There he is! Get 'im!!

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!