LASERFACE!

I think offscreen two pigeons have just been lasered in the face. I have NO idea what's happening here.

I've had a weird few days where I've had something like a NEED to draw a glowy robot. So... that took up some time today. But it NEEDED to be done or else I couldn't focus.

In a way he kind of reminds me of the little evil alien figurine you could get with Construx. Maybe it's because of the purple and the angry eyes.

HAPPY DECEMBER!

Gurgle! Glub! Drowning in work! Must find time to do Christmas Shopping and laundry! Yet somehow I managed to do a fun little colour thing. I find colouring relaxing. I'm beginning to get a little tired of the same sort of graphic style I've been playing with though. Time to try something new. Or, maybe a different composition that isn't, "three quarter character design standing in front of texture"... as soon as I have, you know, some more time to do that.

Argh

OK this has gone on too long. I'm waiting on some decent pictures of my Hallowe'en costume and other miscellaneous projects to do my big "What the hell I've been up to"post. I'll get the pictures up eventually. Hopefully before the end of the month. In the meantime have some stuff.

King Death

In a perfect world this is what my Hallowe'en costume would look like. And it would have glowed in the dark and been whispy and ethereal. But I've traded in "whispy and ethereal" for "grim and funerary" Photos when I get some decent ones of the progress but in the meantime here's the original sketch for the concept and a fun goofy cartoon I did of it later. The original sketch is reasonably representative of what I've got so far actually.

Frost

I was going to post Severard and Frost together but Frost looked.... terrible. But at work I had some time so I did a Frost that suddenly worked. So... Severard will be posted soon I hope. In the meantime here's Frost. I'm trying to emulate my friend May's very graphic style. Severard is in a totally different style anyways.

Shanka!

A quick drawing of a the Shanka while waiting for scenes. The thing I remember most in the descriptions of them (When we eventually got one two books in) was that they had wide flat heads, long hairy arms and teeth so deformed their lips couldn't close over them. I guess long hairy arms doesn't necessarily mean long hair on their arms but I had kind of pictured them as a feral orcy orangutang race. I would have drawn the arm hair way long but it looks weird when I do that.

Scuttler

This dungeon dwelling creep was drawn while I was trying to come up with a design for a torturer. I was watching The Pit and the Pendulum at the time. Then there were legs everywhere and... teeth... and... yeah I dunno what happened.

Oh and I realize the name "Scuttle" is already taken but this is a different kind of scuttle. Less ship-sinking more multi-legged lurking. And it's Scuttle*R* so it's totally different. YOU HEAR ME DISNEY? TOTALLY DIFFERENT! Plus they also hogged the name "Creeper." Jerks.

The Banshee!

Look out, Darby O'Gill!

Goodness it's mid September. The Season is upon us! Ladies and Gentlemen, start your glueguns.

Insomnia drawing.

Drawing WAY too late at night listening to Simon Schama talk about the Plantagenets.

Some Wests

Gillen beat me to the first post. Honestly I don't remember any of Collum West's defining characteristics but I always kind of saw him as the simple-looking farmboy type with a very honest face. The kind of guy who can be everyone's friend because there's no hating someone who's basically a really good person. I figured he always looked at least a little confused or frustrated. And people read that confusion and frustration as meaning "I don't understand the situation." But really it means "I can't believe you DON'T understand the situation.

I'd work more on these and colour them but my damn Cintiq's at work. So no colour for you.

Back from Winnipeg

I'm back!

*confetti*

Been playing with different types of watercolour paper for a project. The hot press scans much better than the stuff I used to use. Most of these drawings are from the Manitoba Museum of Man and Nature. Except for the ones that aren't.

Murderered

First one of these I've done in ages that's sort of turned out. The newer ones were getting too complicated. This one I think has more of the feeling I was originally going for. Except I guess this is more a Murderer than a Murderered. Fun drawing that beard though. I should draw beards more. It's a character trait I don't use much. GREAT BIG BUSHY BEARDS!

Vampires? In July?

Sure what the hell. It's not like we ever see the damn sun up here. Have some gloom to go with your gloom.

The Vampire character was designed to be sort of in the style of that old game Braindead 13. I'm trying to break my habit of drawing wee tiny beady eyes. Although I really like wee tiny beady eyes.

*edit!* I've been flipping back and forth between colour variations for hours now and can't decide which version I like better so to hell with it I'm posting both versions


Also I'm swamped with work which is the BEST time to have a crappy computer that is dying. On the upside, a new computer should be here in 2 weeks and I'm told it will be powerful enough to save Greece.

Bayaz

OK so I didn't go for "Hard-Assed, You're All Stupid" Bayaz. I went for "Friendly, Avuncular, Let's Go on an Adventure!" Bayaz. When we meet him he's all jovial and nice and wears a flower necklace a little girl gives to him. Didn't draw that in though. It made him look like a cosplayer who got caught at a luau.

LeChuck

Just having a bit of fun with the old animation disk. It has been way too long.

Run, Astral Lizard! RUN!

Yeah this... is not what I started out drawing. Then I went little bananas colouring.

NEW D&D CHARACTER!

Maybe. Young Master Gillen is looking to take up the reins as Dungeon Master (NERD!) and so I'm all excited to be able to design a character again to simply play as! So this is Hireith. No she's not based on the girl from Brave. Yes she's based on Osha from Game of Thrones. Yes, her name is the only word I know in Welsh which I know entirely because it was explained in an episode of Are You Being Served when they're rehearsing a tribute to Young Mr. Grace for his birthday. Also the number Mr. Rumbold calls to tell the lady that they've found her missing diamonds is 965-0721. Which also proves that at some point telephone numbers in the UK weren't always forty six numbers long. Why am I even still typing?

Also, hey, Blog, why is "&" not allowed in the blog labels? Bad form, old bean. Bad form. This is exactly the sort of thing that made it impossible in days gone by to hunt down a decent recording of the A&W Root Bear theme.

Wyrd House

Once upon a time, on a hill with one road, there stood an old house with one window and one door. One gloomy autumn day one strange little boy inherited the unusual house and learned that, locked behind the one door and shuttered behind the one window, there were a lifetime of secrets.

Metal Planet!

Hey! I've been working on a pitch now for about a month and this isn't it. This is a second pitch that I started working at on Friday night due to a sudden unexpected burst of inspiration. Thanks, Iron Savior!

Posting BONANZA!

I was going to finish stripping my trunk today but nuts to that. It's cloudy... and rainy... AGAIN... but there's a new Hammerfall album out and I was listening thinking "I'll do a quick little Barbarian speedpainting..." several hours later.... Conan is attacking a forest that has been germinated with Essence of Beholder. That or he was shrunk down SUPERTINY and is stuck in the eyeball plant at the beginning of Labyrinth take your pick.

Friday NIGHT post

I know I'm surprised as you are that I'm not out drinking rum and commiserating with fellows about how bad Stranger Tides probably is but circumstances prevented sufficient enthusiasm from being generated hence I stayed in, stripped wallpaper out of my stinky steamer trunk and did some drawings. I must say I totally chickened out on the bottle imps. I really wanted to do watercolour paintings of them but I'm a traditional media wussy. I think it's a good rule to never start out with a new (ish) medium with a really specific idea of how you want it to turn out or you'll just end up fighting and fighting and fighting and probably storming away and doing it digitally anyways. Also I should probably try and fix the second imp so that his tail is sticking out through a hole in the cork otherwise why's he still in there when he's so grumpy!

Adding another stab at Dow. Another swing and a miss. He keeps coming out like a Stabbington Brother and then I overwork him to make him not a Stabbington brother. One day, Black Dow, I will draw you properly.

Weird dream

Trying to draw this weird character that I saw in a dream. He's the French president. I don't think this is quite right. it's halfway between him and RK maroon from Roger Rabbit.

Wait what? Where'd April go?

Yeah... month without posting! For shaaame! The thing I wanted to post for April got delayed further so... here's some filler. I'm very bummed out by the weather of late and I'm firmly stuck in Pirate Mode. Arr. And having been drawing pirates almost exclusively since February I needed to get out of the rut. So I stole the Klei Sketch sketch club theme. I'd apologize, but... I'm a pirate. Arr.

And yes I've been trying to go to Life drawing again. Not enough hours in the day/days in the week to get there every week though.

EDIT I changed the voodoo lady a bit. Added some more colour and some linework to separate the forms a little better. I've never really got the hang of doing coloured lines and they're... Kinda half there and half not. Too timid I think. Well I'll try again next time.

March Post. Arr.

Hey! Wow... been a while. Busy month says I. Which is why I deemed it necessary to stay up late last night drawing a crazy old drunken pirate woman. I'll probably do a big drawing dump soon of stuff I've been working on in my spare time. Also I blame the gym. I started going to the gym 3 times a week a month or two ago recently since I turned the big Three-Oh. I despise it. I resent almost every second that I'm there and not working on drawings or ideas. But as a friend of mine quite rightly pointed out if you don't have your health...

Also of note... this drawing features a newly scanned pretty shiny texture overlay! OoOOOoh!

Vampires for Valentines

OK... few hours late. And I reserve the right to take this down and fix it when I see it without sleep-bleary eyes tomorrow. But for now here it is. The yearly Vampire Valentines day entry: Check. I was trying something weird with the painting here. I used no lines to define the silhouettes. Even in the first stages beyond a really loose sketch this was all blocked in with shapes and the details worked out through shadow. It was a very different way to have to think. I solved a lot of problems that came up... others never quite got resolved. All in all a lot of fun and an interesting challenge.

And it takes my mind off how much I hate Valentine's Day. Grump.

Anime.... ish (?)

So I've been on this anime kick. And I'm rubbish at anime. Though it's always fun to play around with different styles. But it's got me thinking about Japan. Here's a weird thing. It's about a year since I hit up London. The whole experience was freaking wonderful. A large part of that is because it was in all ways exactly what I wanted. London was so... Londony. It was upbeat and colourful and alive in all the ways I'd hoped and it was also gloomy and somber and full of interesting dead people. Same goes for Ireland and Spain. They were more or less as I'd always hoped they'd be ever since I was a kid and wanted to travel.

Japan though...

Japan has always been on my list of places to go but it has suddenly struck me that it's for an entirely odd reason. It's because I like anime. Whereas my notions about London were coloured by movies I've seen, books I've read and photographs of haunted castles that I'd poured over in the library, all the things I want to see in Japan... don't exist.

The stuff I've watched that makes me want to go to Japan is always set in the far flung future... and is watercolour or photoshop. I've seen so much more anime than I have Japanese live-action films that the part of Japan that is really interesting to me is entirely fictitious. I'd never really thought about it this way before.

Weird eh?

EDIT!!

It's WAY too late for me to be up playing in photoshop but whatever. Have another sthpooky ghotht. I had so much fun doing the other one I figured I'd do another. She took a lot more tinkering to get right than the first fella.

OMG Sthpooky Ghothts!

Anyone else feeling a little Haunted Mansiony today? Also in an anime sort of mood lately. Maybe more on that later. Anyways this is probably my last post from my apartment of 7 years. So long, apartment. So long Ghost of Errol Flynn even though you never showed up. So long cubby that was perfect for setting up my 2 way mirror gag even though I never properly rigged up the black light behind you. Hello less expensive rent and balcony!

Onwards to adventure!

Avast! Piratical procrastination off the starboard bow!

No notes today so I started doing some pirate paintings. Well *a* pirate painting. This pirate painting. Arr.

wasting time @ work...

Drew this while waiting on some notes... what the hell is this guy? A "heavy gunner" I named the file I think. Yeah that's what he is A heavy gunner. Why not.

EDIT and also here is a battlefield commander with EERIE PSYCHIC POWERS! because the notes took a while getting in and it was too late to start thinking properly.

So this is 2011...

OK, 2011. So far we haven't been getting a long. You're scary. I am getting a negative vibe from you but I'm gonna work with you. We'll get through it and gods damn you we'll enjoy it!

Ahem... anyways in the post this week are mainly doodles. I'm trying to figure out what Sand Dan Glockta looks like. Young Master Gillen had a stab at him too on his blog (He turned me onto the most excellent First Law series) and I would like to refine the design until it looks like the character in my head. I don't think he looks crippled enough. This poor bastard's body is a road map of pain. Also there's that pasty skinny guy. I'm not in love with the drawing but it was more of an attempt to get the idea across. More about him later maybe if I continue the rest of the characters.