Sneak Peek: Farm Book!

Here are a couple of sneak peeks from the farm activity book I recently finished. I can't wait to see this one as I drew the whole thing rather than just the single-colour line art. I used a mix of drawn and photo elements in this book as the series has mixed media throughout. Hopefully it works! I really enjoyed drawing this book and will hopefully be starting another one quite soon...

Doodle: Expectations

At this point in the morning, I don't think it's coming.

Colouring Book Samples

Although I didn't get the job, I recently did some samples for a publisher looking to produce some partially coloured books for young children. I quite enjoyed drawing these and anything to add to the portfolio is good! (Also, any excuse to draw an Ankylosaurus.) I'm becoming rather fond of making colouring books and may start producing more of my own; I don't think there are enough that include werewolves and robots, personally! :P

T-Shirt Designs!

Last year I was contacted by an apparel company to design some t-shirts which was very exciting. The resultant tees are now available in a range of shops, high street and on-line!  I have a bunch more hopefully coming out soon! :D

The tees are available from Blue Banana, This Is Pulp, Jukupop and Play among others!

Sketchbooks Are Awesome

Anyone who has been to art college or university to do any art-based course will most likely have had the importance of keeping a sketchbook drummed into them. It took me quite a while to get into the habit of keeping a sketchbook in art college (way back in 1999) but as soon as I realised I didn't need to make every page a masterpiece, I was hooked. I've got a huge stack of sketchbooks that I've kept over the years, alternating from hardback A5 150gsm paper books to normal lined paper note books. My parent's loft contains a couple of boxes of my university sketchbooks that while I'm too embarrassed to look back over, can't quite bring myself to throw away. 



One of the reasons I love keeping sketchbooks so much, is the fact that I can take them anywhere with me, even if I don't end up drawing anything. It's like a comfort thing! My sketchbook is always in my bag; I daydream quite a lot when I'm walking about and if I happen to happen to have an idea, I can quickly scrawl it down while I walk. It's also a perfect place to mindlessly doodle, something I'm particularly good at. A lot of the personal work I do starts off as some weird doodle in my sketchbooks that I've decided to work up.



I've been trying to get into a more regimented sketchbook routine as of late; I started a shiny new one a couple of weeks ago and decided I wanted to try and draw in it every day (not something I always do.) I leave for my part-time job at 10:20am on weekdays so I make sure I'm sat in the living room at 10am with my SB and try to doodle something. It's been pretty fun so far as I can just draw nonsense and have a bit of fun with it!

I rarely draw any roughs or ideas for work for publishers in my sketchbooks though as I try and keep them just for me. Roughs for work usually end up on normal photocopy paper so I can keep everything together. This does mean my desk becomes an endless mess with piles of paper everywhere while I'm working on books but it's a system that works for me! XD

Materials-wise for sketchbooks, I particularly fond of A5 Daler-Rowney hardbacks because the paper is nice to work on (not to thin) and they're easy to carry around. They also all look nice together on the shelf when they're full! XD I use Uni-Ball Vision Elite black pens to draw with, as they're pretty nice rollerballs and can be found in most supermarkets if I lose one. I have about a billion of them lying about, all in varying degrees of used-up-ness.

I also love looking at other people's sketchbooks; there's something very satisfying about looking at how people work and the doodles they come up with. Sketchbooks are essentially brain-dumps and I like looking at the insides of other artists heads this way! XD My insanely talented friend Mark Pearce keeps the most awesome sketchbooks and he must get fed up with me constantly asking to look at them whenever he's over our house. I don't think mine are quite so interesting to look at but I enjoy drawing in them anyway!

Ghosties!

I recently bought a new sketchbook. I felt it needed to have some ghosts in it.

Self Publishing is Addictive!

I didn't realise how many Small Press books I've self published over the last year; I think it's safe to say I've got the bug! Although I started to self publish my own comic when I worked in a comic shop back in 2004-2007, it's only really been in the last year or so that I've gotten back into it and started to realise the potential in printing books myself. One thing I love about self publishing is having complete control over what I write and draw; if I have an idea for an activity book or a comic, I can do whatever I want because I know I'm the one paying for printing costs and I have to push myself to sell it. There's also a huge amount of satisfaction (and mild terror) when you receive a box of books from the printers and see them in the flesh for the first time! Somebody recently commented on how much they liked the overall look of my books and how I have my own creative brand going on. Although I feel a lot of my book covers look a bit samey (I'm not the world's best designer) I do like how they all tie together. This is also what I like about a lot of my friends that self publish too; they all have a very distinct and unique look to all of their books (I'll be doing a blog post about some of my favourite small pressers soon!). I've been a part of the UK Small Press scene for a while now and have made some awesome friends through it, all of them very talented.

With the exception of Brains Etc, all of my books have been printed through Inky Little Fingers. I cannot recommend these guys enough; they're fast, easy to print through and the quality, especially colour stuff, is outstanding. They are also extremely reasonable price-wise. Although I only have an electronic proof to check before my books go to print (you can get hard copies but they cost extra) I've come to trust that unless I mess something up on my end, they always do a good job.

Hopefully in a few weeks time I'd have printed my Rather Odd Alphabet and I've made a start on another book, this one with a little bit more narrative that I'm hoping will be really fun!

Art Show!

My self and the omni-talented James Stayte are part of PixelDrip's Six Seasons and a Movie art show over in L.A! The show is based on Community; I went for a picture of the Dean and his secret love.

Super Cute Colouring Book!

I decided to make another colouring book, but this time a little A6 book on recycled paper. It looks very cute and is full of little characters to colour!

Doodle: Bugs!

Doodle: Turnip Time

Doodle: Angry Robot

In a bid to stop myself going mad/stare at a drawing I'm stuck on for hours until I get fed up and hate myself for wasting time/just to draw something new everyday, I may scribble one of these into Photoshop at some point each day. We'll see if I make it a week!

So much paper...

I had a quick tidy up of my desk earlier on and sorted some of the books I've been working on into piles. That's a lot of paper! I often forget how many sheets get used for roughs, doodles and finals until I collate them all and end up with a wad that weighs a ton in front of me. I've got a huge box full of work up in the loft already and no doubt these sheets will join them when they're all done with. I can't quite bring myself to throw them away at the moment, even to recycle...

Books in shops!

I was rather chuffed yesterday to see the books I worked on in WHSmith! Hopefully this time next year, the farm book I'm working on will be alongside them containing artwork that is just all me! :P

Colouring Book Version 2!

I finally got around to getting nicer copies of my colouring book printed. The new version has heavier stock paper and a nice colour cover! Each copy also comes with a pack of mini pencils.

Axolotl Party!

Too much papers! Not enough hiding plants!

Well, after drawing a book a month since January, sometimes a couple overlapping, I've finally gotten quite ill. I think my body has finally gotten fed up of me waving away people's suggestions to "take a break!" and basically decided to learn me a lesson. Sickness and exhaustion aside, I'm still having a great time with all the books I'm drawing. Even though I STILL can't say anything about the books I'm working on for an American publisher, I can say that I'm really REALLY excited about the series; the covers are being designed at the moment and it's suddenly made everything a bit more real! There should hopefully be some excitement involved with the books next year when they are released. When I can finally talk about them, I you wont be able to shut me up.

I'm also very close to finishing my 6th book for Carlton, the awesome publishers that I drew all the single colour line art for 4 activity books last year. I'm particluarly excited about this book and I'm doing all of the artwork, including all of the colour pages. It's a really nice lttle book and I'm enjoying using a different kind of technique for the colour stuff; hopefully I can post a sneak peek over the next week or so!

I'm gearing up for the MCM Expo at the weekend, for which I'm hoping I'll at least be able to stand up for. Apologies if I spread any of my germs to anyone; I'm overdosing on Vitamin C and as many cold and flu medicines as my body can handle!

Hammer Time!

Because it's Monday morning and I need a shark.

My First Creativity: Baby Animals!

I got a copy of one of the four kid's books I drew last year through the post today - yay! I drew all the single colour line art for a series of four activity books, while four different artists did the colour work on each book. I had a lot of fun doing these books and I'm currently working on another one in the series where I'll be doing all of the artwork. The books are aimed at 3 years + and are very cute. I found myself cringing at a lot of my own artwork (I'm never 100% happy with anything I do) but above are some of my favourite pages, mainly because they were a lot of fun to draw! You can get the book on Amazon and hopefully several book shops. I'll be excitedly scouring the kid's section of WHSmith next time I'm in there! XD More pics from the other three books as I get them!

Bristol Comic Expo!

This weekend will see me exhibiting at the Bristol Comic Expo along with a barrage of other talented creators. You'll be able to buy goodies from me as well as my arty fiends James Stayte and Mark Pearce - their table will be heaving with goods, much like a salmon heaves with eggs before laying time.

Come and pick up a couple of packs of my trading prints too; there are 10 rare cards to collect like the one above; see if you can get them all!