2nd January '12

First post of the new year! Finally getting back to drawing again after the busy-ness of the Christmas season.
I don't do New Year's resolutions, but each year I aim to get at least one piece finished per month. Last year I managed to complete 16 full colour illustrations, which is a definite improvement on my productivity of the past couple of years. It helped that 10 of those were A5 sized images, whereas I usually work at A3 size... maybe it's a hint that I should try and do some smaller works as well so that I finish them.

It does mean that I have half a dozen larger sketch pieces waiting to be finished, some of which I can hopefully work on this week.
I also spent about 3 hours today trying to get a Wacom Bamboo Tablet, Windows 7 and any piece of graphics software to talk to each other nicely to do a tiny weeny bit of editing done. On the upside where I am now is a lot more comfortable to work, but it is frustrating knowing there are two much better graphics tablets sitting unused in my other room many miles away.

The piece above is an A4 picture that I decided to try and finish, so maybe if I'm very lucky I can get it completed by the end of the week.

7th December '11

One of the reasons I always give up on digital painting is the fact that I usually end up drawing rather generic digital art... I think my artistic muse lives in my pencil.

30th November '11

I've not been particularly productive on the art front lately. Both nights and days are dark and I still feel tired after the cold I had two weeks ago. So now I'm kind of just waiting for the Christmas holidays so that I can sleep, because it's going to be a very busy month coming up... fun, but busy.

This picture is something that I started a year ago. It's on A2 paper (42x59cm), which will be the second largest illustrative piece I've done. It's also not something I'd usually draw. I have very limited knowledge of guns, helicopters or apocalyptic scenarios, and there's a distinct lack of flowers anywhere. But I guess we'll see where it goes.

17th November '11

The worst part about being ill, after the bit where everything hurts, is the fact that even when you're stuck in bed off from work... you can't actually do anything with the time. You just sort of sleep... then wake up feeling rubbish, and try and think of something to do that doesn't involve moving, effort, or focusing your eyes too much. So here's a bit of painting I did last week before I got ill... or had Skyrim. Back to bed now and hope that I feel better in the morning.

9th November '11

There's this painful bit just after inking when all the energy from the rough pencil lines is lost. Hopefully I can add it back during the colouring stage.

7th November '11

Finally completed this one. The original sketch file saved on my PC is dated the 1st of December 2010... so... that's nearly a year ago ^^;
But it is almost accurately seasonal now I guess.
Original is alcohol based marker and coloured pencil on A3 Bristol Board.

31st October '11

Fay Hancocks and myself selling our wares at London MCM Expo - Comic Con this past weekend. We had great fun!
The whole event was even bigger than before, so I don't think I really got to see as much as I could have. But we got to see a lot of great costumes and meet some cool people.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by.

19th October '11

Between the lack of home internet and preparing for the London Expo/ Comic Con, I've not had much to upload.

So here's a work in progress of some colours. The process for it seems to have been - pick a bit, start to colour it, get distracted and start colouring a different bit - so the overall look at the moment is a bit blotchy.

6th October '11

Another sketch. I like flowers

4th October '11

My home internet is down, most likely, until the end of next week. I'm not getting any weird side-effects from not being connected to the internet all the time, but it is rather annoying as it happens to be the busiest month for me needing to send files to people and update things using the internet.
Oh well, I'll have to live without and try and organise things so I can carry on without.

Here's a sketch just about ready to go to the inking stage. I love keeping regular scans of work as it's nice to flick through and see how its evolved and where it's suddenly gotten better, or worse, and you have a record of the process.