Inspiration: Where art thou?

I like to think I'm a pretty productive person; I work fairly quickly and hopefully produce work of a decent quality for it. However, and I'm sure this is true for every artistic bod, I get periods of extreme uninspiration and general fed-up-ness with my work. Take the last week; I've just finished a big-ish commission and was looking forward to getting started on a big pile of work I've got to do. But as soon as I sat down to start on this work, my brain decided it wasn't having any of it. So my studio time this week has been spent drawing for 20 minutes until I decide I either don't like what I've been doing or it's just not turning out the way it is in my head and then reading or playing video games. Argh!

I'm just putting this down to having had a hectic couple of weeks and I actually need the rest, but it's still frustrating! What do other people do to kick start their creative malaise? I usually read a load of art books, play on my DS, doodle and read which usually knocks my brain back into place but still, having that feeling that you just can't get on with anything is really annoying and a tad scary! Saying that though, I saw some pics on a blog this morning that sparked some doodling. At least that's something!

Batman and Mister Miracle commissions finished!

MacReady vs The Thing

Mr Miracle Work in Progress

I've been pretty mush working flat out on my Mr Miracle commission and it's finally taken some kind of postable shape! I haven't had as much fun with this one as I did with Batman purely because everything seemed to go wrong on this one. I managed to persist and get past the "Argh, this is terrible! I'm rubbish!" phase to a (hopefully) not-too-bad painting. I'm particularly pleased with the explosion which was a complete accident!

The London Film and Comic Con!

This weekend, I went to the awesomeness that is the London Film and Comic Con. I wasn't exhibiting this time but my uber-talented boyfriend John-Paul was speed-colouring sketches drawn by Transformers artist Casey Coller. I had a great time, met some fantastic people and got pics taken with two of my heroes, Michael Ironside and Scott Bakula, which I will post soon!

Me and a rather decent looking Spider-Man!

The single most disturbing thing I saw all weekend.

Casey is a genius and this proves it: Optimus Prime sipping tea like an English Gent!

Megatron gets vexed over an XBox game!

Everything that's wrong with the world on one stall.

Q'PLAH!


The boy being all professional!


Bumblebee!

I will shortly be starting a Transformers Mosaic about Bumblebee, written by John-Paul which I was very intimidated to start, but thanks to the con, I'm ready for the challenge of trying to draw robots that aren't just boxes stacked on top of one another!

More Genki Gear Designs!

I'm going to be doodling ideas for a new t-shirt design for Genki Gear's October range. Rather than use an exisiting image like my last two tees, this one will be a new design, which I'm particularly excited about! I've decided to go for a Yokai based design, Yokai being Japanese ghosts. Japanese folklore is fascinating and has some of the best ghost stories as well as the oddest. Case in point is the Karakasa; an umbrella with one big eye and a gaping mouth, based on the legend that if an inamimate object exists for 100 years it will be granted life! I've drawn quite a few Yokai and choosing a design for a tee will be hard, but that's what my sketchbook is for!

For more on Yokai and Japanese folklore, have a look here.

Batman and Robin Work in Progress

I'm almost done with my Batman and Robin commission which has been a lot of fun to do. There are just a few fiddly bits to get done and I'm ready to get on with Mister Miracle! Here are some pics with shading and outlining:

I'm feeling a lot better about the Batmobile too but I have to tone down those go-faster stripes and make them look more like shiny bits! I'm hoping the coloured outlining gives the painting a bit of depth. The dark grey border also helps to make the image pop a bit too.


And here's a picture of my desk at the moment; it's a bit of a mess! I tend to work on an island surrounded by tubes of paint, piles of work and toys. Most of the time I'm okay with this arrangement but I almost dipped my paint brush in my coffee and took a swig of my paint water earlier...! I'm looking forward to being able to get at least two desks in the future to work on; my crap seems to multiply in the night until I'm pushing aside kibble to find a clear space!

Check out my Pies!

Well, not literal pies, but I do have my fingers in quite a few! I'll be featured on several blogs and websites over the next few weeks which is awesome. Keep an eye out for New Sugar #7 which I'll be in with a selection of pictures and a small interview. The awesome I like Characters will feature some of my pics on the 27th of July and hopefully my pic of Solid Snake will be appearing on Lifemeter which I will also be doing more pics for.

Hopefully being on these different sites means a variety of folks who aren't familiar with my work may happen upon my site; I've had a lot of positive feedback from various shows and sites so far so casting my artistic net far and wide can only be a good thing!

Productivity is Up!

Commission for http://www.silverfishgallery.blogspot.com/

Work in Progress!

I've just started to work on one of two commissions I recently had thanks to the Daredevil piece I did for Covered. I'm painting two Jess-style comic covers; Batman and Robin (the new Frank Quietly series) and Mister Miracle. I've made a start on BAR and I have to say, I'm having a whale of a time! It's kind of addictive making your own versions of comic covers and I'm already thinking about a few more I want to do.
Here are the original covers:

I'm making a start on the Mister Miracle pic this weekend but here's a couple of WIP pics of the Batman cover:




I think Robin has definitely been Jessified! I wasn't looking forward to drawing the Batmobile partly because I'm rubbish at drawing vehicles but so far *crosses fingers* it's not looking too bad. The fun part comes next when I get to do all the shading and detail! I'm going for coloured outlines rather than my usual black to give it a bit more depth. I'm away for the weekend so I wont be able to work on this until Monday which is tad annoying as I was really getting into it. Oh well, that's something to look forward to!

Mars Attacks!

After having totally forgotten about the Mars Attacks! film until it was back on last night, I decided to look up the old cards from the 1960's. Being a huge fan of the bad taste but beautifully drawn Garbage Pail Kid trading cards, I would have loved these as a kid! They were initially banned back in the 60's because they were insanely graphic, which of course made kids want them even more. I think the backlash from "Seduction of the Innocent", a paper published on the harmful effects of comic books on children, was still fresh in people's minds at the time so these cards were ripe for controversy.

Personally, I think they're great! The artwork is amazing and very detailed (one of the reasons they got banned!) and I love the way they tell a narrative too, albeit a very loose one.

Check out the entire collection at http://www.marsattacksfan.com/cards.htm

Pics for the Japanese Art Festival

A couple of little signage pics for the Japanese Art Festival next weekend.

Solid Snake dog walking