Thursday, December 31, 2009

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.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

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.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Bounty be some trouble ahead!

Illustration,sketch,ink,Graeme Neil Reid

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!

Monday, December 28, 2009

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.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Friday, December 25, 2009

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.

Thursday, December 24, 2009

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!

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

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).

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Strong arm tactics!

Worlds Strongest Man,Graeme Neil Reid,illustration,advert

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.

Monday, December 21, 2009

Jonday - castle rock

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

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Sunday, December 20, 2009

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!

Friday, December 18, 2009

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?

Thursday, December 17, 2009

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.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

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.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

And now, the end is here...

Doctor Who,Illustration,Graeme Neil Reid

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.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Jonday Time machine

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

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, December 13, 2009

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!

Friday, December 11, 2009

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.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

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.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

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.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Get ready for action, set thrills to Maximan!

Zenith,Maximan,2000AD,Graeme Neil Reid,Comic,illustration

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.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Sunday, December 6, 2009

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.

Friday, December 4, 2009

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.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

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?

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

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?

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Does everything a spider can...

Spider-man,illustration,Graeme Neil Reid,Comic

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.

Monday, November 30, 2009

Jonday - The Beasts of old London Town

So I was hoping to get clearance to show something hot of the presses, but it hasn't come down the pipe. Instead let's take a trip back, waaaaay back more than 12 years ago to when I had high hopes of working in comics. I was regularly producing my own stuff, and selling it through various branches of Travelling Man, where I later worked.

Here is one complete mini comic from an anthology title I put together called Kingdom of The Beasts. Still want to use that title for something else at some point, so don't nick it if you like it. No letters on this, not sure where they went! I think you can probably guess much of the story of the adventures of Mr Thorndyke and Mr Codd.

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

Enjoy!

Friday, November 27, 2009

Surfing the archives again

I think this was my first fully digital attempt at a comic illustration from a few years ago - not a pen or pencil or even layout doodle in site. The Silver Surfer figure was created in Poser (ver 4 or 5 i think) and dropped into photoshop to be painted up along with a spacey background. Would probably change most of this now, at the time i was busy just concentrating on experimenting with different digital techniques rather than the composition and overall image, but it served it's purpose at the time and i learnt what i needed to from it.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Oola, a sexy Twi' lek - Sketch.




A proper sketch this week. This was a spare piece from my trip to Lille Comic Festival. As much as I would hope to be constantly busy from ten till seven at these events, there is always a little down time between fans and I keep myself amused by continuing to sketch. Usually Dare, Batman or Terminator portraits but occasionally I try my hand to some cheesecake. Always a bit partial with my sweet tooth and the practice is good.

This character piece is of a sexy Oola (the dancing Twi' lek from Return of the Jedi) A few years ago I had the pleasure of meeting the actress Femi Taylor who played the part of Oola at a Sci-Fi convention in Loughborough University. Myself, Colin MacNeil and Wil Simpson were asked to sketch Femi over the course of an afternoon. Too say I was star struck would be an understatement. She was positively delightful (mischieviously a little flirty too) My sketch then really didn't do her justice and I spent the rest of the convention working a better piece before she left. The Fallen Angel post (previously shown here) helps give you an idea of the pose I eventually used for her in her character Oola.

Anyways. About time I actually included a proper sketch here for the blog. Next week... Death.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

October Competition - Winner reminder!

With only five days left in November we still haven't heard from the October Competition winner, Heyoka James. If no contact is made by the end of this month a new winner will be selected.

And obviously everyone else has only five days left to enter this months competition!

Recent!


Some recent work today, the cover to Cubicle Seven's RPG book, 100 Horror Adventure Seeds. I enjoyed doing this one, and a bunch of the composition was done with a simple 3d program in an attempt to nail my perspectives. Initially the roughs were in more of a psychological horror mode, but the company was looking for something a bit more mainstream (I'm loathe to say 'teen horror' but, well, I think that nails it), which turned out to be a lot of fun for me.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Happy Who Day! (yesterday)

Doctor Who,Tom Baker,Graeme Neil Reid,illustration,Comic

Yup, even more Doctor Who from me this week. Finishing up a big job this week so it's a dip into my archive and a one page Doctor Who strip done in 2001. 'Very Short Trips' was done with the idea that I'd do a page strip of all the previous Doctors but that never ended up happening. Those who follow Doctor Who closely will know that there was a book called 'Short Trips' (a collection of short stories about the Doctor) released around the time that I'd done this by Big Finish, so with the strip being a page long it made sense to call it 'Very Short Trips', well it did to me.

Also, yesterday, was the birthday of the TV show, having first aired back on the 23rd of November 1963. Happy Birthday Doctor Who.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Jonday - The Quest for Adventure

So hey, here's one fresh off the...er... monitor. I was asked by a zine if there was any possibility of reworking a piece from last year to closer fit a particular game world. It's a long story to explain fully, but I just finished the rework:

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us



And for the far too interested, here's the original prior to rework:

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Repeat Offender Post - Alex Ronald!

Well, we said he'd be welcome back any time and he took us on our word, Alex is back and with another cracking painting!

"Yo! Adrian! Adrian!"

Jon asked in the comments last time Alex dropped by if he had a website where he showed off his work, it appears that Alex is neglecting his duties of sharing his wonderful work with the world wide web so please leave comments insisting that he fixes that problem or at the very least continues to supply Scotch Corner with these great examples of his work!

Alex used to be a regular on 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.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Sole survivor



Well at one point in continuity - think he's lost that status in the comics these days and is one of thousands of kryptonians. Haven't read a Superman comic in ages as everytime i picked one up his continuity and origin, parents (alive or dead?) status etc had changed dependant on the creative team and i gave up. Just picked up Secret Origin by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank though and it's shaping up well so i might try the main titles again at some point.

This was illustrated in flash pre my recent Hulk and Wonder Woman posts done in a similar fashion. Unfortunately it's a sign i wont be posting new stuff for a while as my daughter is spending more and more time in hospital so my free time is at a minimum. So, apologies in advance for anybody who has already seen the work i'll be digging out of the archives for the forseeable future.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Silencers.



Here is a piece from the vaults.

City of Silence was originally created for Epic Comics back in 1992. Written by Warren Ellis the cyberpunk story was a near showcase for me (thank you, Warren) and still remains my personal favourite work. Unfortunately Marvel decided not to release the book and the rights reverted back to Warren and myself. The series eventually saw print at Image in 1998 and I decided to re-ink and re-size the artwork for the new edition. D'Israeli coloured the series.

This week I have decided to showcase the cover. My first 3D created image. This was done on computer as it was the only way I could 'paint' in colour at the time. I still use 3D models in my work but more for reference now and perspectives for cityscapes than for finished work. It can be a great time-saving option choosing a digital path.

Perspective. Before all the computer nerds start ripping the pages apart please bear in mind that the artwork was created on a P200 processor (work that out yourself!) with 128MB RAM and a 2GB hard drive nearly ten years ago. You can barely send an email with that limited spec nowadays. I was self taught on 3D Studio Max for a few weeks and all facial details were painted in by hand in Photoshop (as I hadn't learnt texture mapping at that point) With that caveat I think this cover has some value. There are a couple of places where my lack of knowledge and ability let me down but Gitane's face (with the scar) still pleases me. The intense expression on her face is a favourite.