Trading Cards 5!

Cards 41-50 in my 50 card set! All I have to do now is colour the 10 rare cards and they're all ready to send off to the printers. The rare cards wont be posted so you'll have to buy a pack to see if you've got any! :P

Train Book Spreads!

Here are three of my favourite spreads for the kid's book I recently finished. I'm half looking forward to seeing the printed book and half not; I've been staring at it for so long I can't tell if my artwork is any good or not! I think seeing it in print will make a difference too as it's all been seen so far in PDFs. Although it was tiring on such a tight deadline, the experience was great and I learnt a hell of a lot; mostly about design, but a fair bit about trains too! I didn't actually design the spreads or put them together; thankfully, I drew all the elements and they were put together by my awesome art director. Here's hoping that 2011 will see more book work!

Trading Cards 4!

Cards 31-40 in my 50 card series! If it wasn't apparent already, I'm having a great time making these. I've got 10 more to bring the number to 50 and then there will be 10 rare cards that will be kept secret just to make the whole thing a bit more interesting! I've even been looking into getting sticks of bubblegum for each pack, just like the stickers/trading cards of my youth!

Trading Cards 3!

Cards 21-30 in my 50 card set!

Trading Cards 2

Cards 11-20 in my 50 card set!

Video Game Print Giveaway!

It's giveaway time again! I've got five sets of video game based prints to give to five lucky peeps and all you have to do is leave a comment on this blog! Winners will be picked at random on the 10th of January, so plenty of time to give it a go!

Oh, and leave me some means of contacting you should you be a winner! :P

Kid's book finished and new stuff!

Well, the kid's book is officially finished! After 2 months of quite intensive work, the finals have been sent to print. Hopefully I'll have PDFs of all the pages soon and can post a couple of spreads although I'm a bit nervous about seeing it as I've been staring at it for so long that I can only see the bad parts of my art. Hopefully I'll change my mind when I see it all in print! Anyway, I promised myself a break after the book was done, which lasted all of 2 minutes before I was in Photoshop and scribbling in my sketchbook. My next personal project is:

Trading Cards!

Series 1 will have 50 designs and will be sold in packs of about 6 cards. Above are the first 10 in the series; I'm hoping the have the first lot of cards ready to print by January. There will also be a few "rare" cards which I wont be posting on the internet or anywhere else so the only way to find them is to collect the cards! Sneaky, but also a bit of fun :P

Big Trouble in Little China

On the film baddie scale, David Lo Pan = Really Bloody Weird.

Why I love Highlander

There's a scale of how cheesy a baddie is in a film; I like to think bad cheesy = Wesley Snipes in Demolition Man and good cheesy = Clancy Brown in Highlander.

Dr Who and Captain Jack

Everybody Loves Deadpool

I get so many "Do you have anything with Deadpool on it?" questions at cons, the answer to which is usually "Sorry, it's all sold out!" Now, I have no idea when Deadpool got so popular; I worked in a comic shop for three and a half years and he had his fans, but nowhere near what he does today. So I'm getting savvy and making more DP based products for next years cons! :P

Video Game Zombies

I like Video games and I like zombies; this seemed like the logical thing to do!

THAT line from Star Trek 2...

Christmas Shop Offer!

To celebrate the upcoming c-word, you can get 10% off of everything in my online shop until the 15th of December! Spend spend spend!

Blogs Galore!

It's all about the blogs at the moment! I was randomly found by an awesome Spanish design blog and have been featured here. Also, after months of umming and ahhing I joined Tumblr. After some initial confusion, I've come to really like it. I use it mainly to post single images and have found it really effective. There's an option to reblog images which means a picture can go pretty much viral within a day! As another way to pimp ones art, I would highly recommend it to other illustrators.

DC Gals!

An attempt to draw more female characters!

That's all right, ambassador. Let's just say you owe me.

One of my favourite horror films is The Omen; one of those classics that for me, is just perfect. Devil dogs, weird coincidences, awesome quotes and the ever-amazing David Warner! So here's a picture to satisfy my big-girl crush on him in this film: Photographer Keith Jennings starts to notice weird marks on his photos of people connected to the Thorn family who have then died bizarrely. Initially, he thinks it's a glitch in his camera after it is accidentally broken by Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), but as he delves deeper, he starts to notice the marks connect with how the person then died. Imagine his horror as he catches in own reflection in the mirror whilst taking a picture and discovers a disturbing mark...

Miskatonic University Class Pictures!

In between drawing trains for the kid's book I'm working on, I've been trying to squeeze in my own pictures. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, the book will be done and I can purge all the head-cheese I've had building up!

If people haven't already guessed, I'm quite obsessed with the work of H.P Lovecraft and have drawn several pics based on his work. I'm thinking of making a zine related to this so keep an eye out! I doodled a couple more pictures and coloured them but then thought, given that they're supposed to be old photos, would attempt to use textures and such. Thanks to my talented beau who is a Photoshop whiz, here are some attempts at Photoshop fiddling!

Now that I vaguely know what I'm doing, expect more adventures in texture!

Thought Bubble!

Holy moly, Thought Bubble was bloody awesome! After much hassle deciding on whether to go, it was well worth it; I sold an amazing amount for a one day con, met some brilliant people and generally just had a fantastic time. TB is very Small Press based in terms of stalls but has a lot of big comic names to draw in a range of people and you could definitely see that yesterday. The place was rammed all day and the atmosphere was great. Rumour has it that next year will be two days and if that's the case, this will become another regular con for me! I was mainly selling the bits I had left from BICS and MCM but that didn't stop people from buying! It's made me come up with some exciting new things to have ready in time for all the cons I have planned for next year...

Crab Vending Machine

Based on this real-life story. Poor crabs!

Inflight Magazine Illustrations!

In addition to the kid's book I'm illustrating, I got another very exciting commission last week for a kid's inflight magazine. As well as drawing several drop-ins for a double-page spread, I also had 3 large pics to do. It was a really fun job and challenging too as the client wanted coloured line-work instead of my beloved black, which I was terrified of at first (I've only done it a couple of times, and even then it was an experiment) but they were very pleased with the result and it turned out okay!

This was the biggest illustration of the bunch; the brief was a dolls house with lots for kids to look at! Can you spot the 4 cupcakes?

This one was a picture full of things beginning with p!

Finally, we have the Diving Dinos! This one will be a Spot-The-Difference picture; I'm looking forward to seeing how they change the picture ! It's been a busy week but the client was happy with the work and if the airline like them, it could mean regular work every quarter for each new magazine! Now, if I could only get more jobs like this...

Excitement in Sticker Land!

I may be getting some full-colour vinyl wall stickers made by a lovely company in Spain. Here's an exciting mock-up of how my work would possibly look:

I'll be sending a batch of images off to be vectorised later today; let's hope they turn out okay!

VIVA Superhero Animal card set!

The card designs I was commissioned to do for the vegan charity VIVA! are finally available to buy. They come in an awesome presentation tin and they look pretty spiffing!

MCM Expo, new t-shirt design and general goodness!

Last weekend I had a table at the MCM Expo in London and I have to say, it was brilliant! The atmosphere was amazing and although it's a heavily anime-based con, my prints sold like warmed-through baked goods! Until I get proper internet back, here are a couple of pics:

JP living his dream of being Wario!

The awesome Louise Ho and me having an E.T moment!

My stall of colourful gee-gaws!

It was a knackering weekend but very enjoyable and as always, I made all monies back with profit. Comic cons have pretty much become another part-time job for me and I think I've found a good set of things to sell. The paintings always get attention and sold very well at MCM; key rings are small and cheap and people constantly buy them and the prints I get made are fast becoming my most popular items.

Genki Gear also had my new design on their table and I'm glad to say it sold fantastically! Here it is in all its glory:

In other news, our house has finally gone through! I can't express the sheer relief at this; somewhere to live! With a studio! And a garden! And a loft! We pick up our keys tomorrow and it's all systems go this weekend as we get moved in. Hopefully my next post will come from my all-new studio/guest room! :D

MCM Expo and BARGAINS!

This weekend I will be at the MCM Expo peddling my wares! I have lots of bargainous bargains for the weekend and Christmas is coming up! :P First up, don't forget to print off your voucher for money off at my stall:

I've also got some awesome Bomberman/Katamari prints for £3. My medium-sized character paintings will be on special offer at £20 each or 2 for £35 - a deal not to be missed!

I also have a billion character prints for £1.50 each; collect them all! :P

It should be a good weekend so please pop by and say hi!

Drawing, moving and sleeping.

Firstly, apologies for being so rubbish with my blogging since getting back from New York; I have good excuses! First up, myself and my fiancee are currently waiting for our new house to be officially movable into-able. Thanks to the most shocking solicitors ever (no names but I will gladly tell anyone who emails just so they never have to put up with the level of sheer incompetence we had to!) we've had to wait way longer than we have for the whole process to go through. So at the moment we are both holed up in JP's flat, surrounded by boxes and with limited internet access, waiting for our new (very good) solicitors to clean up the mess left by the other ones. I hate being in this state of limbo as I'm finding it hard to get into any kind of work routine and generally feel a bit miserable about the whole situation. However, I've now officially started work on the kid's book I'm doing which is good! It's an activity book based on trains and railways which is a challenge! It's also a lot of fun though and the spreads are coming through thick and fast which means little time to do my own work at the moment. But I'm not going to complain! :P With any luck, everything will be sorted by next week and I can look forward to a new house with a new studio :D It also means I will be able to catch up on much needed sleep...

I will also be off to London this weekend for the MCM Expo which should be good fun. I'll be flogging the usual prints, paintings, greetings cards, keyrings and other geegaws so come along and say hi!

Back in the Uck!

Well, my wonderful jaunt to NY is over and I'm a little bit grumpy! It was an awesome holiday with many highlights including the New York Comic Con, pictured above. I will upload my photos when I have time but here's a good one that includes: Michael Bell, an awesome voice actor and all 'round fantastic guy that you've probably heard in a billion cartoons and not realised (he was Chuckie's dad, Chaz, in Rugrats as well as Angelica's dad, Drew!); our awesome friend Mario without whom we wouldn't have gone in the first place; Casey Coller, Transformers artist and flat out wonderful guy; Pia Guerra, artist of Y-The Last Man (awesome lady - so nice!); Shane McCarthy, spiffing Auzzie and Transformers and Deadpool writer and humble ol' me!

Overall highlights of the trip included: Meeting Bruce Campbell at NYCC, seeing the Ghostbusters firehouse, getting proposed to in New England, the top of the Empire State Building, finding an awesome publisher and getting free books from them and too many other things to remember. Expect sketch book journal pages soon!

Check Out Hero Chan!

Hero Chan is a rather awesome blog dedicated to all things Superhero! It's a new blog and one that I think will become very popular. And not just because of some of the images that grace the left-hand side of the screen...

One of the founders of Hero Chan is Justin Page, a graphic designer from America who runs one of my favourite blogs ever, Rampaged Reality - an awesome collection of video game, film and superhero artwork from all over the web. I've been featured on both blogs and it's always a pleasure to know my work is watched by these talented peeps!

Some good news!

A few weeks back, I did some spec work for an art director for a proposed activity book that will be released by a rather good publisher. I received word today that I got the gig! I can't say too much at the moment but it's a really fun project and could potentially lead to more work through said publishers. It's a very tight deadline however, so I'm going to be very busy when I get back from New York! I'm very chuffed as I feel like I've been working towards this for a long time; I plan to work my ass off for the deadline and really make the most of this. Wish me luck! ;P

Noo Yoik!

As of the 5th of October, I will be off to the Large Fruit that is New York! While I am immensly excited, I'm also very stressed as myself and my partner are in the middle of buying a house and everything has pretty much gone wrong from the start. It means we have to make sure we keep in touch with all involved whilst we are away which is more than a little bit rubbish but cannot be helped. I'll be trying not to let this ruin the trip though as this will be my first time to America. I have a shiny new sketchbook to keep a travel journal in (one day I will scan and post my sketchbooks from Japan, Prague and Florence!).

Things I'm looking forward too: Meeting Bruce Campbell, finding the Ghostbusters HQ, seeing awesome friends, going the Massachusetts, the food and seeing how people to my British accent!

No doubt I will have plenty to blog about when I get back :D

Character Bonanza!

After looking through my blog for something the other day, I realised just how many existing characters I've cuted up! Here they all together; they can also be bought as separate prints from my online store. Please note though that although my shop will be open, from the 4th-15th of October I will be away so any orders will be filled and sent upon my return.

Spooky Empire t-shirts!

Back in May, I was asked to design two t-shirts for an American Horror convention called Spooky Empire which is on next week (when I'm at the New York con) and boasts a whole host of awesome guests including Robert Englund (hence the Freddy Krueger design!). The designs are available in kid's sizes and have been getting a great reaction!

Can't wait to get mine in the post! :D

Greetings Cards!

Finally! I got around to packaging the greetings cards I had printed umpteen weeks ago! I will be selling the first batch at BICS (and hopefully the MCM Expo depending on how many sell). There are ten designs to start with:

I'm quite pleased with how the range looks all together as I've only seen them on screen and haven't really printed them as of yet. They are all A6 in size with blank innards. Each card also comes with a few stickers and a "stamp" for the envelope!

My logo adorns the back of the card! Each card will be £2 and after the madness of the cons dies down, I'll be selling them through my site. I do intend to add more designs to later print runs; I just figured I would go with more marketable designs for the time being and see how they go.

28 Days Later!

A quick doodle from one of my favourite horror films, 28 Days Later! Poor old Jim has just woken up in hospital to find a distinct lack of anything...

I still love this film and consider it to be one of the better zombie films to come out of Film Land for the last 10 years or so. The first half is by far better then the second and I still have quibbles with the "happy" ending, but you can't fault it for atmosphere. Seeing it in the cinema was awesome as the sound was so freaky and I still get creeped out by the church scene...

I heart Fan Art!

Just a couple of bits of fan art for the New York Comic Con! For non-geeks we have Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ash from Army of Darkness.