd show y'all how it turned out.

A little bit of Detail

There's a double page spread in the third issue of 6 Months that I had to do.
A two page spread with 38 very small crime scene photos pinned across three large boards.
As you can imagine it took a bit of time and they really are very small, so a lot of the detail won't be seen.
Fer a bit of a treat, I thought I'd show the sketches of all af the 38 murders.
I tried to make them all individual deaths and to some extent I pretty much succeeded.
There are one or two similar deaths, but fer all that, I'm happy with the result.

6 Months-pencils

I thought I'd show some of the pencils from issue 3.


They're in no particular order and don't give away too much.
I'll show more when I've done the inks, which I'm cracking on with as I type this.



The thing is, there are some issues with Insomnia Publications.
These were the folks that was gonna print this tale of ours. Can't say too much about the goings on, cuz I don't know much about it... yet.
It won't stop Jim and me from finishing this 132 page GN, it'll just be a different publisher that prints it.
When we find one that'll be willing to do so
'Course, I'll keep everyone updated how it all turns out...but fer now enjoy the pictures.

CHOMP!

This is me last sketch that I've done this weekend.
All of 'em were fun to do, and although I'm a complete novice using colour, I'm not too disappointed on how they turned out.
So maybe I'll carry on experimenting with colour.