More Laundry

Another illo fro Cubicle 7's The Laundry product line. Again, from Agent's Handbook. This was a tricky one to do, with the images inside the images, but it all came together in the end. ©C7 2012

A Sketch in Bohemia

My scanner went out of its way to make a really bad go of scanning this in and I had to photoshop recreate most of the tone on the face to be something near to the original drawing. Blasted technology. Cumberbatch as Sherlock, very much enjoyed the second series recently on the TV and we all knew there was a third series already on its way.

Jonday Goblin

It's pencils today.  Another image from the free scenario I've been going on about lately: Link

Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their respective licensees.

King Evil and Lady Death

Here's a cover image I worked on over the Christmas holidays for Curt Sibling's King Evil.
Curt is a big fan of Lady Death so I took the opportunity to do an King Evil-esque adaption of the cover art from Lady Death issue one.
I only discovered the art of the late Steven Hughes very recently but he was a truly wonderful talent. His take on Lady Death is still the best although there have been many amazing artists that have illustrated the strip.

Curt Sibling has been an illustrator for more than 20 years producing his Total Fear strips and many others. I met him at college in the early 90's and it was his enthusiasm and industrious work ethic that inspired me to pick up the pen and start the art game. So it's him you have to blame.
King Evil/Crusaders should be out in the next month or two
http://curtsibling.deviantart.com/
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kurtzibling

Banjo Rabbit

It's a rabbit with a banjo. That's it. Nothing more to see here.

The Correction

Following on from my post from a few weeks ago, this is the final cover image for THE CORRECTION novel front cover. If you fancy picking up a copy you can buy it here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Correction-Thomas-Gibbon/dp/1467935905

The revised cover ended up being a pretty literal take on the original inspiration and done as a pencil illustration. Edits to the crowd, their weapons and the woman's beret were all left in pencil while some flat colours were dropped over the new tech elements and the revised flag. The replacement cover was a change of plans late in the game and i wasn't at home when i needed to do most of the drawing for the new version - all i had to hand was a throwaway IKEA pencil, not ideal but with a lot of finger smudging i pretty much got the effect i was after. It wasn't easy to create the A3 version of this accurately, as i could only find some rather small and poor quality jpegs of the original painting to work from and it was incredibly hard to see lines, shapes and tones - i think it's close enough that it's obvious what it is based upon though.

Leto. Character sketch.

Leto. Character sketch. Haden Blackman. Hybrids. Madefire

Laundry; Agent's Handbook

A recent illo from Cubicle Seven's Agent's Handbook for The Laundry. © Cubicle 7 2012

Mmm-mmmm. That is a tasty burger.

Can you believe Pulp Fiction was released 18 years ago! No way, huh. I've never had a burger from Big Kahuna Burger either…

Jonday Elf King

Thranduil, Legolas' Dad from The One Ring scenario mentioned last week: Link




This image was made for the core set of The One Ring rpg, but didn't make it in due to space constraints. Which everyone was rather sad about. However Legolas' dad has made an appearance at last in the new free scenario for TOR called "Words of the Wise".


Artrage, Photoshop.

Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d/b/a Middle-earth Enterprises and are used under license by Sophisticated Games Ltd and their respective licensees.

Kreepy Kat

Kreepy Kat was an online comic strip from the sick mind of artist Alan Kerr. Alan is a stunningly talented artist who doesn't do nearly as much of his own stuff as he should. This was my guest spot on the long running strip. Check out Alan's stuff from the links.

http://www.kreepykat.com/

http://www.deadboydesigns.com/index.htm

Yellow Leaves

This is a commission from a while ago. Hard to explain.

Morpheus, The Sandman

Morpheus was the winners choice for the DC character competition that ran on my Facebook and twitter pages last month. The winner was sent this original A3 poster.

The new competition, which will run until the end of March, will be in a similar vein but this time around it will be for a 2000AD character, So if you fancy winning an A3 sketch of Dredd, Johnny Alpha, Rogue Trooper etc. then just follow the instructions below to enter the draw.

To enter on twitter: follow @TMCillustration and then simply tweet '@TMCillustration 2000AD character name'
To enter on Facebook: 'Like' the TMC.illustration page and then just SHARE the competition post and tell us your character choice

Incendiary.US

Even working with great licenses and properties, a freelancer gets a creative urge to come up with their own characters and stories. Sometimes sketches, plots or faux-covers are produced to gauge the potential. Sometimes they remain just wistful ideas, and sometimes...

Another personal project I am prepping is Incendiary.US. Can't reveal too much about the story just yet but inspiration comes from the classic car chases of the 70s (Vanishing Point, Two-Lane Blacktop, Bullitt) and crashed with The Road Warrior and Book of Eli. More to follow for sure later this year!

Oh, and remember to purchase the domain name too! Nothing more frustrating than someone hogging your book title months down the line and then charging a fortune for the rights!

this is how i feel

tech problems for a few days, increasing the amount of time at the coal face. I feel like this dude!

Monochrome art from Shadowrun, © Fanpro

"These aren't the droids you're looking for…"

…or "This isn't the recognition I was looking for".

He was some actor, a great list of films and performances I could happily sketch him from especially the early Ealing comedies like 'The Lavender Hill Mob' and the brilliant 'The Ladykillers'. And lets not forget his films with David Lean, I'll have to make time for a 'Bridge over the River Kwai' sketch for certain.

This started out purely as colour Copic markers but I felt I had to add some black ink to it to give the robes weight. Fun though, I like doing things back to front from my usual routine.

Jonday - Words of the Wise Cover

I painted this one in a hurry for a free Middle-Earth game scenario by Cubicle 7 who I spend most of my time working for these days.  Focus resoundingly on atmosphere rather than complexity. You can check out the scenario here: Link

Little Voices

Vampire Vixens of the Wehrmacht will be back on the drawing board very soon as I get ready to work on the one shot for later in the year. This pinup is a teaser for what's to come.
Being a man of God, the Army Chaplain William Morris is used to hearing heavenly voices. In this case the voices take on a whole new form. Is he going mad or is it heavenly or hellish intervention?

The Mighty One!

This is just some mucking about. I haven't finished it really. I seem to have missed my day again....sigh

Starfire redesign

Slightly different from the White Chapel re-imagine topics i've posted recently, Superhero of the Month features character redesigns instead (more of a costume redesign blog rather than re-imagining the character from scratch). This is one that i created for the current Starfire set that is running on the site just now - go have a nosey at the site and the archives - some great designs on the site.

I decided to go back to the characters roots and concentrate more on the alien warrior Princess, rather than the sexual space bimbo aspect currently being overplayed, so tried to create a costume that would be practical in a battle environment but still have enough elements to hint at her heritage as a royal Princess.

And Now for Something Completely Different !

It's official! Roller Grrrls has the BEST DERBY FANS EVER! Many thanks to Marie Roz Maquerelle (Vermine Granger) for this wonderful tribute to our Caught Out Late At Night cover! Working on Roller Grrrls has proved to be a lot of fun and we have really been touched by this suitably quirky response. Marie's photograph captures the original image's off-kilter humour brilliantly! Love her gurning smile! Perfect!

Please check out Marie's wonderful photography at http://www.rocknrozpix.biz/

For more Roller Grrrls please visit the hub at rollergrrrls.com

Underworld devolution

How quickly I forget about the projects some art is for - this can't be more than a couple of years old ok, maybe three, but I couldn't have told you I'd done this until I was skimming my art files for a post. I think its from the Exalted Underworld book, but don't quote me on that. ©White Wolf 2012

A... a... alloooooleeeeesha!

I hadn't watched Day of the Dead for years but it was on the telly the other day and I couldn't stop myself from sketching Bub, everyone's favourite gun totting zombie. To some extent we are all in favour of shambling zombies either for comedy or horror but a zombie on a mission isn't something that happens too often and when his mission is to track down and kill the nasty Captain Rhodes well you're cheering him on.

jonday what

Just messing about with stuff.

Finito

Well apart from the loose ends.
It's taken me a while but the Outpost prequel One shot is done.
22pages of painted sepia art with script by Rae Brunton and Steve Barker, the writer and director of both Outpost movies respectively.
Should be out along with the film in the next few months.

Johnny Alpha

I kind of like the idea of a younger more vulnerable and more sexy Johnny Alpha. Just a thought.

Behind the scenes

Some rough thumbnails and doodles this week from the process of creating the front cover to 'The Correction' - the sequel to the Triple Ignition novel. The initial concept brief revolved around a modern day UK based version of After La Liberté guidant le peuple (Liberty Leading the People) by Eugène Delacroix.

As shown below various rough sketches were created for the author to choose from.








After seeing the rough sketches, the author felt that that maybe the audience wouldn't get the Delacroix reference if the composition veered too far from the original, so we went back a stage and created something a bit more akin to the source painting - at least in terms of layout.

This was then doodled up to check we were on the same track before the pencil stage was started.

This approach was agreed (with some minor tweaks to body positions) and the cover art was started - thanks to the better half (and Logan's toy guns) for posing for all 3 characters at this stage.

The pencils were approved and the colour version was underway - the author specifically wanted a very flat cartoony feel to the characters and colouring - and so this version was produced on the mockup version of the book.

Although this fulfilled the brief and was what was asked for, it lacked some dynamism and punch. At this point it was decided to go back and start again using the Delacroix image much more faithfully - so the publisher settled this invoice and we started again as a new job.

To be continued - will probably post the final cover next week.

Lil Rollers sketches.

The Lil Rollers are a project that my wife and I are working on. The five Grrrls shown here our the first incarnation and were given to the talented Abby Ryder to magically breath life into. Below is one of her finished designs. She has a real gift and we love how she has turned these characters ideas into the Lil Rollers. More of her lovely images can be seen at our rollergrrrls.com hub and on Tumblr.



Abby's personal site is here.

Lamia of Transylvania

A sort of serpentine vampire girl from The Coldest War, an expansion set for Nightfall CCG. Some 3d play in this again, if you think you can see a slight change, that is probably why.

I seem to have done a lot of standing figures against backdrops recently - must find a scene to post soon. ©Alderac 2012