Catwoman. Sketch.

Another Catwoman sketch. Getting to be a favourite.

Artrage Nightfall

ALmost 100% Artrage this one, a program which forces me to make different decisions than I make in Painter 11 (I rely on a lot of blending in painter to create colours, something which I find I'm less able to do in Artrage) which is healthy for an artist's soul, I think.

©AEG 2011

James T Kirk

It was Bill Shatner's 80th Birthday the other week so that seems a good enough reason to show this old sketch of James T Kirk to me.

Jonday - laugh while you can

Sulky gorilla king:

(c)2010 Paizo Publishing
Another vault-post whilst I crunch on LOTR and my Facebook game project.

It's the end of the world...as we know it.

Megaverse was an idea for a new Sci Fi/humour anthology comic that some of the guys from Hope Street Studios had planned to do. Personal projects have got in the way but as far as I know it's still on the cards to do this in the near future.This was the cover mockup that I pitched. I wanted to do something that was very unlike a traditional first issue comic cover. Something odd that might catch your eye in a sea of super hero teams up or robotic warrior cover images. Spitting Image meets 2000ad meets the News of the World.

More iPad experimentation

The colours came out a good deal more saturated in Photoshop than they seemed in ArtStudio on the iPad. This might be a good thing. Apologies for the cuteness of the subject, but I thought I might as well try a good scottish subject.

L is for Lightmaster

Marvel A - Z week 12: Lightmaster

Click on the images for larger versions.

Another obscure choice this week. Think i've only seen this character appear in about three Marvel comics, and i've read an awful lot of comics since i was kid. The result of government spending cuts (probably not the tories fault this time though as he's American), basically he lost the plot and got hacked off over university spending cuts to his physics course/projects and decided to use his invention as a power suit to teach the powers that be a lesson. Unfortunately for him Spider-man was one of his students at the time and was having none of it. Nae luck, big man.

Mr. Fantastic.

Another sketch from Paris Manga. Thanks to Dominique for encouraging me to draw Mr. Fantastic. Really enjoyed this one.

Reject

This was one of several rough ideas for Spiral Direct t-shirts which ended on the cutting room floor along with one or two others.

L is for Living Mummy

Long before the Marvel Zombies crawled about the place there was the undead African tribesman warrior N'Kantu wandering about in his tatty bandages. I've read the origins of the character here at Comic Vine and I'm still not entirely sure if he's a good guy or a bad guy even if he was a member of SHIELD's Howling Commandos. Who knows or cares, it's a Mummy in bandages wandering about getting into all kinds of scrapes, what's not to like?

Just a quick little photoshop play around for this one as I didn't have a lot of time to go into anything detailed.

Jonday: Chilled Monkey Brains

Late? Only fashionably so.

Spot illo from late last year:

(c)2011 Paizo Publishing

Eat up or there's no pudding.

Harrow's gate

This promo poster was made for Mothcatcher Films, an independent Scottish studio working from Dumfries. It's run by Kerry Anne Mullaney and Kris Bird.



I got to know Kris about ten years ago working in the video game industry where he was a prodigious talent for his age. He went on to be a visual effects supremo at Rockstar North in Edinburgh before packing it all in and going into business with Kerry at Mothcatcher.

Their first film, The Dead Outside has garnered numerous award on the European horror festival circuit.

http://www.mothcatcher.co.uk/

Sketchbook Spacefleet

Doodling an alien civilisation in my notepad while in public transport.

K is for kulan Gath

Marvel A - Z week 11: Kulan Gath

Click on the images for larger versions.

My knowledge of Kulan Gath is mostly from his 'reincarnated' appearances in current time Marvel books like X-Men and Avengers. But predominantly he is a villain from the Conan and Red Sonja comics and is the sorcerer part of those Sword and Sorcery books. The character is part of the Robert E. Howard estate and is now actually a part of the Dynamite comic range, transferring across when they took ownership of Conan etc. and is no longer available to be used by Marvel. He is also the main villain in the new Robert Rodriguez Red Sonja movie starring Rose McGowan, but that may well be shelved as it keeps getting new release dates going back to 2008/2009.

Bulloch House (edit; NOT!!!)

Woops! I made an error yesterday in the posting of an image which I assumed was on a promo vid for the product and wasn't. My bad, and a large apology to Cubicle 7 for releasing the image prior to the product release. Instead we have a pen illustration of Edinburgh from Calton Hill. from the same product. © Cubicle 7 2011

K is for Kaled

The Thals and the Kaleds lived on the planet Skaro and both couldn't stand each other so they had a bit of a war. Over a thousand years they just couldn't wipe each other out but they did succeed in mutating their own gene stock with all their use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The Kaleds spotting that their own future selfs would be drastically different from their current humanoid state and decided to create a vehicle to house their future shape. Fronted by the scientific genius Davros they produced the Mark III Travel Machine but amazingly decided to fill them with genetically altered Kaled blobs and one 'Exterminate' later you've accidentally released the worst kind of mass murdering super nutter on the universe,

Doctor Who Weekly was launched in October 1979 by Marvel UK and continues today as Doctor Who Magazine published monthly by Panini Comics who bought Marvel UK in 1995. The magazine has always featured a comic strip of the current Doctor and in 1984 Marvel Comics packaged these stories for print in the US as a monthly comic. In recent years publisher IDW reprinted these stories again with new colouring I believe.

And Jon ring to bind them...

So appalling sub-puns aside this is a very exciting time for me. For the last 2 years or so I've been working on artwork for a new Lord of the Rings role playing game, to be published by Cubicle 7 in partnership with Sophisticated Games.

At last some previews of the art work are being released, and so I can share this one, which went live on Friday: Dol Guldur, home of The Necromancer in Southern Mirkwood, later revealed as Sauron. Click to embiggen:


Art: (c)2010 Jon Hodgson

You can learn more about the game here: http://www.cubicle-7.com/
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.

The Vampire Vixens of the Wehrmacht

This started life last summer as just a one off cover idea for Alan Grant's comic Wasted. It quickly developed into something much more than that and these undead babes have been taking up all my free time ever since. The visual inspiration comes from many of the very dodgy looking video nasty covers I used to see in the rental shops as a teenager but was too afraid to ask for. Having since discovered the true content of the these films, I'm quite glad I didn't see them. This comic strip is a much more tongue in cheek affair and draws it's themes from British television wartime comedies and a touch of the James Bond innuendo and style. If I had to boil it down it would be Carry On Screaming crashing into Where Eagles Dare.



The scripts are being co-written by The Emperor and myself but it's the Emperor who is bringing the truly inspired dialogue and humour to the fore. Nottingham's finest, Jim Campbell is the letterer throughout as well as doubling up as strip editor. The Vixens make their full colour debut appearance in issue 7 of Wasted which is on the shelves of many newsagents now and it's also available in Forbidden Planet.

I'm just winding up the second episode which should be on the shelves in early May and then for the 3rd episode, my feet won't touch the ground. It's bandits high at 20,000ft and the evil Vixens make their first appearance.

http://www.wastedcomic.com/

Saturday...in America

I'm not much of a painter. I very rarely do it. This was done with 'Art Studio' on an iPad, it's the first thing I've done on an iPad and it was VERY HARD. Then next time I try this I should be a bit more confident.

J is for Jack of Hearts

Marvel A - Z week 10: Jack of Hearts

Click on the images for larger versions.

No idea where i first saw Jack of Hearts - he's just one of those characters who pop up here and there in the Marvel Universe - he eventually had a decent run in the Avengers books a few years ago before being blown to smithereens - so due back to life any minute i expect. Initially his half blackened/scarred face was as a result of exposure to a new experimental fuel and the armour was created as a containment suit to prevent his new found powers getting out of control. At some point down the line someone decided to convert his original origin to a cover up story for his true origin as a half alien/half human hybrid to explain his powers and the scarred face (all the aliens were like that).

This is one of the simpler versions of his costumes but i still don't think i'd like to draw that too reguarly. Didn't have a lot of time to spend on colouring this week so not much more than flat colours.

Spiderman. Sketch - Paris Manga.

This Spiderman picture was my second last sketch of the weekend. I had a coach to catch for the airport and my flight home to Glasgow and was in a rush to finish the line of patient people who had waited a couple of hours for their turn. Ten minutes for this one. Used James Hodgkins near dry black marker to fudge some cluds and put in a background building for depth. Well, the fan asked for more detail, so what could I say?

Really pleased with this quick effort. My favourite of the weekend.

More portraits!

Another couple of dudes from the C7 book, Shadows Over Scotland. RN airship captain, and some posh dude.

© Cubicle 7 2011

Nicholas Courtney

To fans of Doctor Who Nicholas Courtney will forever be Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, one of the honchos at UNIT and a friend and nuisance to the good Doctor. He was of course a man of many talents and acting roles but his role as the Brigadier was much loved by the fans and treasured by the man himself, having first played the character in 1968 and as recently as 2008 in the Sarah Jane Adventures. Nicholas died on the 22nd February at the age of 81, he'll be sorely missed and forever remembered as the Brig. "Chap with the wings, five rounds rapid".

This illustration was done back in December 2004 and depicts the Brigadier meeting his alternate reality self the 'Brigade Leader' from the 1970 Doctor Who story 'Inferno'. Apart from it being an enjoyable illustration to do I remember that it was coloured in Painter which made a departure for me as I had normally worked purely with Photoshop.

As you can see I failed mightily to do produce a 'J' for the Marvel A-Z, I had even set aside time to do one but an old client appeared on Friday evening and snatched that time away with paid work so what you gonna do? Hopefully I will find time for 'K' as I already know what I'd like to draw. Fingers crossed!

Jonday waving and drowning

Yo. Here's something half cooked from late night freetime.

Memories are made of this...

These are a couple of the oldest drawings I still have. I spent the school summer holidays between 2nd and 3rd year just churning out one of these practically every day. A big thing for me when I'm drawing has always been the radio for company and a drawing seems to act as a time capsule when I look at it again. The music that was playing, what was going on in my life, everything from that time is captured in the drawing and comes flooding back whenever I look at it again.



I've asked a few people in the past if they get a similar time capsule effect from their old drawings but they don't really seem to.



So for me these pictures ring out Dexy's Midnight Runners, Come on Eileen, Survivor, Eye of the Tiger, Rocky 3 is in the Cinema and the Falklands war has just recently come to an end.

What I'm working on

This is day 3 of this particular splashpage, I'll likely start inking it this evening. It's Nikolai Dante ..of course

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I is for Iron Fist

Marvel A - Z week 9: Iron Fist

Click on the images for larger versions.

Iron Fist was another of my favourite Marvel characters as a kid, he was basically a super powered martial artist. I grew up with the original Claremont and Byrne series which then merged into the Powerman/Iron Fist series - an unusual combination of characters in that series but one of the best Marvel books of the time. Hence my doodle being the original costume. Iron Fist was killed off in the last issue of the Powerman/Iron Fist series (or so i beleive as it's the only issue in the series that i've never managed to obtain). But again, as it's the Marvel Universe, death didn't hold him back and he's alive and kicking in his own title and the New Avengers these days. Turns out it was actually a living vegetable/plant clone copy that had died and not him - gotta love the nonsense you can get away with in comics.

Kate and William - Sketch

Another late post. Corrections for the Kate and William graphic novel are taking over my current schedule. In the meantime, here is a sketch of a Royal Navy soldier (part of the HMS Iron Duke's crew) This will feature in a larger page highlighting Prince William's work with the Navy stopping and arresting drug boats.

There is a nice looseness and roughage about this sketch that I really would like to keep in the finished art. Been working with older brush pens to keep that edge. Recent lineart has been overly slick (and stiff) unfortunately. We'll see how this works out.

Victorian Portrait

A little illo from Cubicle 7's Havering Adventures for the Victoriana RPG. Enjoyed the detailing, and its fun to do something really simple - in terms of it being a head and shoulders portrait - for a change, instead of a larger scene with lots of happenings. © Cubicle 7 2011

I is for Iron Man

Never stood a chance of drawing something new this week so its only by chance that I have this old sketch of Iron Man that can fall happily into the Marvel A-Z and save my bacon. Very good chance you'll have seen one of the two Iron Man films of recent years so I won't even bother to explain who he is. Hopefully have time to tackle "J" for next week if I can actually figure out what 'J' there is to do?