Abby's Sketchbook

Recent Sketches

2011-11-21T01:10:00.001-08:00

Just got back from Thought Bubble 2011 which was absolutely lovely. I'll do a proper update about it in the next few days but for now here are some of the digital sketches I took with me!

Imaginary Gumbo - Charlie Hodges

2011-08-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

A new image of the star of the comic we're developing. Every time I think I've tied down Charlie's design I end up tweaking her more, but I think this one is my favourite so far.

And a colour version of her home!

Gumbo and TMNT Pages

2011-08-12T02:08:00.000-07:00

Been working on some more ideas for the world of Imaginary Gumbo:

And of course some more TMNT pages!

Dumpy Little Robot will also be at the Birmingham comic con later this month, so please come and say hi!

MCM Expo Tomorrow

2011-07-29T03:23:00.000-07:00

It's the MCM Expo here in Manchester tomorrow and Dave and I will be there as Dumpy Little Robot. I'll be doing sketch commissions again a bit like these digital examples:

...and Dave will have The Demon Tomato on sale. We'll be doing a special pack of all three issues so don't miss out!

And while I'm here I have some more TMNT pages for you. It has the coolest drawing of a footsoldier ever!

Old School Gumbo

2011-04-24T04:14:00.000-07:00

After flat colouring this image Dave and I decided to see what it would look like with a half-tone effect. I'll finish a fully shaded version too, but I enjoy this version so much! I used to sit with Fleetway TMNT comics all day, re-reading them over and over or copying the drawings. And the reprints of the Archie TMNT strips looked just like this.

A Truly Outrageous Update

2011-04-07T13:56:00.001-07:00

Between too much caffeine, staring at Skottie Young artwork, having a smidge of spare time and a desire to muck about with Manga Studio more, I did some things.

I preferred the Misfits myself. Their songs were better. (part of my slightly failed girly week)

Onto some Gumbo stuff, here is Charlie showing off her wicked treehouse.

A close-up on Charlie, I like this one!

And Gumbo. Oo er.

And now back to work! TMNT ahoy!

Rapunzel

2011-04-05T01:01:00.001-07:00

Still attempting the quick morning daily sketches but they've all been a bit pants so far. I'm happier with this one though! Rapunzel and Pasqal. Tangled is a fabulous animated film, don't let those trailers fool you!

2011-04-01T00:42:00.000-07:00

She's a bit disappointed.

And here are some more pages from volume 4 of Kingdom, which recently finished in 2000AD. Artwork by Richard Elson and colours by me. Again, Rich will tweak here and there and add Gene's blue markings.

Kingdom © 2011 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved.
www.2000adonline.com

Daily Sketching and TMNT

2011-03-29T00:27:00.001-07:00

I'm trying to start my mornings with some quick warm-up sketches. So here's some Pokemon to go along with my newest TMNT pages!

Cardiff Comic Expo 2011

2011-03-04T03:29:00.000-08:00

I spent last Saturday at the new Cardiff International Comics Expo. We didn't know what to expect at first, but the Mecure Holland House Hotel was a smashing venue. The crowd was friendly and I had great company next to me at the artist alley: Howard Hardiman and Geoff Banyard, and the ever lovely Adam Davies (official minion at comic shows) helped me out when I needed to leave my table. The Etheringtons, Andrew Wildman and Genki Gear were the only other people I managed to see, the day was so busy!

Dave's Demon Tomato #1 and #2 both sold very well and I did my usual £10 sketches throughout the day. Here are the main ones, sadly I completely forgot to take a photo of my drawing of the Doctor riding a welsh dragon!

So Cardiff was a hit, and Dumpy Little Robot will be at the Bristol show later in the year. See you then!

TMNT

2011-02-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

Less talk, more art! I'll post more Kingdom samples soon, but today you get some recent pages from the TMNT magazine I've been working for over the last year.

Happy New Year 2000AD style!

2011-01-13T04:08:00.001-08:00

I'll be brief! Things going very well here, if so packed I keep finding deadlines under my deadlines. Still working on TMNT magazines and have done a bit more colouring for 2000AD. Currently available, you can check out a copy right now and see Kingdom. Illustrated again by Richard Elson and written by Dan Abnett. Here are some samples of the colours I did from part one of the new story:

Kingdom © 2009 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved.
www.2000adonline.com

Richard adds rain effects and Gene's blue markings on later and tweaks the colours here and there, it's a lot of fun learning to work in his style. My personal work tends to be a bit more simple so Kingdom takes me out of my comfort zone and makes me think about my colour choices more.

I shall get this place back on track with weekly updates!

BICS 2010

2010-10-18T00:48:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. I don't think we were very popular at BICS this year...

JUST KIDDING! This is what our spot actually looked like:

Hurrah! We had a fantastic time at BICS this year and Hall 2 felt just right. We had great company with us, our friend Tom joined us as part of team Dumpy Little Robot and took us down. Helped us with boxes, watched our table, found amazing food places and was his usual fantastic self. He's on Twitter as @ThermobaricTom and you should all go and say hi!

We also met up with Lydia of Genki-Gear, the best and coolest indie T-shirt business in the UK I'll have you darn well know. Check out the site. It's full of fantastic geek and anime inspired designs!

We were also lucky enough to have great company around our table. Jenna Whyte next to us with her buddy, selling some beautiful prints:

On our other side, Scott Stanford and Catherine with his novel Dorothy, The Darker Side of Oz. Again, the loveliest people:

Opposite us were Jason Cobley (DFC, Captain Winston Bulldog) and Neill Cameron (also of the DFC!). We ended up chatting about all ages comics and I left with a lovely selection of books from them both. Here's Jason and his table:

And not forgetting all the other great tables in hall 2, I sadly didn't get enough time to go around to see everyone but Jess Bradley, Josh, Louise Ho, Will Kirkby, and Nigel Dobbyn I'd like to give a shout out to. Plus of course the Etherington bros, Cinebooks and Fetishman in Hall 1 who I briefly got to visit!

We also had visits from the lovely Lizz Lunney, Den Patrick and Lew Stringer, and a whole host of friendly sorts who really seemed to enjoy our work! Dave did well with The Demon Tomato and we got a lot of good reactions to Imaginary Gumbo. I also ended up doing a lot more sketch commissions than I'd expected, here are the ones I managed to take pictures of.

Power Girl!

Simon of Legacy Comics in Halifax, long-time fan of the Gumbo idea, asked for a sketch of Gumbo. :)

On Saturday I drew Deadpool riding a pot-bellied pig. It sold pretty quickly so had to think of something funnier than a pig to follow up with:

After the reception of Deadpool on a pig/Deadpool on a tortoise, I decided to ruin Batman:

But Batman approves!!!

Awww Batman! :3

And then he was snapped up by the lovely Britt here!

Her lovely bloke Paul then wanted a sketch too. He thought Emma Frost having a nice cup of tea would be just right. I felt that the lady might also enjoy some half-coated chocolate digestive biscuits.

And a close-up:

Leather jackets, hell yea!

I don't think nice Batman would like this one. :(

And Adam here asked Dave and myself to do portraits to add to his collection:

There were some people and sketches I have probably missed, it was all a bit of a whirl but I hope everyone who came by over the weekend knows that we had a smashing time and loved meeting all of you! And if I got someone's name wrong feel free to tell me off. :)

New Methods and Imaginary Gumbo

2010-09-20T02:27:00.000-07:00

I've been making a few changes to how I work recently, hoping to speed myself up a lot more. Inking has always been a slow hard slog for me in particular. Sadly my first attempt in drawing/inking/colouring pages for TMNT in Photoshop started far too slowly, but by the last page I realised I had produced it much faster than the first. If only those first two hadn't taken me so long to ink! Still, I feel very good about issue 18.

"But there are no turtles in this entry! What does that have to do with anything?!"

Faster means I finish my daily freelance work with enough time to get a bit of Imaginary Gumbo done every day. Hopefully, fingers crossed, we will have the first minicomic going up on www.imaginarygumbo.com in December.

For now I will be promoting the heck out of it, we'll be at BICS and Thought Bubble this year with Gumbo and Demon Tomato goodies, and lots of sneak peeks and info will end up on www.imaginarygumbo.com over the next couple of months. For now enjoy some Gumbo artwork. And a cartoony Garrus from Mass Effect for no good reason (insert calibrations joke here).

Ninja Gumbo

2010-08-30T01:36:00.000-07:00

Hello Bank Holidayers! Sadly not a day off for me but I am taking advantage of a smidge of spare time to post some more TMNT pages and some rough ideas from my work for Imaginary Gumbo.

Surprisingly - the TMNT!

2010-08-07T00:57:00.000-07:00

Finally an update! Some of my favourite pages from my recent work on the TMNT magazines.

More Ninja Turtles

2010-05-21T00:54:00.000-07:00

Just a quickie as it's turned into another busy week. Some more pages from my recent TMNT work.

TMNT Power!

2010-05-11T00:54:00.000-07:00

Here we go then, this is why I've been busy for the last few months. I've been drawing comics for a new russian Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles magazine for GeFabbri. It's been great fun, TMNT was a big craze for me when I was a kid! Each issue of the magazine has two two-page comics, one about the good guys and one about the villains. I'll get some more pages posted here next week.

I'm not sure why Bebop and Rocksteady are in the second comic as the mag seems mainly based around the newer cartoons, but who cares when you get to draw freakin' Bebop and Rocksteady!

Slightly Delayed...(Judge Dredd Colours)

2010-04-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

Well I can at least say I've not been neglecting this blog due to laziness or lack of interest. Things have been going okay since I did my first work for 2000AD and Harrods, I have been drawing and colouring some comic strips for Ge Fabbri along with my usual colouring work on Tom and Jerry magazine. Plus I've been colouring the covers for the Scooby Doo magazine. It's been good fun if a little hectic, fitting it all in with my work at the comic shop. But I intend to update the blog at least once a week from now on with sketches and samples from my drawing and colouring work.

So I'll start with a few samples from the colouring job I did for the Megazine earlier this year. Pencils and inks by the lovely Leigh Gallagher. Of course I'm already beating myself up over the colour choices I made in this but I think of that as a good thing. It should mean the next time I get to work on a job like this I'll be better at it!

Judge Dredd © 2010 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved.
www.2000adonline.com

Calendar Continued

2009-12-07T00:44:00.000-08:00

We're a few days in now to the nonsense that is our Christmas calendar. Here are a few more illustrations from Dave that I coloured. Remember to check out the live thread at Something Awful.

And then the return of the Christmas Ninjas who look a bit different this year. Drawn by me, inked by Dave, then coloured by me again. JA-PAN!

It's December the first!

2009-12-01T00:43:00.000-08:00

...which means it's time for Dave's Advent Calendar again! Once again he's been going mad this year drawing cartoon after cartoon for his Christmas adventure. I've been helping out a bit with colouring again like last year, here's a little peep at today's part.

Of course if you want the full effect of the calendar you really need to head over to the Something Awful forums. They're all just as confused as you are, don't worry!

Thought Bubble

2009-11-18T22:34:00.000-08:00

Although I won't be at Leeds this weekend myself Dave will be there representing the both of us. He'll have issues one and two of his Demon Tomato comic for sale and lots of prints of our artwork. With Christmas on the way we decided to get some prints made from our last Advent Calendar in particular. So, if you're like us and tend to get the Christmas Sillies, you might enjoy some of this nonsense:

I'll make Dave put up some of his calendar prints on his blog later, his Christmassy cartoons are hysterical! Look for our table on Saturday then: Dumpy Little Robot.

Leigh Gallagher very kindly gave me a shout out over on his blog and posted some snippets of artwork from his fantastic Judge Dredd story. It's my second colouring job for 2000AD and it's been brilliant fun so far! It'll be in the Megazine at some point soon...whoo!

Kingdom Colouring Samples.

2009-11-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

Well I'm busy yet again with more colouring work at the moment so no new sketches just yet. But here are a few samples from my work on Kingdom with the marvelous Richard Elson. There are pages where Richard did some tweaks on the colours so my pages kept consistent with his, he also did the markings on Gene. It was an awesome job, I feel that I've learned so much from working with him.

Story by Dan Abnett, pencils by Richard Elson, colours by me. Dan Abnett is also brilliant and if you haven't read any of his novels or comics you should go out looking for them right now. It's his bloody fault I've got a box full of Warhammer 40k models waiting for me to finish my colouring work! Stupid massively entertaining Horus Heresy...

Kingdom © 2009 Rebellion A/S. All rights reserved. www.2000adonline.com

Harrods Toy Catalogue

2009-10-02T01:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Cor, that's a few new people isn't it. Hello there! It's been an enjoyably busy few months here but I'm determined to make more drawing time for myself. So there should be some regular updates again around here.

Since I last posted I've finished my colouring work on Kingdom for 2000AD, coloured some Tom and Jerry magazines and ventured out to the Birmingham Comics Show with the Manchester Comix Collective. Had a fantastic time meeting everyone and I'll be doing a little report on all the lovely people I met, along with all their fantastic comics too. Although I didn't have Imaginary Gumbo finished in time I took some prints and preview pages and was really touched by the response it got. People seemed to really take to our big stompy knight and his battle with the bears. Rockin!

One of the other projects I've been busy with recently was this cover to the new Harrods toy catalogue. This was so much fun to do despite some technical problems. When I went to London to take photos in the store my camera chose that day to give up on life. While I was colouring the piece my external hard drive waved a white flag in defeat. The catalogue should be available now and nothing makes me happier at this time of year than a big book full of pictures of toys. Mmm. Toys. I'm still waiting for those last few Transformers Animated toys to come out...

2000 AD Hijinks.

2009-09-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

So I can't apologise enough for the lack of updates here recently. I hope I have a good enough reason for my absence, a nice big stack of work to get through! Sadly this has meant I won't have Imaginary Gumbo printed for BICS in October, but I'll still be there with the MCC and my portfolio, looking forward to meeting everyone. On the other hand my bloke Dave has issue 2 of The Demon Tomato whizzing off to the printers right now, fingers crossed that we will have it here in time!

I've been working on a few exciting things but first I'll tell you about my 2000AD work. It's my first time doing anything for Tharg and co and I'm massively excited about it! Not only is it colouring work for 2000AD but I'm colouring for my hero and friend Richard Elson, on a story written by (cor!) Dan Abnett. I feel extremely lucky and hope I do justice to Richard's lovely line work. What he's sent me so far is yummyscrumptious...have I embarrassed him enough yet? ;)

I'm colouring the last six parts of the twelve-part story, which has already started running in the comic. You can see Rich's own gorgeous colours right now in the current issue, but you should also pick up the previous Kingdom trade:

It's bad ass and has giant nasty lookin bug things and dog soldiers and fabulous puns from Mr Abnett. Awesome! Now, back to sketching and colouring I go.

Haunted sketchbook day four: Boos!

2009-08-06T16:33:00.001-07:00

Boos! Biddley boos. I was at my shop until about 10 this evening, and now my mac keeps crashing. I think it's time to go to bed.

Haunted sketchbook day three: Obi-Wan

2009-08-05T14:18:00.000-07:00

Next time I draw anything Star Wars related, I promise it will be cool and have fighting and wooshing lightsabers and everything. And not just ghostie old Obi-Wan standing around.

Extra! This is cheating, it's a character from one of my comic projects who I haven't drawn in a while and seeing as Tass here is a ghost it seemed like a decent excuse to draw her. Dave and I will get back to working on Nemesis Fleet again, but the story needed a lot of fixing and developing Imaginary Gumbo has been a lot smoother. Still lots of hard work, but I have had lots of hang ups about Nemesis Fleet. I've been trying to make it for so long. Getting a bit of distance from our last try at writing issue one has been good for us.

Haunted sketchbook day two: Gentleman Ghost.

2009-08-04T15:27:00.000-07:00

I approve of any character that has a floating monacle. Dapper villains are the best.

Haunted sketchbook day one: Hitchhiking Ghosts.

2009-08-03T14:32:00.000-07:00

When the crypt goes creak,
And the tombstones quake.
Spooks come out for a swinging wake.
Happy haunts materialize,
And begin to vocalize.
Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize!

Ninja Invasion Day Five: Toyota!

2009-07-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

Y: The Last Man has to be my favourite series from Vertigo, so I can't believe I forgot about Toyota until my friend Olly mentioned her today. Yes, yes indeed I had to attempt to draw her. I've decided to ink up Dr McNinja and a few of the other pictures from the last few days and colour them fully, they should end up pretty nifty!

I need to draw Agent 355 at some point!

Ninja Invasion Day Four: Dr McNinja!

2009-07-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

A quick one, I have not long been home from my shop and need bed very much. Looong delivery day! Had to run comics night at the end too! Here's a quick Dr McNinja for you, I've got a day off from the shop tomorrow so when I've finished my current bit of Tom and Jerry colouring I think I'll update the good Doctor here with a lovely colour version.

Ninja Invasion Day Three: Snake-Eyes and Guest...

2009-07-15T14:00:00.000-07:00

Yes! Two today, as I was extremely disappointed with ole Elektra down there. Snake-Eyes from GI Joe and, er, Nemesis the Warlock dressed like a ninja, as requested by my buddy Den at http://likealittlekidwithabeard.blogspot.com/ I had so much fun with these two!

Ninja Invasion Day Two: Elektra

2009-07-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry all! Day two and already my ninja powers are weak and feeble. This Elektra could probably get trounced by a half dead budgie, it's rubbish!

Ninja Invasion Day One: Zool!

2009-07-13T16:09:00.001-07:00

I wanted to kick my blog back into regular updates so I'm thinking about giving myself a theme each week. This week I'll draw a ninja every day up to the weekend. I decided to start silly, anyone else fancy a Chupa Chup now?

Transformers Sequentials.

2009-06-19T01:12:00.000-07:00

This is something I did a little while back to work on my sequentials a bit and also to try something very much outside my comfort zone. Attempting to draw the live action movie Transformer designs! I'm not really sure how successful an experiment this has been but I did enjoy it a lot. I'm inking these now and intend to colour them too just for my portfolio.

These are based on a script from the UK Titan Transformers magazine, the latest issue is a great hopping on point for newcomers!

I'm going to keep working on my sequentials, I'd like to get a lot better at my story telling. And backgrounds. I'm off work for a week now and intend to do a lot of practising...

Doodle day!

2009-06-12T02:24:00.000-07:00

Still colouring, still work I can't post! So I've been sketching on the bus going to work lately, just to practise my posing.

This is the nonsense I spout when I plan pictures and layouts. I'm thinking about the cover for my Princess Deedot comic.

And at Travelling Man comics night last night I was mainly working on some portfolio pages but managed to fit in more superhero doodling. Mister Miracle and Big Barda! When I've finished reading olde 2000 AD comics I'm thinking of picking up those lovely Fourth World Omnibus hardcovers. I love Kirby designs but have never read Fourth World. Madness!

Dave asked why Mister Miracle was wearing a mermaids bra. :(

Mild progress!

2009-06-10T23:17:00.000-07:00

Just a quickie, and fellow Twitterers have seen these I think, but I'm a bit swamped by colouring work! I inked Death's Head, and picked a happy Gumbo preview panel.

Gumbo plus some MANLY BLOKE STUFF.

2009-06-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

Well as much as I do manly. Which is not very manly, though I try my best! Firstly here is that Gumbo page completed:

And then some MANLY SPACE MARINES. WUUURGH!

And now Kirby's Machine Man. I guess it's kinda manly, ROBOTS. WHUURRRGH!

And finally Deaths Head. HURRR! MANLY ROBOT BOUNTY HUNTER oh wait he's all cartoony looking...

Ian requested those last two characters. Deaths Head was suggested a while back, and specifically in a Transformers Animated sort of style. I don't know if Mr Wyatt would have done a Deaths Head like this though, this is just a basic 'make Deaths Head sortof bendy' thing. I wonder if he has this dude hidden in his sketchbook somewhere?

Gumbo WIP and retro doodles.

2009-05-28T03:21:00.000-07:00

So Andy of Kapow Toys added to my list of sketchbook subjects last week, asking me if I remembered the Toxic Crusaders cartoon. Boy howdy I did! So here's Toxie in all his mutated glory. Also fabulous Space Jesu- I mean Ulysses. Who doesn't have a lightsaber at all. I swear.

And Gumbo's progress. I have more to do on the colouring and there's more rain to add, but I thought I'd throw it up for c&c. It's developing okay so far! More dramatic than I expected.

And yes I have finally watched the end of Transformers Animated. Mannnn. :(

Gumbo's progress (and more Tom and Jerry!)

2009-05-18T01:08:00.000-07:00

Today I figured I would show you all what Dave has been doing for me lately. He's inking the Gumbo comic at the moment and I've picked out a panel from the first page for you to see.

Loverly jubberly, thanks for inking my rough as hell pencils dear! I can't wait to start colouring these pages. It's going to be a very fun little comic. Imaginary Gumbo #0! Don't forget that name! And while we're on the subject of Dave he has also been working hard on issue 2 of The Demon Tomato. You can see a few preview images on his blog here. Issue 1 is still on sale here, or at my shop Travelling Man in Manchester, or you could pick one up with a beer at Sandbar!

Here's another issue of Tom and jerry too that I coloured a few months back. Pencilled of course by Lee Carey and inked by Bambos Georgiou.

Cool but rude.

2009-05-16T03:29:00.001-07:00

Quickie today while I'm waiting for new pages to come through for colouring. Raphael and Wonderwoman from my sketchbook, and a bit of digital colouring to try and make them look fancy.

By the way, hello new watchers! I must apologise to some of my customers who picked up my blog cards at Travelling Man. I sometimes get very shy about my drawings and when people ask me who drew them I get a bit flustered. I have, to my complete shame, sometimes said someone else drew them a couple of times. Sorry chaps!

Merry Christmas! Hang on...

2009-05-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

While I colour a new issue of Tom and Jerry I thought I would post up some more of my colouring work on the older issues. So, some out of season samples from the Christmas issue here! These were pencilled by Lee Carey and inked by Bambos Georgiou.

Sketch Cards

2009-05-09T00:49:00.000-07:00

Just a quick bit of fun before work today. I've been doodling a few of these cards in my spare time and leaving them at the shop to advertise my blog a bit. It's fun and good practise!

Free Comic Book Day

2009-05-07T23:27:00.001-07:00

Firstly, You look Like A Little Kid With A Beard is celebrating 2 years of blogging. Tell him how awesome he is and you could win a copy of the new China Mieville book. Aces, go on with you and get writing!

It was FREE Comic Book Day last Saturday which is always good fun for us at the shop. And though we're only a little place and there's only me and Haroon working there I hope we still get across the atmosphere of Geek Christmas to our customers. We had a lovely day!

My Spidey painting:

Haroon showing off the stash first thing in the morning. Meanwhile our customers were scratching at the shop shutters while I tidied, and it was all a bit Dawn of the Dead. "Green Lantern Blackest Night Issue Zeroooooooorrghhh!"

Comic fans and newbies alike descended on the heap of comics just after opening!

Oh dear. It wasn't very impressive by lunchtime.

My friend Tom and I kept trying to spread them out a little, so it didn't seem quite so sad.

But none of our fancy handiwork could save it after this point...

The day was saved by this fine gentleman! On picking up the final free comic we dubbed him Winner of Free Comic Book Day. Congratulations!

I hope everyone else enjoyed it as much as I did. Apologies for the slow updates lately by the way. A mix of working on my portfolio, working a little extra at the shop and being poorly. How very typical of me.

Nemesis and Ninjas

2009-04-29T16:25:00.001-07:00

I'm currently working on more sequentials for my portfolio which I can't really post yet, but I still doodle between things. Found myself starting with the first Nemesis the Warlock collection and have been loving it. So these characters will keep popping up in my book.

And of course the ninja turtles are stuck in my head, what with it being the 25th anniversary.

Gumbo, Rita, Nemesis and Robots.

2009-04-21T15:48:00.000-07:00

This is one of those awful weeks where it looks suspiciously like I'm doing nowt. No worries, I'm colouring a new issue of Tom and Jerry at the moment! But I've also been getting my first Gumbo comic strip started and have been wondering whether I should put some images from it up here. I've decided to put up page one, and update you on each step so you can see how I make my comics. Dave has just started inking this page.

I don't know why I wanted to draw Rita Repulsa. I forgot that she had those, er, pointy parts on her costume. And how did she get her staff back every episode anyway? Didn't she throw it to Earth from the moon to make the monsters go big? Man that show confused me.

Tom said it would be interesting if I tried drawing Nemesis the Warlock from 2000AD. I knew very little about the character but that's going to change because HOLY COW he's one cool looking dude. What an awesome design. We've got the collections in my shop so I'll be sneaking quick reads on my breaks.

And I finished Jetstorm and Jetfire! They are cute as the dickens, their bad english makes me happy.

The image with Gumbo and the many eyed dragon thing is still on the way. The colouring on the beastie however was not going in a direction I liked, so I restarted him. Dowhhh.

Easter sketches, Birds and Gumbo.

2009-04-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

I spent Easter weekend with Dave and family on a trip to the Cotswolds. Very quaint and charming! On Sunday we went to a falconry park and I decided that it would be a great exercise to attempt to draw a load of jittery birds. You'd think the owls at least would keep still, but they kept turning their heads away as soon as I'd start sketching.

See, I'm not just about drawing robots and aliens and superheroes. Sometimes I'll draw sensible things.

I do like wildlife, I genuinely enjoy drawing animals now and then. But really...

...birdies just aren't quite as fun as giant cartoon knights chopping up cannibal teddy bears.

I did a lot of Gumbo work this weekend but can't post those sketches just yet. Spoilers!

Unfinished Business.

2009-04-08T15:56:00.000-07:00

So! I'll be away from the joy that is the internet over the Easter weekend. I really wanted to post some WIPs before I went, so you can see that I haven't been shirking since me last update. Just inking lots and lots of teddy bears. Aaargh. These images both need shading and backgrounds and pretty things. Uh, I mean, COOL THINGS. YEAH.

Kingpin, Jet Twins and Gumbo.

2009-04-04T16:46:00.000-07:00

Today's sketching suggestion was another from Ian. Kingpin, keeping with the Marvel theme! Struggling with his legs really, hmm.

We got caught up with Transformers Animated series 3 and the urge to deface my sketchbook with drawings of all the new characters is very strong. Jetstorm and Jetfire here with their terrible accents and english, I hope they pop up in more episodes.

I'm overdue a finished piece for last week! It's nearly done but I got a bit carried away. I'm trying to not just resort to cel-shading these days. Though it's a look I generally enjoy I need to practice other styles, the monster in this Gumbo picture has gone a bit over the top. Here's a sneak at Gumbo himself though.

Madman, robots and Gumbo.

2009-04-03T00:23:00.000-07:00

Sketches from Wednesday and Thursday. Well, the ones I like. Sortof. It's been one of those weeks where I open my sketchbook and go "bleeeeeuuhhh" and Dave tells me off for being childish.

Olly told me to draw Blitzwing giving Jetstorm and Jetfire a nice hug. Whatever floats your boat mate.

Tom wanted Madman. I haven't read Madman, I hate these sketches! So I'll check out the graphic novels at work today and then have another bash at it.

Otherwise Dave and I have been talking through some final plans for Gumbo. This has been going pretty well and I hope to start drawing the 12 page preview comic this weekend! Here's a little sneak at my famously tidy roughs.

End of the month sketches.

2009-03-31T01:10:00.000-07:00

While I'm colouring this chap at home, I've been doing a few sketches on my work breaks. First up a little robot. I think he looks pretty derivative, though I like him. But I can't put my finger on what or who he looks like! Suggestions welcome, they'll win you a free tea from me at the shop. Maybe a biscuit too.

So I don't fall into a habit of drawing too many safe subjects I got some friends to throw out a few doodle suggestions over the weekend. I'll try and sketch at least one of these every day this week. Ian started off by telling me to draw some Daredevil characters.

Sulky git! Well after that I cheered myself up by drawing Gumbo getting mauled by an army of small toy bears.

Plenty more coming later this week!

Deedot and the Cyclops.

2009-03-25T12:03:00.000-07:00

Originally I was going to aim for putting a new finished piece up here every Friday, with sketches and so forth going up every few days. Instead I went ahead and just got this all coloured today. When I do personal work I realised that I slow down a lot. No more! My next piece is half inked already and I have more sketched out.

If I stick to my new artwork schedule, Gumbo and Deedot (the lady knight in the stupidly tall tree) should be seen in a mini comic for Birmingham International comics show.

Let them nom cake.

2009-03-23T13:13:00.001-07:00

My Raphael seemed to go down very well at the Drink and Draw yesterday and has ended up as the background of the MCC for the moment. Cowabunga and all that jazz! Click this link to read Adam Cadwell's report on the Edible Drawings Drink and Draw and see more of our cakey offerings.

Drink and Draw 14

2009-03-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

Spent this evening out at Sandbar with the lovely fellas of the Manchester Comix Collective. The theme was edible drawings and our good friend Tom made a wonderful assortment of muffins and cakey things for us to draw on with icing and then eat. Add to those the massive cookies Adam Cadwell brought...well it was a sad sight of bloated, tipsy indie artists and cartoonists found around that table at the end. Everyone just wanted to curl up and sleep, the atmosphere was so pleasant.

When the photos are sorted out I will post up my edible doodles. But while the cakes were going around I also did a few sketches in my book. First some character design scribbles that degenerated into drawing the Power Rangers. Hmm.

Working a little on posing characters:

Gumbo background work. Possibly the entrance hall (well, one of them) for the castle in the evil tree I posted earlier in the blog.

Gumbo stands off against some dragony, alien buggy thing. This one is definitely getting inked and finished at some point.

Finished Megatron

2009-03-20T17:02:00.000-07:00

Ooo. It's not just a sketch. I am determined to produce more finished pieces over the next few weeks. And critique more than welcome, I know this is 'done' but I really need to push my self more and more at the moment. Any thoughts will be more than helpful for the next illustration.

Batgirl, Deedot and Cynopolis.

2009-03-09T01:56:00.000-07:00

I haven't really read any Batgirl comics but of all the female Bat characters I do like her design the most. No flowing long hair or high heels!

Earlier in the blog I posted some development sketches of a knight style character called Gumbo. The following lady, Princess Deedot, is from the same comic book idea. I have some more sketches of her to add later.

Deedot stuck up a tree facing a giant tubby cyclops?

And some city doodling. I really need to give my background work a kick up the bum because I still think it's the weakest part of my comic work. So I've been making myself do more pages like this.

Febuary Updates.

2009-02-24T00:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks by the way to everyone who has been watching or leaving comments! I do enjoy them, but often I find myself a bit struck by some weird shy awkwardness. I don't always reply to everyone and I'm a bit ashamed of that. So I hope to work a little on such things.

Dave was busy on an inking job through January and now he's got a break I intend to steal his skills and get him to work on some of my recent sketches. Although knowing the usual timing of the jobs we get we'll end up having a commission minutes after starting work on our own projects! Still I managed to knock out some Nemesis Fleet images between my colouring work that weren't just characters standing on a blank background.

Then a bit of Battle Angel Alita doodling. The original 9 volumes of this are one of the few manga series I still enjoy. There are some amazing fight sequences although I'm not sure the story would hold up to me reading it fully again. I think it's something that was better when I was a teenager. But it's much better than the new series. When I saw the main character wearing cat ears and a tail on an upcoming cover I can't say I was exactly thrilled.

And then because yes, I am still working on portfolio things. I have all these Transformers pages that Paul gave me ages ago flat coloured and often half shaded, but I have to keep stopping for Tom and Jerry. It's a lot of fun working on these. Personally I prefer the style of the new cartoon to the movie designs but that's why I like doing these so much. It's more of a challenge and I feel like I'm learning something new.

Delivery Day Doodles

2009-01-15T16:05:00.000-08:00

Thursday in the UK is our comics delivery day, which means being in early to meet the TNT van and staying until late to run our comics and gaming night. Phew! So it's a little tricky to set Thursday on my new artsy timetable. Let's take Thursday as a day for random doodles. Afterall I sketch while I do the brews (need plenty of those for delivery day). And today I spent my lunch break at the Nexus art cafe near my shop, snuggled into one of their big comfy chairs with a hot chocolate and my sketchbook. Plenty of time for drawing there!

Some wise dudes said FOCUS.

2009-01-14T13:39:00.000-08:00

I admit I am a little topsy turvy at the start of this new year. I'd love to be doing more proffessional work, colouring or drawing and I'd love to be working on my own comic ideas. I really need to sort out my portfolio too. But I always end up getting a bit lost and frustrated over what should be my priority. Before work I always have a mild panic. "I have an hour to work on something, BUT WHAT?!"

I've decided to plan my weeks between any art jobs I get. Each day I'll focus on one project. Today Dave and I started reworking some character designs for one of our comic book ideas. Here's one of them!

Final Christmas Sillies

2008-12-24T16:51:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year! We ended up spending a little too much of it having to do artwork but heck, it was fun.

These are the last main images I did for the Advent Calendar, and only Dave can really do justice to explaining the damn thing at all. It seemed to go down pretty well, with lots of jolly sorts joining in with the fun. Read Dave's post on http://demontomato.blogspot.com/ to get all the details. Although it won't quite explain the Christmas Power Rangers or robots or anything. Just, uhhh, best to just go with the flow and read the thread!

Santa Vs King-Emperor Chicken!

2008-12-17T03:10:00.000-08:00

I am really looking forward to seeing a proper new Wallace and Gromit animation on Christmas day.

Calendar: CANDRAKE MASTER LORD

2008-12-16T00:39:00.000-08:00

What present will tame this mighty olde beast?

Painty Painty Paint.

2008-12-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

Well digital painting anyway. I haven't done this sort of thing in a while and now I have to do lots of it very quickly for our advent calender. I have finished this piece but I took the, ahh, characters off. I will post the final soon but I don't want to spoil the story for everyone reading along on Something Awful. :)

Nativity! Sort of.

2008-12-08T02:41:00.000-08:00

Drawn, inked and mainly coloured by Dave. I did the shading, coloured some lineart and added the Christmassy glow! Dave is the only one who can possibly describe any of this quite mental annual Christmas event:

"The traditional Snatavity scene, showing baby SNatter in the slé where him born. People in the stable: mummy & daddy Snatter, the Herald of Christmas Noddy Holder (it isn't christmas until noddy say it's christmas), the actor Burgess Meredith with his little beard butterflies, he is the oldest grandest oldy elf in all North Pole, and Dooley, the unofficial head of the Grotto when he is old."

There you go! It all makes sense now.

Decepticon Sketches

2008-12-03T13:28:00.001-08:00

The Advent Calender is going to be a far bigger project than I realised! But it's massive fun and I'll be posting a couple of our images here once Dave OK's it. Until then I had intended to hold back my robot scrawls a little but what the hell! I never get to draw baddies, so here's Lugnut, Megatron and Starscream.

Tom and Jerry 25

2008-12-01T00:39:00.000-08:00

Later than expected. I have been helping Dave with his Christmas advent calender project and blimey, he's done more drawings for it than I'd realised. The first time he did this it meant a drawing every day in December. NOW it's between 5 and 10 fully inked, coloured and shaded drawings completed for every day in December. I'm giving a bit of a helping hand with the colours so he can carry on with the drawing and inking.

But for now here are my colours for Tom and Jerry 25. Pencils by Lee Carey and inks by Bambos Georgiou.

Sketch Cards

2008-11-23T15:37:00.000-08:00

Holy moly, an update! It's been a busy few weeks and my sketchbook has been getting lonely. Extra days at the shop mixed in with colouring more Tom and Jerry. I have managed to get a little bit of personal work done but I'm still not as close as I'd like to finishing this spanking new portfolio my brain is envisioning. And Nemesis Fleethas slowed to a crawl for now. The crawl of a dead, rotting fish.

Dave has been dishing out drawings all over the place for his December project however, the productive git! I can't wait for him to post that stuff up. And though I've been stuck at work I've been making a lot of these little buisness cards to promote the blog. People like em! It's fun giving my customers something like this, and it's been a good exercise. My sketches have been growing in confidence.

Batman is the most popular. This is not even remotely surprising.

Coming later this week: Nemesis Fleet development (honestly!), more Tom and Jerry colours and, of course, some Transformers.

Election Night Catwoman

2008-11-04T17:36:00.000-08:00

Jaime's suggestion today for my doodles, a good old fashioned Old School Catwoman! Mrowr!

Sketch week! Day number two.

2008-11-04T00:27:00.000-08:00

Onto some suggestions from my friend Tom now. We're going old school Japanese! While I did attempt a classic Godzilla for him I had trouble finding references, so he'll be along later in the week. It's a robot themed day instead starting with Astro Boy.

I don't really know this Spectreman dude, but as soon as I Googled up some photos yesterday I knew I loved him already. He's kinda fantastic, I'm now inspired to do an Ultraman/Jet Jaguar/Spectreman-Super-Team-Up-Unite picture. Something goofy and awesome.

But will the film be any good?!

2008-11-02T14:52:00.000-08:00

Just finished a colouring job and got my friends to start setting me little challenges again. Characters I'd not normally think about drawing. I'm also back on getting portfolio work done. So a quick one to start the week, some Watchmen inspired doodles. Since the trailer went online a few months back I have had a crazy amount of people come to my shop after the book. So whether the film comes out good or not, at least a lot of new readers have ended up picking up this classic. Grand!

Who watched Dead Set last week? I'll be having nightmares about zombies for weeks.

Exercising the colouring muscles.

2008-10-15T12:01:00.000-07:00

Normally I would pop all things Nemesis Fleet onto nemesisfleet.com, buuut I'm putting Shay up here first to prove that I do still draw! I sketched the original during a break at work and Dave inked it up for me all snazzy. I popped some quick colours on and huzzah!

The rest of the gang have had similar makeovers. Harpok is more chavvy. Lazul is balder than ever. It's just grand! So if time allows, I'll have them all on the other blog during the weekend.

Paul Ridgon gave me some of his kickass Transformers pages to colour last week and it's been awesome fun. It's something nice to work on for my portfolio when I have some spare time. But it's very different to what I usually get to colour, hence my excitement when I got them! So I'm quite keen for feedback on this first page I've done. Does it work? Did I girly it up somehow?!

October Already?!?

2008-10-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

This year has passed way too quickly for my liking. However I was pleased to see the latest issue of Tom and Jerry magazine is out, and it's the Halloween issue! I do love themed issues. A couple of years ago Dave and I were working on something called Zap, a videogame review magazine for young readers. Drawing the Christmas story for that was an absolute blast. Ahh, I think one of the robot characters accidentally shot Father Christmas with a heat seeking missile*. Great fun!

I will update my website with finished work but the whole thing needs an overhaul. So until I have finished removing all of the pink (what was I thinking?!) I'll be updating this place with all of my images. So here are my colours for the latest Tom and Jerry. Pencils by Lee Carey and inks by Bambos Georgiou.

*He was fine! Yeesh. As if you could kill Father Christmas with a heat seeking missile. Only the Anti-Santa can kill Santa.

Zatanna

2008-10-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

Hellowed! Just a quickie, still trying to catch up after the convention. I've been trying to work on as much of my portfolio as possible before I get a new issue of Tom and Jerry, so like a fool I've been staying up late drawing and colouring. Paul Ridgon was kind enough to mail me some of his line art so I could work on some new samples. It's been a really fun challenge, though slow due to other commitments. Maybe I'll post some of that colouring here tomorrow, I'll check it's okay first.

So for now, I did promise a friend a while ago that I would try my hand at drawing Zatanna. I really have to ink this one and cel shade it, it came out pretty nice!

By the way, keep an eye on nemesisfleet.com for actual, real, genuine updates this weekend. No really! We've been doing a lot of work on the comic, and though I've not wanted to spoil much I have some neat new development sketches to go up.

Birmingham International Comics Show

2008-10-05T11:25:00.000-07:00

GOSH where do we start?!

Dave Bulmer and myself went to the convention as part of the Manchester Comix Collective. Lord of our table was the ever classy Adam Cadwell, a good friend and fantastic artist. Liz Lunney and Chris Doherty also had their fantastic works on sale. It was wonderful meeting them, and honestly if you didn't pick up their work this weekend please go to their websites and BUY THEIR COMICS.

Saturday was insane and I think I ended up just exhausting myself, running around desperately trying to see everyone. There were so many great people there. We were opposite Dinkybox (lovely chaps, I adored them) and the Beep-Beep Car Company (run by former fellow Travelling Man lady and her wonderful Bristol crew). Either side of us, Reaper Comics and Matthew Craig. I kept rushing past New Think comics, you had such a cool set up displaying your books! Ninja Bunny comics, I totally never came back to buy your stuff. I am hitting your website as soon as possible! Wish, wish I'd taken more time to talk to you all.

On Saturday, after putting some buisness cards with sketches on our table, I was asked to do my first con sketch. Holy cow.

Thank you very much Sir! I was nervous doing both of these, but very happy too. It really made my weekend!

Dave and Liz!

I wish I has more photos to show but I completely messed up my camera settings and so most of my images are pretty useless. Rubbish! I'm sure Dave has been complaining wildly on his own blog.

Speaking of Dave. Buisness for comics on Saturday had been pretty poor, but Sunday! Sunday was grand all round! The great and mighty Genki Gear came round before opening times and kicked it off, nabbing themselves a copy of The Demon Tomato. But the best customer of the day award goes to this awesome girl.

KIDS READING COMICS! This is what we want! I wish we'd got your name, it was really nice talking to you. We hope to see you at future cons, still reading comics.

Will and Tom Fickling of the DFC! We spent a bit too long bothering everyone a this table. It's your own fault for all being well good. Always great to see Dave Windett, I hope you've since had a decent night's sleep. Emma Vieceli was lovely! Flip, I didn't get to chat to everyone. We got caught up chatting to Bob and Lorenzo Etherington and EVERYONE who has been to a UK con ever knows what it's like when you start talking to them.

Here are some of the DFC crew at their panel.

I just want to list off all the great people I saw. Nigel Kitching, Nigel Dobbyn, Richard Elson, everyone at Future Quake, Duncan Fegredo, Lee Garbett, Paul Ridgon, I wish I'd had more time to talk to all of you! Now I'd better go get drawing before my cynicism slams back in. No! First I need to write to you dudes before Dave recovers and steals the computer. His is away being fixed still!

Adventure Time!

2008-09-01T03:59:00.000-07:00

Not so sketch related on my end, but I just had to spread the absolute joy that is Adventure Time! It's a fantastic short that is finally being picked up for a full series by Cartoon Network. Possibly the most Happy filled thing I had watched in ages. If you're feeling low, just watch the link provided at Cartoon Brew:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tv/cartoon-network-acquires-adventure-time

Just lovely!

Riddle De Dee!

2008-08-31T14:53:00.000-07:00

So I'm still hunting for references for Tron, another challenge from my friend Ian, so skipped ahead and did the Riddler first.

Quiet week sadly! I'm just colouring Tom and Jerry 24 at the moment, so sketchbooks and Nemesis Fleet come second for now. Nearly done though, and I should get some more doodles done on my lunchbreak tomorrow.

Sketch Dumping

2008-08-24T14:17:00.000-07:00

I have managed to keep myself drawing every day for the last few weeks, though this doesn't quite translate to "post to blog every day". It's been a good exercise, I feel like I'm speeding up and building confidence along with it. I work five days a week but have always felt that I could be producing more artwork during my time off.

Continuing my attempts at drawing female heroes: Ms Marvel.

Ms Marvel and Spidey Woman.

And a new challenge from my mate Ian, Etrigan the Demon!

Finally here's how my silly Transformers Animated poster is going so far.

Even more DC.

2008-08-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

So in trying to keep up my daily sketching I had my mate Ian suggest some characters to doodle. Not sure I'm so successful at the evil ladies and the whole Sexy Sexy Danger aspect, is that good or bad? I just hope I'm capturing some of the personalities. Two-face was the most challenging and enjoyable character.

Poison Ivy:

Harley Quinn:

Two-Face:

I need to do some finished images of some of these characters!

DC Theme

2008-08-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

I promised you Batman so here is some Batman and Robin. There was also some movie recently, I hear it's done alright for the character.

We saw it on Imax and it was very nice. Well okay, nice is a terrible word to use to describe this film. It's a grim thing and probably takes itself a little too seriously, but I enjoyed it a lot.

I don't usually draw many superhero characters but I've been feeling all inspired lately to try and draw some of the wimminfolk. I don't know if my skills are mighty enough to make them look badass though.

The trailer for the upcoming Wonder Woman animated film looks interesting.

Sketch Dump Time!

2008-08-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

Apparently this new Transformers cartoon is so much fun it's made me draw regularly again. You guys can ask me to my face "Abby, dear, why this particular cartoon? Why why why? We all think it's a bit pants really. And your new collection of the toys is ever growing and starting to scare us." Well you can just shush and go over there in the LAME corner.

The designs are awesome and Derrick Wyatt is a frikkin cool character designer alright.

These are heavily referenced from screenshots. Hey you try drawing these dudes from scratch. There's all complicated bits and stuff.

Blitzwing is crazy and german. This, of course, is awesome.

Ninja Prowl is also awesome.

If you don't like Sari then you have no soul. Man I wish I'd had loads of giant robot pals when I was 8. No one would have made fun of me liking Ninja Turtles instead of My Little Ponies then.

And this is for a big picture I'm working on. I promise that tomorrow's sketch dump will be completely robot free! It'll have Batman. Yeah! I mean, BATMAN.

One More Time!

2008-07-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

Seriously, this must be about the third time I've tried to do this. Finally it's actually relevant! Yes ladies and gents, I think I can actually keep a blog going about my sketchbook and nerdy thoughts.

No big intros, you know the drill right? I draw stuff and it go here!

A gaggle of Marvel doodles. The Runaways (I would highly recommend this title to you all), Iron Man and Hulk.

Samus Aran, random robots, Avatar inspired doodles and my cup and computer mouse for some reason.

Thundercats!

Even more Thundercats!