End of the Year sketch fest...ish

That's gotta Hurt

With "Well Hung Man" finished (just waiting for the spelling and grammar corrections) decided to concentrate on two strips- "Hard country and Josiah Black" both that'll be published next year by Accent UK.
Both westerns (obviously) but completely different.
Later I'll post some stuff that I've done for Josiah Black, sketches, layouts pencils, that sort of thing but for now I'm just gonna post the opening page of chapter 3 of Hard Country.
I've finished off 50 pages of this strip, got another 40 pages to go, so still a bit to do, but I've done a so much work in studies and sketches I'm hoping that it won't take too long.
Josiah Black is about 26 pages with 11 pages pencilled, so I'm motoring on with that.
Oh and there are acouple of other things sidelined as well to get stuck into .
It's gonna be a busy old time this chrimbo I'm a thinkin.

The Shadow knows.

Recent Shadow commission.
Finished and posted...
And Alan loves it, so it's all good.

Done and Dusted.

Well Hung man is finished...
Inked, toned and lettered.
It's with the writer now who's hopefully proof-reading it and picking up all of my typing errors...and believe me there'll be a few.
So in celebration here's another page.

Well Hung Man

The inking is finished..
AT BLOODY LAST!
Laying down tone then on to the lettering stage.
But there's no rest as I'm already prepping the next strip.
Oh above is the first three pages.

And I'm back

Well, that took longer than expected.
So what's happened since last I posted?
Much of the same actually, so close to finishing "Well Hung Man", fingers crossed that it will be this week. Two comissions almost done and working on character designs for a new on going comic that'll be out next year (that'll be them above) , plus "Hard Country" and "6 Months" plus a lot of odds and sod short stories including a four parter for the new "Hardware" book out next year.
See told ya much of the same.

Under the weather.

Man flu and bad tooth ache (that's now become infected) has temporarily knocked me off me feet, so not much in the way of sketching. But worry not, normal service with resume shortly.

Head study

These are head studies of a character for a 6 page tale that'll go at the end of Hard Country. It's not part of the main tale, just a little back-up strip. It's all written and layed out, so all I gotta do is draw it...
Yup, that and a dozen other projects that I've got on the go.
Certainly can't say I've got nothing to do.

Tracker.

Ronin

A character sketch for a project that might (or might note) happen next year.

Delivery men fer hire.

More years than I'd like to admit, my mate and all around good chum Dave Henney and I came up with an all action gun toting pair of delivery men called Queet (Kweet) and Bott. 5 tales were fleshed out and I drew the first one, but nothing came of it.
But I thought, jest fer a bit of fun to bring them into the new century, so here they are all sketched up and the like.

Samurai senorita

'nuff said

Robot Pin-up

Here's a close up of some detail of a Pin-up I've done for Dave West's little book of robot tales.

Three Days- Three Posts. The worlds about to end.

Practising with some subtle pencil tone

Fido

Just a sketch t'pass the day, still hard at work on "aWell Hung Man" but now I kin smell the end a comin'
Yeahah!!

Gargoyle

a Plan...of sorts.

A piece of detail from page 2 of a "Well-Hung man" for Lazy Bones Studios.
I'll be working on this for the next few weeks yet, so I'll be showing the odd image from it, then I've decided to finish Hard Country next, full throttle. I'm putting 6 Months on the back burner, because the writer Jim O'Hara is incredibly busy with his day job and he can't finish the script to issue/part 5.
There are other projects in the pipeline, one is really exciting, working with Shane Oakley and if it comes off it'll be a corker, but that's fer later.
So back to it.

BICS 2011

Tomorrow (august 27th) is the British International Comic show or Bics and I aim to go.
Lookin' forward to going in fact. Seeing old friends, hopefully making new ones and just generally being in geek mode fer the day.
Also AccentUK latest anthology PREDATORS is gonna be released and they 've kindly included one of me little tales.
It's called the Lure and it's a very old tale.
It's something that I wrote and drew 20 odd years ago for my two boys when they were in nursery school...so a long, long time ago then.
By the time I finished it, there were a few personal issues with me and their mum and I never did give them the strip so they could take it to school.
In the late eighties I sold it to Peter Hogan when he was editor at Revolver for the best bit of money I've earned, doing these comic tales, but unfortunately Revolver folded before they could print it.
Then it was printed in the horror anthology KILLING STROKE published by Malibu Graphics Inc in the early nineties.
Then I forgot about it for a while until I started to ink digitally.
I was looking to practice using Adobe Illustrator and the Lure was a tale I picked to re-do.
And it worked out pretty good.
Dave West and Colin Mathieson (Accent UK) were looking for tales to fill their latest anthology so I sent them the Lure and they said yup, we'll have it.
I still like the story, but if I had more time I think I'd have a go inking it in Manga Studio, now that I use that piece of software and not Illustrator.
Oh well.
So, if'n you're popping along to Bics tomorrow, visit the AccentUK stall and buy a copy of Predators, if I'm hovering about I'll even sign my tale fer ya.

The Horde

All inked and such, fer AccentUK's 2OMBIES coming out later this year.

The "Hanging Judge"

Seriously you don't wanna piss him off.

Jest plain embarassed.

Work on "A Well Hung Man" coming from Lazy Bones Studios jest as quick as a can finish it.

New Stuff

A new series to start on, next year perhaps.

doodle of the day.

A doodle a day keeps boredom away

Or in this case-two doodles.

6 Months

Issue 4 pencilled, inked lettered and Done.
A lot of talking heads with this, so it took waaaaay longer than I wanted.

A "HORDE"

Keeping warm

Sum sketches.

That's all I got today. More later this week.

Not Gonna take me alive, Copper!

I'm NOT dead, jest Writing

Well, that was a longer break from this "blogging" lark than I planned.
I haven't retired or giving it all up, just been doing loads of writing, fer three different projects.
And that's not so interesting to show:-first drafts of scripts and such.
Also the 4th issue/chapter of 6 MONTHS is almost done:-15 pages completed, another 6 pages almost there and 1 page I'd rather not talk about. There's always one bugger of a page that gives you trouble ain't there?
So I'm behind me self imposed deadlines, got loads of stuff to do. (And I've not forgotten about certain commissions) It'll all get done...honest...
So back to it, then.

Coloured cover.

This is the cover for "A Well Hung Man" coloured by the wonderfully talented Yel Zamor.
I think she did a smoking job over me pencils.
You can see examples of Yel's work at Markosia Enterprises and Orang Utan comics, where she does all manner af corkin' work.

Well pleased how it turned out and Ken Thomas (the writer of the little tale) is over the moon.
This project of his has been sitting in the very depths of his mind for well over a year now, and seeing it develop has made him a happy man.
Just down to me again now, to start drawing the pages. Fingers crossed I'm starting next month...if I can finish the latest chapter of six months, in the next couple of weeks, that is.

Six Month gubbins

Doing loads of sketches for issue 4 . And here's some to prove it.

Death Race update

Well I finally finished the layouts to the 3 issue Death Race comic being published by Bluewater Productions.
I haven't seen any of the finished pencils by the artist Mel Smith (I think he's still plowing ahead with them) so I can't tell ya if'n he's followed me layouts or decided to go his own way.
What I can show is some layouts from issue 2.
When I find out more, publishing date and all that kind of stuff I'll let you know.
When I see some of the finished art I'll show ya, but until then enjoy me layouts.
Ta fer now

A six month page

Got lots on (and I do mean lots) but my first priority is to Six Months.
Working like mad thing trying to get this episode/issue finished. Almost all of the pencils done (bugger just seen that I've got two full pages not even started yet) and I've started to ink 'em.

As you can see.
This is the first page of the chapter. I decided to raise the dead body slightly up the page which I think works better.

Inked and such.

I spend the whole of Friday working on this to get it inked and finished.
Think it turned out pretty good and more importantly the writer, Ken Thomas likes it,
so I dun did what I set out to do.
Got to get it all coloured and purty and the cover is done...
Just gotta start on the 22 pages inside, so we can say we got ourselves one of those fine and dandy, gen-u-ine funny books.
The pages are all laid out and waiting fer me to get stuck in...
And I'm chomping at the bit to start, it's just that I have other stuff that's higher on me to-do list.
Hopefully, fingers crossed I'll be able start next month...maybe...or June at the latest.
Promise.