LEWISCARTOONS

CD Artwork

2011-07-11T22:53:00.000+01:00

Some pieces of artwork done for a series of customisable Nursery Rhyme CDs, minus the titles and credits and wotnot.

Some kiddie character designs

2011-07-11T22:38:00.000+01:00

A few sketches of random character designs. Love the immediacy of Painter and digital workflow in general - most of my sketches these days are done straight into a piece of software, so I guess this blog is like flipping through a dog-eared sketchbook!

Random artwork

2010-02-22T12:35:00.005Z

Thought it was about darn time I uploaded some more artwork, so here goes! The 'Psychic Guy' was done in Painter, as was the 'Judaism' image (trying some 'oils' there). The bloke with a coat of beards was drawn in Flash, and the bottom image was a combination of drawing in Painter and finishing touches done in Photoshop.

Mr Isaac

2010-02-03T22:43:00.006Z

Had a bit of trouble with the eyes, but got there in the end! Scratchboard tool, digital watercolour (on Italian watercolour paper) and some pencil and oil pastels.

Funny Asimov quote: "People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."

House pt. 3

2009-08-07T16:23:00.003+01:00

I've started adding some colour to the Hugh Laurie illo, but I think before I go too far with this I'll clean up the line art a bit more first. So that should be the next post!

That's better!

2009-07-16T09:39:00.004+01:00

Differential: what causes vague, uncertainty of the chin and jaw area when drawing a caricature of Gregory House, aka Hugh Laurie?

Rubbish, small pictures which had to be scaled up and lost all their detail!

Treat it with a larger, better picture of House/Laurie for the vagueness, and a better pose for a better drawing.

Greg House

2009-07-15T10:08:00.005+01:00

I decided to start a caricature of Hugh Laurie aka Gregory House MD! I'll work on this a little every morning until I'm satisfied, which I'm not at the moment. Some elements look like they'll work okay, some I'm not happy with yet (particularly his chin/jaw area - needs to definitely be more 'House-like'!).

Noir 2 dee too

2009-07-06T10:41:00.004+01:00

So I tried something with this morning's sketch. I loaded a 'medium round dots' paper texture which I got from a 'Painter X Wow!' book CD, and chalked in the grey dots to get some nice shading effects!

The cool thing is I can change the darkness/colour of the chalk I use to get different shades, whilst keeping the same size dots - makes it look a little different.

Old Me

2009-07-03T16:38:00.003+01:00

So inspired by this post, http://heroprotagonist.livejournal.com/350365.html I sketched myself as a possible old person as a 'cool down' sketch of a Friday!

NY Bar

2009-07-03T14:20:00.004+01:00

A chalk 'clone' (though hand painted) of a black and white photo taken by my friend and recent best man Gareth Coles, of a bar in Noo Yoik.

2009-07-03T10:28:00.005+01:00

Quick sketch this morning using mostly the Bamboo pen tool and digital watercolour.

Plasterface

2009-06-24T09:32:00.003+01:00

Quick sketch done this mornin' using the scratchboard tool - I thought I'd try using 'Bristol Board' paper from the 'Painter X Wow!' book CD to see if it makes any difference from using plain ol' basic paper, and I think it does - maybe - still, looks authentically ink on paper-like! (The shading is just a sponge.)

Drag n' Drop

2009-06-19T11:25:00.001+01:00

Horror Comic progress

2009-06-19T09:58:00.005+01:00

I've been working up the rough for the comic cover - it's definitely getting there now that I've added colour to it, but I think I need to perhaps go back to the rough and clean it up properly, as I've just been 'adding' to it up 'til now. Either that or I might start on new cover idea - we'll see!

I roughed out the pose with 2B pencils, and have been adding colour using acrylics captured bristle in Painter X, though with the halftone effect being a bit too big, you can't really tell - and I liked the look of the brush strokes, so will have to experiment with that!

Butch Hairdresser

2009-06-18T16:35:00.003+01:00

Quick sketch I had to do for a 'Top Trumps' type game, where one side of the card would just be a close up of the character's face, flip it over and you see the rest of the figure/the props too - the idea being that it fights your assumption about what kind of person you're looking at, what their job might be, etc based on their appearance alone.

It was fun!

Noir

2009-06-18T10:28:00.005+01:00

Ok, so I felt like I was doodling comic art when I should be doing something else in my art class in school when I did this, but it was fun, dammit!

All sorts of pens were in use here: scratchboard tool, sponges, bamboo pens - and I couldn't resist adding a fake halftone pattern to it in Photoshop when I was done.

Only thing about warming up with drawings like this is it makes me want to do it all day instead of what I should be doing... kinda like being in art class in school..!

Old Geezer

2009-06-16T09:48:00.003+01:00

Quick sketch of an old man's face. Seems like he should almost be a vulcan, so maybe I'll add pointy ears and tweak his eyebrows a bit next time!

Shark Tub

2009-06-12T09:37:00.006+01:00

I had this random image of a shark's fin sticking out of a paddling pool/tub in my head yesterday, so viola! This morning's warm up sketch!

It's three layers, scratchboard tool ink pen on top, watercolour underneath, then I sampled the watercolour layer colours and sketched underneath that with coloured pencils - looks pretty much like what I had in mind!

Charcoal Guitarist

2009-06-11T09:35:00.004+01:00

Ah, reminds me of my days watching 'Take Hart', the kids art show on tv back in the 80s, when I was a young 'un! Tony Hart always seemed to be doing these awesome sketches with pastel, chalk or charcoal on coloured paper - I'm still trying to get close to how good I remember those drawings were now!

Does a bear..?

2009-06-10T10:12:00.004+01:00

I stumbled upon this great blog http://threemeninatub.blogspot.com/ and thought doing a 'warm up' sketch each day was a great way to get the juices flowing before you begin any major illustration work!

The idea will be to use bold strokes as much as possible, and not worry too much about what I'm actually drawing - then post them on this site, no matter what - NO MATTER WHAT, I tells ya

Doggy!

2009-06-09T16:25:00.003+01:00

Quick sketch, using ink and watercolour (well, the 'Scratchboard Tool' and 'Broad Water Brush' in Painter!)

There he is! Get 'im!!

2008-11-12T16:52:00.006Z

Long time no post! Just a quick recent illo done in Painter. Again, deadlines were tight so I new going in I was gonna use a coloured canvas for this one - the rest of it is a subtle digital watercolour wash for the tones, and the main line art was done using a solid black 'scratchboard tool' pen.

The lines are quite varied in thickness, achieved by having the size of the brush be quite big, but using a light touch with the wacom where I could. There wasn't as much undoing and re-drawing as I thought there would be (my fingers are normally sitting on CTRL+Z) when doing the quick lines - I like to keep it looking fresh, but obviously taking advantage of the fact that I'm not drawing with real ink to keep redoing lines until I'm satisfied!

Ah, technology. At this rate I'll never learn the proper craft of inking...

Caricature ruff

2008-07-22T11:40:00.004+01:00

A quick rough done in Painter X for a forthcoming caricature, using 2B pencil and oil pastels for colour. Don't know at this point how finished or in what style the final artwork needs to be, I'll probably still use the ol' oil pastels though! Failing that, some sort of digital airbrush use might be in order.

There's the possibility of doing a caricature for a client, but done in oil paint style on canvas, soon - should be fun! And when I say canvas, I mean the canvas paper texture in Painter and PS of course. Apparently it couldn't be decided if they wanted a formal portrait painting or a cartoon caricature, so I thought I'd combine both and see how it looks.

Will post it as soon as it gets done!

Horror Comic 2

2008-06-23T17:24:00.004+01:00

So, not a sequel or anything, just the next phase of my old-style horror comic cover!

As you can see, no further progress on the actual artwork as of yet, but the details surrounding the cover are now complete. Future cover art can be swiftly inserted 'underneath' the various rips, creases and titles adorning this fantabulous facade, so as soon as I get a wriggle on I'll be able to show you more 'issues'!

The layout of the comic was done in Photoshop, but the artwork will be created in Painter. If there are any effects to do, though, they'll be done in Photoshop too.

Loyalty Cards

2008-05-01T10:04:00.006+01:00

I recently had to create some fake coffee house loyalty cards, which were to be printed out onto card and used in some live action filming by proper actors and everything! Designing stuff like this isn't what I usually do on a day to day basis, but it was fun to have some general guidelines about what was needed but still have free reign to come up with whatever I wanted!

I also had to make fake architectural design sketches, travel agent window posters, and yet another coffee house loyalty card (I called that one 'The Beanery').

A recommended book for some nice, general design principles is 'The Non-Designer's Design Book' by Robin Williams (no, not him) - really easy to read, and some solid principles that can only help with general artwork and design creation - check it out!

I Thor-t it was you

2008-03-27T16:25:00.005Z

Well, 'Thunor', apparently is the Norse God of storms and thunder. Aka 'Thor', methinks. Anyway, same project as last time, this! Again, a pretty quick illo (say about 15 to 20 mins all told?), and a nice layout that I'm really happy with!

Doing these illos really took me back to drawing and sketching in a comic book style, which is pretty much all I did illustration-wise whilst I was in high school - 'How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way' was my bible back then! Though to give credit where it's due, this style of drawing, as well as being a dynamic 'Marvel-esque' pose, really owes a lot to a book called 'Action! Cartooning' by Ben Caldwell. It's improved my anatomy (my drawn anatomy, that is) and styling no end. Well worth adding to your shelf. Check it out!

Ye Gods!

2008-03-27T16:20:00.005Z

A recent project had me 'illustrating the days of the week', most of which are derived from the names of various Norse Gods. Anyway, above is 'Woden', and, though it's quite a simple drawing, I really like the composition of it. It came pretty quickly, as a lot of satisfying illos often do!

Done in Flash 8 with a Wacom tablet.

(No prizes for guessing the day named after this guy.)

Painter Styles

2008-03-03T16:47:00.004Z

There wasn't a lot of time to do 10 illustrations for this particular project, so before going in I had a rougher finish in mind using coloured paper (so I could add colour to what needed it and leave the rest without it looking unfinished).

I chose a tan colour as most of the action was going to take place in the desert. I also had to convey quite a lot of text with one image (not quite a thousand words, but close enough!) and found myself choosing quite cinematic angles. (A handy reference was 'Wally Wood's 22 panels That Always Work!!', which can be found here:

http://joeljohnson.com/archives/2006/08/wally_woods_22.html

These illos were done using the 2B pencil and Digital Watercolor brushes. Thinking about it I wish I'd given the paper some funky rough texture. Next time!

Card games

2008-02-21T14:05:00.005Z

Another greeting card gag - the style on this one is a little looser than before, and I think I prefer it. I have a font of my own which I haven't used on any of these yet (at the moment it's just my freehand writing) which I also prefer, so I'll get that baby installed soon and use it on future cards!

It's also worth noting that I took a different approach to the colour this time too - it seems to suit this slightly looser approach. More experiments and gags to follow!

Horror Comic Cover

2008-02-12T15:14:00.001Z

I love old EC horror comics - some fantastic stories and artwork, check them out if you haven't already! Anyway, I came across some Painter/Photoshop tutorials to illustrate and give an aged look to a comic cover, so I fancied giving it a whirl.

It's at the rough stage at the moment, and the aging effect isn't finished all the way round, but I like the way it's looking already, I hafta say! Some of the aged effects are painted on, some are scanned in from covers found on the net. Some nifty fonts really add some punch to the cover too, so I can't wait to see this finished.

I wasn't sure about the title 'Putrid Potboilers' at first, but it's grown on me now. It also needs other details like issue number, price, etc - anyway, more updates as it comes along! If it's successful there could be a whole series of them soon

Father's Day

2008-02-12T15:11:00.001Z

As promised more greeting cards! Another occassion this time, though most of my other ideas are simply gags with no particular date or event in mind.

This one reflects the frustration I feel looking for greeting cards that aren't too generic, and yet a heck of a lot seem to have the same themes - which don't fit at all with the person I've had in mind! Time to draw my own from now on...

Valentine's Day

2008-02-12T15:07:00.002Z

I have about 30 or so ideas for Greeting Cards along this kinda vein, so with Valentine's Day fast approaching I thought it would be a good time to put this one up! I'm liking the simple layout and strong colours, which seems to work fine on all the other ones I've cleaned up so far.

Will post more as soon as they're done!

Digestive System Gag

2008-01-25T14:25:00.002Z

I love doing these kind of doodles on a Friday afternoon. Most start out life in my sketchbook which I carry around with me, and anything I think particularly interesting/funny ends up here.

I'm not sure why having half a colon would make you feel nauseous, but it can't help, right?

Porsche Caricature

2008-01-23T17:00:00.001Z

I was asked by a friend of my brother's to do a caricature for his sister-in-law and her boyfriend for Valentine's Day. I've done quite a few of these things before (check out my website!), and my usual procedure is to draw the line art with pencil and paper, scan that in and then colour it in Photoshop.

This is the first time that I did everything straight into Painter, and I gotta be honest - the results are better than before! About the only thing I did in Photoshop was the final tonal adjustments and I added a couple of lens flares to the car's headlights. Bish bosh! Done.

And I know you can't see the subject photographs, but you'll just have to trust me that the caricatures are rather good.

I used an actual reference photograph of the car, and squished it to make it look cartoony. Then I cloned and auto-painted it using Oil Pastels, then pasted this clone into my final artwork and started working on it with more oil pastels (but with no clone this time). The result is a pretty darned accurate-looking car that hopefully looks drawn, too!

New Year Fitness Resolution

2008-01-16T16:57:00.002Z

I was worried that the gym I go to in my lunch hour (I typed 'munch' hour first, but I suppose that's what it is too) would be overrun with keen fitness boffins come January - they didn't materialize, though. Anyway, I still came up with this gag!

Not sure why I coloured it in these pale blues and pinks - it reminds me of toothpaste or something. I like the crispness of black and white cartoons, but I also like some sort of toning or colouring of some sort - will experiment with this kind of thing more!

Mind the Step

2008-01-10T16:57:00.001Z

More gags as promised! I was trying to come up with some cartoons that would work in Welsh as well as English - whether that be because there's no dialogue or text, or whether it's because any text would be easily translatable. This gag falls into the latter category, so I have a version which reads 'Cymerwch ofal o'r step'. The goal is to send these out to local Welsh mags and papers and see what the feedback is!

Haircut Gag

2008-01-08T16:56:00.001Z

Happy 2008! I'm making it my goal this year to really work on some cartoon strips and gags. My style tends to gravitates around certain similar themes depending on the subject matter or type of gag, but I'm always looking to nail some sort of style that I'm happy with that suits the kind of things I come up with that's a bit more consistent.

Anyway! After much doodling (and pouring over cartoons on the interweb) I came up with something like the above, and I'm quite pleased with it, I must say.

More rubbish gags and strips to follow!

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-17T12:06:00.002Z

And to one and all a happy new year!

Bears in Ill-fitting Hats

2007-12-12T10:22:00.001Z

I love online group sketch idea things!

This one is for a group on flickr where you submit bears in ill-fitting hats - my effort is above, and a link to the group is here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/bears-in-ill-fitting-hats/

This one was a very quick sketch (about 10 mins) in Painter, roughed out with the 2B pencil, 'inked' with the scratchboard tool (found under 'pens') and coloured with oil pastels. A bit of blending with 'just add water', a couple of gradients to fill out the background and I'm done!

Train Ride

2007-12-07T15:22:00.001Z

An illustration for a History Books project - this particular page needed a train cab from the late 40s / early 50s.
There's some more detail in this one, as requested by the clients - but I've tried to strike a balance between suggesting everything and painstakingly depicting everything. I tried instead to give an overall feel of detail by including some in appropriate places, and hoping it all adds up to a satisfying image.

Pilate

2007-12-07T15:21:00.002Z

The things you have to do, eh? I was working on a series of presentations involving 'hands' and needed to find a copyright-free image of Pilate washing his hands of responsibility - or something. Anyway, could I find one? Well, no. So I had to rustle up a quick illustration using Painter, and here it is!

I'm pretty pleased with it - I like the general tone and colours, though I think it needs some extra bits of detail here and there. I used oil pastels and the 2B pencil (and some graduated fills).

All in a day's work! (Well, about an hour or so).

Polar Bear Design Sketches

2007-11-23T13:57:00.002Z

Here's a series of sketches where I had to design a Polar Bear character.
At first I thought it might be quite tricky to come up with enough variations of a polar bear, but done in a simple cartoony style, a long line here and a shorter distance there made all the difference and completely transformed one design to another! It's quite hard to do simple drawings too quickly, as a slip of the pen can alter the look of something too much and end up not looking like the image you were going for.
But I was really happy with the way these turned out, and am getting really comfortable sketching straight into Painter.

My Team Your Team

2007-11-13T16:13:00.001Z

Have had loads of fun playing this game which I was shown from Kevin Cornell's excellent 'Bearskinrug' site (http://www.bearskinrug.co.uk/). Basically you play with another person and try to come up with superhero types that beat the previous character's skill or power - the more ridiculous the better! This pic is a run of heroes my girlfriend and I did recently.

I found it a nice way to relax and doodle, and you tend to come up with characters that you wouldn't otherwise think of doing. Give it a whirl!

First post!

2007-11-11T20:33:00.001Z

Well here we go, my first post to my new blog! I've chosen a piece I'm currently working on in my day job as a designer and illustrator. It's for a series of books telling recent significant events in history (first car to the town, huge storms and snowfalls, that sort of thing). Anyway, I did it all in Corel Painter X on a Wacom tablet (as is most of my stuff these days), and is the first time I've illustrated anything like this - it's come out pretty well, methinks!

Any comments welcome, more stuff to follow soon!