11 Nov 2010

SORREL on the GRID

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Sorrel has been misbehaving recently, and I did warn her not to continue....in the end I had to put her on the grid. As the old expression goes, "You can put Sorrel on the grid, but you can't separate Sorrel from her rats." And that's how come she ended up with a little mini Barnabus buddy with her.

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10 Nov 2010

Dark Forest

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Hunting in the forest, the Partisan watches a pair of enemy soldiers from hiding. This image was a fun exercise in drawing rough, impressionistic foliage and building layers up to form pictorial depth.

31 Oct 2010

Werewolf Rampage

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Here is the werewolf ripping his way through an entire base of soldiers. The US army doesn't issue it's infantry with silver bullets, so the soldiers are totally defenceless against the rampaging hulk of teeth, claws and muscles. Bullets rip through the beast's flesh without even slowing it down.

Here's a quick little gif to demonstrate my process.

WEREWOLF RAMPAGE

28 Oct 2010

The Partisan

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Another sketchbook page scan showing a couple of drawings of The Partisan, one in colour, and the colour version of his patch. The gun was fun, rather than just copying the coolest gun I could find on Google, I delibertately designed it based loosely on several different guns. It was fun trying to think of the form follwing the function, imagining the kind of requirements The Partisan would need from the weapon he took with him. Considering he's gonna Wolf-Out when he gets toi his mission, it was fun coming up with the kind of weapon needed for self defense/small skirmishes en route to the bloodbath showdown.

Text taken from the page: "In human form, the werewolf is an Eastern European mercenary I have dubbed The Partisan as he is involved in a guerilla resistance movement against the occupying American forces. He hasn’t been a werewolf his whole life but he has been one for long enough to be weary of the constant struggle and is a deeply lonely character. Before he became a werewolf he had a family, which he is now unable to lead a normal life with due to his uncontrollable monthly lycanthropy. Angst, man!"

More to come!

26 Oct 2010

Just for a change, some more Werewolf stuff...

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Another sketchbook scan, more werewolf hijinks. The partisan creeping around the shadowy woods silently despatching enemies with his blade, and another version of the transformation.

21 Oct 2010

The Partisan

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A sketch from yesterday of the Partisan, which I doodled during lunch break then painted today before getting ready to go out to work. As well as to further practice drawing this fairly generic "tough guy with a 'tache" character, the other focus of this sketch was to further examine the way he attaches his survival knife to his backpack strap. The answer....sticky tape! But it's also important how the knife is angled away from the body, both for practical reasons for the character to be able to access and unsheath the blade quickly, but also for aesthetic reasons - it gives the character a more interesting shape, and the blade tip ending above the shoulder would also add to the character's silhouette.

19 Oct 2010

Transformation

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A simple step by step demonstration of the transformation of my werewolf guy. As well as incorporating the bone lengthening and contortion similar to other werewolf transformations, this werewolf sloughs off his human flesh in blatant excuse to draw disgusting ripping things. His skeletal system twists and stretches to assume the wolf's shape and increased size, but the hair doesnt simply sprout from his normal skin as it does in An American Werewolf In London.

I am amused that stage three looks a lot like Tom Cruise.

18 Oct 2010

Illustration Friday: "Spooky"

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I am still working on my WEREWOLVE$ project, and this sketchbook scan has also been submitted to Illustration Friday for the spooky forest concept in the top left. The werewolf ripping it's way free of the soldier's meat is also quite appropriate for Halloween...?

The story takes place in an undisclosed Eastern European country. This post-soviet state is suffering under American occupation, and our hero is a partisan who has been despatched to engage an American military base in guerilla warfare. The reason why this lone-wolf assault on an entire American military base isn't a suicide mission is because the lone wolf is literally that: a werewolf soldier.

More to come....

14 Oct 2010

Werewolve$ Character Sketches

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Have been tinkering with a Werewolf story idea under the working title 'Werewolve$' with reference to the John Steakley book Vampire$ of which I am a massive fan. Vampire$ is a book about a Vatican-funded team of vampire hunters, which makes a passing reference to a similar group of people charged with tackling werewolves. Steakley's own personal demons prevented him from ever expanding this werewolf concept into a full blown story (or as I am led to believe, a film script) but ever since I read about it, it has been the first thing that comes to mind whenever I think about Werewolves.

My idea is based on a special forces soldier who is a werewolf. It would make him a perfect soldier, able to heal quicly and possessed on unlimited strength, speed and ferocity. Almost unstoppable.

But remember in An American Werewolf In London, he wakes up in the Zoo with no idea where he is, or how he got there? Same here. When he transforms into a wolf he isnt a soldier anymore. He's just a monster. A monster who care nor understands a thing about the mission. A almost perfectly useless soldier.

He has to strap himself with a metal backpack containing clothing and weapons for when he awakes. It is made of metal to withstanding the pummelling a night of werewolfing would subject it to. It has expanding metal staps like a steel watchstrap to accomadate the werewolf''s vastly increased physical proportions.

More to come...

26 Sept 2010

Halo: Beardy Spartan

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Whilst Sorrel is in the front room smashing never-ending grunts in the face with the butt of her Assault Rifle and sticking plasma grenades to the mandibles of every Elite she comes across, I am in the office listening to Doug Stanhope stand up and painting myself as a Spartan. What a pair of twats, eh? We should be doing something productive with out time instead :(

13 Sept 2010

Cloud Atlas

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Just finished reading David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and really enjoyed it. Am thinking of doing a few drawings of this book, I found the storyline and characters very emgrossing, and the structure of the novel was a little bit gimmicky but was very powerful in it's simplicity. Obvious the layout of this illustration is an reference to the interrupted/continued structure of the novel.

26 Jul 2010

John, Richard and Emma

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A picture of my younger siblings, done as a gift to the two on the right as it was their birthday recently. They both like video games and Emma's particularly fond of Final Fantasy, so this is them as characters from Final Fantasy 7. John (on the left) isnt really as muscular as Barrat, but he's just started attending a gym regularly so he no doubt will be quite soon.

16 Jul 2010

Illustration Friday --- DIARY

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The latest IF entry I have ever done, this is actually last week's theme and I completely missed it. Like the muppet that I am, I still painted the damn thing up. Stupido!!

4 Jul 2010

Immocalata sketch

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Another sketch of a character from a Clive Barker novel, this time it's Immocalata from Weaveworld. She is a very interesting character, full of contradictions and mystery. Beautiful and terrifying, she is a fascinating challenge to capture in a drawing, as I demonstrate above by totally ballsing it up. Will be trying again, and trying harder.

1 Jul 2010

Worked-up Work Doodle

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Just a doodle of a girly that I doodled when I should have been doing what I'm actually paid for. Thought it was quite nice so I decided to paint it up a little bit. Think I will do this sort of thing more often , as I am always drawing when I'm at work but usually just end up binning them. It was quite fun smearing muddy, dark, ugly colours over a rubbish, cack-handed biro doodle. Makes me feel deeply depressed about my life.

Here's the original doodle too:

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30 Jun 2010

Mousey Girly

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Just a study which I've been tinkering with for the last coupla days before trudging off to my job-job. originally a pencil study from Sucide Girls, interesting shadows around the tummy made me want to paint this up a bit. No colour so sue me.

3 Jun 2010

Mamoulian storms The Sanctuary -- Clive Barker's THE DAMNATION GAME

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Another quick image of Mamoulian, doodled last night and painted this morning before work. I have spent about an hour on this so far. This is Mamoulian storming The Sanctuary, kicking ass along the way. I am eagerly anticipating reading the description of Mamoulian and his powers again so I can refine my design and maybe include some more specific details.

2 Jun 2010

Mamoulian -- Clive Barker's THE DAMNATION GAME

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I am currently re-reading Clive Barker's debut novel The Damnation Game and this is my initial interpretation of the villain of the piece, Mamoulian. I have read this novel twice already, the last time several years ago. In this current reading of the book, I havent yet met Mamoulian, so this drawing has been completed from my recollections and impression of the character from my previous readings. I am looking forward to meeting him again, and am looking forward to having a bit of a draw when I do ;)

28 May 2010

Amanda Palmer

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Amanda Palmer has split up from her record label, which means she needs to celebrate her freedom. This is how I would imagine rock stars celebrate things these days, with a rather reserved session of Bubble-me-Do.

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16 May 2010

Illustration Friday: "Equipment"

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One of the most defining aspects of Batman (besides the fact he's a fascist sociopath) is his gadgets, or eqipment. One of the most successful elements of the Christopher Nolan rebooted Batman franchise is the logical origins of all Batman's fantastical gear. This is how I imagine the scene would look if Christopher Nolan were to try and reboot this aspect of the Batman mythos in the next Batman film.

In case you have never seen the Adam West Batman movie here is a clip to elucidate the gag in my illo:



Still, I'd prefer the tried to work Shark Repellent spray into the next Batman film than work Robin into it!! ;)

A crop, for crop's sake.

15 May 2010

Massive bloke with a bunch of guns...

Massive bloke with a bunch of guns...
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My default setting when I want to do a drawing but am not working on a specific project or can't think of anything worthier. Was a bit bored today and stuck in a "I don't know what to draw!" braintrap, so drew a massive geezer covered in guns and had fun doing it.

I suppose in a way I was influenced by Illustration Friday's word of the week "Equipment" in so far as a soldier type guy has lots of it, but I might try and do something a little more focused for IF. I hate it when you see people drawing any old tat (or one of their recurring themes) and show horn it into IF's word. Kinda defeats the purpose of it all in my arrogant opinion.

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The initial pencils, click to embiggen.
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9 May 2010

Kim Newman's Video Dungeon

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Empire are currently running a contest to design Kim Newman's Video Dungeon. They have provided a few pdf photos of Kim to use. Despite these photographic assets, there's already a couple of other entries which are hand drawn/painted. Here is my entry, not a particularly good likeness but I'm quite happy with the overall image.

1 Apr 2010

Persons Reported: Flame Test

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Thought I'd blog this quick experiment I did today. Was trying to figure out what approach I should take to create flames for my upcoming comic Persons Reported. I don't want them to be photo-real renditions of flame, otherwise I could just use a photograph rather than spend hours painting them. I'm trying to create a graphical, dynamic design element to them whilst still keeping a hand drawn quality to them.

I used a varitety of brush and lots of Liquify and a heavy handed amout of eraser to get the above results. Still not satisfied so any comments/feedback would be appreciated.

The above image is in colour even though the finished comic will be black and white.

7 Mar 2010

Persons Reported: Development Work

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This is something I did today as part of the process I am working through before I begin work on the art for my next comic book, Persons Reported.

I thought it would be fun to submit to Illustration Friday too, this week's theme being 'Brave'. Smith certainly fits this description! ;)

28 Feb 2010

'Persons Reported' finally back on track!

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After a lengthy re-write of the script, I have finally got stuck in on the artwork for my next comic, Persons Reported. Here's a sample of the design work I am going through, developing the look of the final comic as I am laboriously ploughing my way through the page layouts and thumbnailing stage of the process.