Birmingham International Comics Show

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!

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!

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

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.

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

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!

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.