She-Hulk.

As much as I love blue-skinned woman (Enki Bilal's Jill Bioskop is a favourite) the equally lovely Jennifer Susan Walters AKA She-Hulk is a very close second (albeit a different hue, literally)For this colour sketch I kept the image simple and flirty.

More artrage scribbling

Trying out the pencil in Artrage 3, and labouring over trying to replicate my real-world pencil techniques in the program rather than as a simple sketching tool which is what I was using the older artrage for in a previous post. Not yet sure it is worth ditching the paper work yet, as Artrage is still taking just as long, if not longer, than the traditional path.

Bounty be some trouble ahead!

Just like Jon said yesterday I've also done pretty much nothing since around last Wednesday and have been enjoying a great Christmas break. I broke my 'break' yesterday afternoon to do a quick ink and colour pen sketch of that famous bounty hunter from the Star Wars films 'Boba Fett'.

Fett was probably the first 'cool' character in my young eyes that I instantly disowned my affection for when he so stupidly died early on in 'The Return of the Jedi'. Never judge a book by its cover goes the saying and indeed Boba Fett looked the part but when it came down to it he was a costumed dork. I remember waiting throughout the rest of the film the first time I saw it for his triumphant return as surely he couldn't have just been finished off by a hole in the ground with some bendy teeth sticking out of it (remember kids this was the pre-CGI version on the big screen). What a disappointment Boba Fett turned out to be.

Enjoy what is left of 2009 and have a great Hogmanay!

Jonday - Festive Tween week

So it's that limbo time between Christmas and New Year. This year I'm taking a break from work and kicking back with the family. However Scotch Corner rolls on relentless!

This is a thumbnail painting which is the first stage of a piece of personal painting. Bit of ArtRage 3, bit of Photoshop.

Ho Ho Ho

Merry Christmas one and all. This is from a Christmas card i did last year (i think) homaging the Classic New X-Men cover.

Xena, Warrior Princess.

Another cheesecake piece.

I loved the original Xena series (before the later epsiodes got silly) Lucy Lawless was an astounding presence on screen and the costume looked practical (if a little skimpy at times! ;) I worked up three different poses of the character and decided to colour this one for my blog. Great to see Lucy return to our screens in the new Battlestar Galactica and this series may well spur me to do Starbuck for next week.

Vote now!

winter is here!

As it is all across Europe. And other places too. Nipped out to get some shots of the rare snowfall earlier and figured they were good to share. Some textures and some broader shots, mostly taken up Calton Hill (hands still defrosting, you'd think I didn't have gloves or something).

Strong arm tactics!

I've recently finished a job illustrating an animated advert promoting the 'Worlds Strongest Man' competition for Virgin's digital channel 'Bravo'. I've written a piece about the work which you can read over on my blog. This was a lot fun to do and I hope I get to do some more. Merry Christmas everyone, hope you all have a great holiday!



All of this work is © 2009 Virgin Media.

Jonday - castle rock

Messing about with Artrage 3 still in my scant spare moments. Here's a sketchy thing in progress!

Repeat Offender Post - Alex Ronald!

With great pleasure we welcome back Alex Ronald to the Sunday Guest Post and what a picture he's painted! The third Doctor as played by Jon Pertwee and one of those most meddlesome pepper pot monsters a Dalek, excellently rendered and full of 70s goodness.

Alex used to be a regular on Judge Dredd in the 90's but just now he's painting magazine covers and promotional art for Ruffian games in Dundee as well as concept art for indy film studios Black Camel pictures and Mothcatcher films.

So that's the third contribution we've been lucky to receive from Alex and he's always more than welcome in these parts!

The Guest Post on Sunday is open to all who wish to take part, so click here and join in!

The first signs of snow

To add to my current list of woes my computer is now officially gubbed, so no interweb apart from at work - aaargghhh! A few snowflake brushes created for this one, so ideal for a Christmas post.

p.s. anybody know any decent 'computer fixery dudes' (as my normal dudes have all gone to sunnier climes) in Dunfermline area?

Tank Grrrl.

Tank Grrrl (sic) has always been a favourite character right from the early days of Deadline magazine and following series. Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett's spunky heroine and her boyfriend Booga hit a note of anarchy on release that few other characters have touched since. Over the top and downright rude and offensive and entertaining. How could it fail to amuse this adolescent mind? That glorious work continues with the added visual flair from Rufus Dayglo and should be actively tracked down!

This early morning sketch is proving popular with fans on the convention circuit too and I added an Antipodean flavour to the helmet for this image but with a Tank Grrrl twist. No they're not shells. Work it out for yourself.

U r doing it wrong?

Or am I? This is a play about with various brushes on the new Artrage 3 painting program - some oil brushes, some palette knives and some other bits and bobs. It's a fun and affordable program which is well worth a look. Someday I'll try and make something representational with it.

EDIT: Click the image to view it larger and see more of the brush effects.

And now, the end is here...

Christmas has brought me a few last private commissions for the year and one of them is a Doctor Who illustration. Very nice to be drawing Mr Tennant one last time before he gets sent on his way on the first day of the new year. These pencils are just a section of the finished piece.

Jonday Time machine

Using my Tardis I have travelled back through the time streams to make my Monday slot. So ArtRage 3 is out, and I'm really enjoying all the new features. To paint a nice yellow twig!

Bigger:

Sunday Guest Post - Derek Dow!

Hi, my name's Derek Dow, tho most of my work is posted online under the name 'artmunki'.

I wouldn't consider myself a pro yet, but I'm working on that, having just escaped from naff-job purgatory. I mess around with photoshop, mostly colouring other folk's art, but every now & then I find time to crank out something of my own too. And yes, I'm a definite Scot - bred, born & (currently) domiciled in Glasgow. I don't have a proper website sorted out at the mo, but you can check out some of my stuff on my devArt page

The piece I've sent along for Sunday Spot selection was suggested by Gary (probably cuz I don't think he's seen much of my other stuff). I did it last year to enter an open submission for an artbook produced by Imaginary Friends Studios, and was lucky enough to be selected, so you can find this in the 'fan art' section of The Pepper Project. And one of these days, I'm sure I'll manage to do something else which I'm as happy with as I was with this piece!

Many thanks to Derek, and remember that anybody can take part in Scotch Corner and become a guest contributor (yes, we mean you reading this!) so click here and take part!

Birds of Pray

Still a busy hospital week (and the wife's birthday today too) so something else quickly dug out from the past. From memory it was painted up in photoshop (but the type may have been illustrator - can't remember)

Oh, and it's not a typo (before you all start) - just a play on words. Right gotta go, thats my two spare minutes used up.

Joker. 'Why so serious?'

This week's post is the Joker. Been a very popular sketch this one (especially after I changed the composition from a side profile) Many requests for this at Lille and previous festivals. More so than Batman! I have included the original layout below for reference. I don't generally use a pencil but instead sketch out the design in marker pen and then tighten up with layout or 80g photocopier paper. My 'tracing' approach is always scunnered though when fans provide their own 260g sketch books for me to work on and I have to resort to 'aquiring' fellow artists and colleagues pencils to draw with. I still have a pen from Cameron Stewart after our Lille trip and more than a case worth of Chris Weston's markers from Bristol!



Anyways. The Joker. I like this pose a lot and the addition of the playing card helps the composition. The actual card changes from sketch to sketch depending on what mood I am in but mostly remains the Joker of the pack. The Joker's eyes are my favourite and I was especially pleased with the bleached-out effect in the original layout. Kinda lost it when inking the sketch but will get it right next time. Biggest influence for this sketch? Brian Bolland's Killing Joke. A difficult character to do well... too many artists turn him into a distorted paody of the original villian and he ends up looking like a melted Spitting Image puppet. The performance by Heath Ledger is possibly the closest to the best Joker in years and another influence on this sketch.

Simple Character

A simple bit of character design today for a company logo (text required). The client wanted simple bold flat colours and clean line work. For someone who enjoys the intricacies of details it was a lot of fun to do something at the other end of the spectrum. For and (C) Reality Deviant Publications, now Gunmetal Games.

Get ready for action, set thrills to Maximan!

From a very American superhero last week to more my cup of tea and a very British take on a superhero. Back in 1987 the weekly UK science fiction comic, 2000AD, was producing a wide range of different stories and encouraging a lot of new talent. One of the stand out strips from that time was Zenith, written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by new comer Steve Yeowell. I remember being very taken by Steve's artwork, so much so that I sat and copied the second page from the story line for line (I found it the other day and its pretty close to the original).

The start of Zenith shows the very end of a battle between two super soldiers, Maximan from the UK and Masterman (boo hiss) from Germany. In the first page of the story you see a newsreel picture of Maximan lifting a Tiger tank and that image has always stuck with me.

Zenith ran occasionally in 2000AD over the years and has built up something of a cult following especially as legal wrangling has held off any further reprints of the series. It's a shame really, more for Steve than I'd have thought for Grant but I could be wrong about that? The only reprints outside of 2000ADs own 'Best Of' comic are those by Titan books (some are finishing on Ebay this very day) but even they didn't reprint the final story. I hope sometime in the near future that there will be a resolution to the problems as I know that my bookshelves could happily include a new edition of this great story.

Jonday Smush

Quickie sketch what I just drawn!

Sunday Guest Post - Gibson Quarter!

Loads of goodies to see in this super-sized guest post from Toronto's finest, Gibson Quarter!

Hi Gang!

I'm Gibson Quarter and I'm a comic penciller. I'm currently published in 'Wasted' with Alan Grant - we do the 'War on Drugs' strips. I'm also a semi-regular for the Futurequake boys. I've been in past (and upcoming!) issues of Zarjaz and Futurequake . Details of this work and lots of other goodies can be found on my blog at: http://gibsonquarter27art.blogspot.com/

While I'm not OFFICIALLY Scottish, I'm happy to report that I'm the next best thing...Canadian! ;-)

I do have a great number of Scottish friends and hope to make more at next years Bristol Con, which I'm booked in to attend. Please came by and say hi! I'll be the one talking to Gary Erskine with a funny accent!

All the best, Gibson Quarter

And for extra goodies Gary has supplied us with two pages of Gibson's work which Gary inked for "War on Drugs' in Wasted.

Beware of Wet Paint

Ok, this one is a fine art piece full of deep philosophical hidden meanings. Prints are available for a mere £3000.

On the other hand - no real reason for it other than experimenting and mucking about while creating some new photoshop splatter and paint brushes.

Death.

Another sketch from Lille. Death is becoming my second faourite sketch after Oola, the Twi' lek. More cheesecake but prettier than Dredd. I added a flock wallpaper background to the sketch for texture (and in keeping with the character) Finishes off the picture nicely. Chris Bachalo was the artist who most inspired this piece. He really captured that young Gothic emo-chic look beautifully in the Gaiman series. Fragile and delicate. Like a young Siouxsie Sioux?

Would probably continue to work on some more images of Death. Maybe for a future post?

October and November Competition Winners!

Two winners to announce. First up is the November winner for Gary's superb signed and sketched hardback book of the 'Lords of Misrule'. And the prize goes to Josie P. Jacobi (posting as Herne) for her amazingly long comment. Gary had this to say of the winner:

My choice for the winner is Josie P. Jacobi. Granted there are two parts to the entry but I don’t register it as a double vote. Twitter frustrates me so much with the 140 character limit so I understand where Josie is coming from with an enforced mark. A hugely mammoth entry. Glad she spent the time writing in for the competition.

And we also had our first 'no show' for our October competition and sticking to our own rules a new winner has been selected, and the prints go to Atom for his Goblin Market Report comment.

Both winners will be contacted shortly.

Comic week

Another page gets squeezed out in my spare time, in what seems to be comic week on Scotch Corner, which I suppose should be no surprise considering our line-up. Page six of a wee short about faerie abductions which is beginning to near completion. Must find more time in the day - Gary, how can I do that?

Does everything a spider can...

I only like some superhero characters and I realised recently that the ones I like are mostly based on which ones had TV shows or films in the 1970/80s. So things like Spider-man, The Hulk, Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman all get a look in but other than that I'm not one for superhero comics in particular, unless of course the art or story is of a high standard.

So, because I like Spider-man (who doesn't like Ditko, Romita, Kane etc.) and to lend support to Tom's great Make 'Yours' Marvel competition I thought I'd draw everyone's favourite neighbourhood spider person.

December Competition - Make 'Yours' Marvel!

We'd love to show you the prize for this month but it doesn't exist... well not yet anyway. Tom will be giving one lucky winner the chance to receive an original pencilled illustration of a Marvel character and they get to choose which character they'd like! That's right Tom will actually draw the winners requested choice of Marvel character and send it off to them.

And we all know how much Tom likes to draw Marvel superheroes, remember this piece from a couple of weeks back!

All you need to do to enter this competition is tell us which Marvel character you'd like drawn and why you should win, how easy is that! So leave your comments and as always any kind of comment counts but you have to make sure you think about it as you can only enter once, so make it funny, make it complimentary, make it a song, make it weird, make it anything you want but make your comment count. Please make sure that if you do not have a Blogger profile email address that you leave a contact email after your comment.

Terms of entry: 1. Only one entry per person. 2. Comments must be left by the end of 31st December 2009 to be entered into the competition. 3. The contributors to Scotch Corner will judge the comments left and decide a winner with the contributor supplying the prize having the casting vote. 4. The winner will be announced on the website as soon as a decision has been reached. 5. If the winner does not have a contact email address available on their comment profile then it is the winners responsibility to contact Scotch Corner at scotchcorner@me.com and supply mailing address details. 6. If the winner does not contact us after one full month a new winner will be chosen. 7. All decisions are final. 8. If you are unhappy with any of these conditions please do not enter.