BLACK FOREST FRANKENSTEIN

Frankenstein monster in the trenches pin up for The Black Forest graphic novel by Robert Tinnell and Neil Vokes .  The barbed wire is a specific type used in WW1 - called War Wire for those interested.

GOODBYE SARAH JANE

As a practice I've started documenting my work on camera as well as scans. Here's an example of the changes that can take place on a Timeteam illustration. The first two photos are of my first go at this piece. I was happy enough with it but felt it lacked the emotion of Sarah Jane jumping into the Doctor's arms - hence the total redraw. I wanted to show how happy Sarah was. I'll post more drawing board photos as and when.

Jean Giraud RIP

                                                              Blueberry in tribute.

THE TOYMAKER - Intergalactic Mandarin

This is the colour mock up for the The Toymaker  TIMETEAM illustration. It was common practice for me back then to photocopy a bunch of copies of the art to practice colour svhemes on before painting the original art. That's all gone now and we no longer see the various decisions an artist goes through when deciding what's best - just a bunch of deleted layers. I find this kind of a shame and have a draw full of artwork in the studio from aborted designs to colour mock ups like this.

I've always been fond of The Toymaker costume design - kind of like an intergalatic mandarin , played brilliantly by Michael Gough. In the story the Doctor and his companions must beat his games and this gave me an opportunity to use the idea of the gameplayer overlooking his metaphorical board as the pieces are moved and the protagonists try to survive. Not sure where I was going with the colours - apart from it being fun. These were painted with Dr Martins liquid watercolours ( that you can still get) - back in the 1970s and 1980s every studio worth their salt had a set plus Pantone markers. I used them recently to paint Spikes Harvey Rotten ( see a few posts back).

THE WIGGZ COMMISSIONS

I was delighted to be contacted by big time 2000AD fan Wiggz to contribute  sketches to his specialised sketchbook . He sent me his packaged book that had some fantastic drawings in it already from the likes of Sean Phillips , Bryan Talbot , Ben Willsher , John Burns and many more. It was a daunting prospect contributing to his book of primarily female Judges ( and why not?!) and something I put off for far too long! In fact I was too nervous to draw straight into his book ( in case I fracked up) so drew full size layouts first that I transfered with graphite paper , tightened them up and in some cases redrew before inking two in brushpen and one in wash as Wiggz requested. Below you will see the layouts and finished art ( Wiggz' book has now gone off to a legendary Dredd artist ! ). It was especially fun to revisit Judge Karyn after nearly 20 years. I got my first break in comics drawing her first solo adventure penned by John Freeman called SKINNER , curtesy of editor David Bishop !

A                                                  JUDGE KARYN

JUDGE ANDERSON

                                 

                                                                  CHIEF JUDGE HERSHEY

BARK OF THE ZYGONS!

Here's a recent fan commission - a hypothetical scenario from Terror Of The Zygons. Pencil and inks by me - letters by the commissioner. I think colour would help the final transformation .. maybe one day.

A