Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Sir Winston Churchill and the Ministry of Space

Graeme Neil Reid,Sir Winston Churchill,Ministry of Space

I knew I wouldn't have time to do a painting this week so decided to do a pencil drawing of Britain's famous Prime Minister. Trouble is once I'd done it I fancied inking it and then I felt like colouring it too so by the time I'd done all that I might as well have done a painting :)

Anyway, I've wanted to do a picture of Churchill for a long time and I got several chances to do so in The Dangerous Book of Heroes that I illustrated recently but the chapter featuring Sir Winston only concentrated on his life before his political career and so I missed the chance to draw him as most people would recognise him.

So this picture fulfilled that need and it also lets me pay homage to a great comic book series called 'Ministry of Space' written by Warren Ellis. It was a three issue series published by Image Comics and you can now buy it as a graphic novel. In the story Air Commodore John Dashwood approaches Sir Winston Churchill to commission the creation of the Ministry of Space and claim everything beyond this Earth for King and country and the British Empire. But there is a twist of course and I recommend that you check it out. The Ministry of Space is the kind of comic story that I'd want to create and features the lovely art of Chris Weston drawing World War 2 planes and British Spaceships, who could ask for more? Oh, and I think that a certain Scotch Corner contributor helped out on some inks in this series? But I could be wrong?

2 comments:

  1. Hey man, I'm actually holding your Book of Heroes right now and there's just too many great images to choose from! Have to say I love the double pagers like the ships in the Nelson chapter and the planes over the water in the Alcock and Brown chapter.

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