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.

Pimp Thyself!

This last couple of weeks, I feel like I've barely done any work, purely because I've been getting stuff printed and sorted for all the upcoming cons I've got on after my trip to New York. Hopefully though, this can still be seen as work! I thought I'd just show a couple of the things I've had printed that will be made into what I like to call Pimp Packs to hand out to peeps at the New York Con. I may not be selling stuff, but I can still spread my head-cheese around a bit!

First off is a nifty little print adorned with what I've come to see as my "brand" charaters. I love these little doods as they make great stickers and just seem to tie all my work up and hopefully give people an idea of what they can expect from my portfolio. I'll be doing something similar to this but a lot cooler and much more inventive when I finally start sending stuff out to publishers!

Also to add to my Pimp Packs are two business cards; one for my sites and one for my shop. I figured that making a card purely for my online shop would be better than just handing out cards for my website as it saves people going through everywhere else to find it. They're not amazing, but hopefully they'll get people looking! (Apologies for the bad photos! :P)

I am Represented!

I am very happy to announce that I have an illustration agent! I am now on the roster for Inky Illustration. Inky are a relatively new agency with a diverse range of artists to it's name and I'm very pleased that they considered my work good enough to want to represent me. I hope it's the start of a productive working relationship.

I've emailed several agencies over the last 6 months with the old "Thanks, but it's not what we're looking for" response, which is fair enough as my work doesn't fit in with a lot of the more popular commercial illustration styles. Of course, getting 15 emails with the same response plants the seeds of doubt and I went through a whole maybe-I-need-to-change-my-style-to-fit-with-what's-popular thing. But as much as I want to make a living from being an illustrator, I've never wanted to give it to popular trends and have always stuck to my guns in carving out my own style. I'm very glad that it's paid off at last! :D

Of course, there's also the question of whether having an agent will get you more work. I've heard a lot of positive and negative things from illustrators with agents so it's always hard to gauge if the one you finally get will help your career. From experience, the fact that you have an agent seems to make potential clients more inclined to hire you anyway. The awesome blog, Escape From Illustration Island, has a great collection of articles about Art Representation which are well worth a read. Has anyone else got an agent, and if so, how is it working out?

More Tee Vicar?

I told you I'd get addicted to Threadless...

Here is yet another new t-shirt design. Sorry if this is getting a tad boring but I'm trying to get myself into the habit of posting one a week. The reason for this is that it gets me off of my bum-bum and makes me think about something new to post and have it ripped apart by ravenous t-shirt critics! My last two tees did less than average on Threadless but that only serves to make me try and think harder about what kind of design makes a good tee. Speaking of, I have a new design coming out through the awesome Genki Gear very soon; more on that later! :P

Greetings Card Designs

A couple of months ago I was approached by Bristol-based charity called VIVA! to design a set of greetings cards for them. They wanted superhero themed animals so this is what I came up with! The cards will be released soon; I can't wait to see them!

Money-off Vouchers!

As a thank you to everyone who supports my work, here's some money off of things from me when you come to one of the cons I'm attending! All you have to do is print and cut this voucher and present it to me on my stall with a flourish for your special discount when you spend any of the amounts above. I will also be releasing vouchers for the MCM Expo and Thought Bubble so keep an eye out! Unfortunately, I can't really offer any more money off than what's on the voucher but I will continue to run giveaways on this blog so please keep watching!

Hecticness and another t-shirt design

Okay, I think I'm going to be spamming Threadless with quite a few t-shirt designs! My first tee is still up for voting but I got itchy and made this one too which will hopefully be approved within the next day or so so get ready to vote again! Hopefully I can reach a wider audience with these designs; I'm already getting into voting on other people's tees and trying to make my stinky presence known within the site. Fingers crossed!

In other news, things will be a tad quiet on the art front as I'm packing up my flat ready for moving. Here's where things get a little complicated; my boyf and I are in the process of being all grown up (guh) and buying a house. However, we're off to New York for 2 weeks at the start of October so I will officially be living with him when I get back until everything goes through. Bear in mind we're back a day and then off to the Birmingham Comic Show, things are going to be a bit tiring to say the least. But hopefully at the end of all this, we will have an awesome little house to call our own!

I'll be trying to get some new pics done in the meantime, just for my own sanity but my updates may be a little bit infrequent this coming month. My head hurts...

Please vote for me!

My Threadless design is finally up for voting! A vote for me is a vote for a really cool t-shirt! :D

Every vote is very much appreciated!

Mad Nut Skillz!

Threadless Submission!

I just submitted a t-shirt design to Threadless after much umming and ahhing! I've had a very positive response to this image recently so thought I'd submit it as a tee. My design is still pending approval before voting opens but I thought I'd give everyone a heads-up so you can get your voting fingers ready! I'll no doubt post again when voting is officially open :D

NY Comic Con Exclusive Comic Covers!

I am extremely proud to announce that my awesome boyfriend John-Paul has coloured 2 exclusive comic covers that will be released by IDW at the New York Comic Con! The two covers are drawn by our very talented fiend, Casey Coller and are based on 2 famous comic covers/film posters. Can you guess what they are?

I'm over-the-moon for my boy as he's been digitally colouring for the last 5/6 years alongside a demanding full-time job as well as completing a distance-learning Masters degree, so to come as far as he has on top of all that is a true sign of determination and hard work. It's about time his work was recognised and our upcoming trip to New York will be spent pimping said covers at the Comic Con!

Guide Dog Detective

Many moons ago (well, about 3), I worked full-time in a comic shop. I'd previously been working part-time in a video shop after leaving uni whilst trying to sell my magic illustration beans when the opportunity popped up; at the time, this was one of my dream jobs so I jumped at the chance. Working in a comic shop for three years was awesome and influenced my artwork no end. We sold a lot of small press comics and zines, and while I'd always been fascinated by them and even tried my hand at a few poor attempts, it was purely by accident that I decided to draw my own small press comic.

Guide Dog Detective was my attempt at something familiar yet different and I still get people asking me when the next issue will be coming out! Unfortunately, I haven't got the time to put into it any more so it's been on permanent hiatus since issue 2. However, I got a fantastic response from people about it and it really helped to get me into the small press and comic con scene in the UK.

GDD was a crime comic with animals; it happened purely by accident and the first issue was drawn as I went along - it was only sheer luck that it all made sense and fit together! I got it printed and started to sell it in the shop and to my delight, people really liked it. I made enough money back to get more printed and drew and released issue 2 which was also a success (as far as small press comics go).

Issue 3 is written and thumb-nailed but only got as far as pages 1-4 being drawn out. I have a whole 12-issue arc planned and will get back into it at some point. However, it's been so long since I drew, I can imagine it would look totally different. Looking at these pics make me cringe a bit! It was a lot of fun to do though and I think I'll get the urge to pick it up again sometime in the future.

Artists To Look Out For 2!

Welcome to Part 2 of my blog series on the Talented Fiends I know through the Internet and real-life! Here are two chaps that I think just manage to crank out pure genius every time their pencils hits the paper.

First up we the awesome Matt Kaufenberg, a US based artist I met through Deviantart. As well as being very pleasant, Matt is a fantastic artist with a great personal style; he does brilliant character fan-art pieces that have a lot of individuality and charm and caricatures that are spot-on. He also does month-long character design projects that are really fun to follow. I would highly recommend checking out Matt's gallery as he has an extremely diverse portfolio.

One of my favourite fan-art pics!

I had the pleasure of buying the Hordak pic below for my boyf!

Next is a fellow I met at a con, where our mutual love for crap films, drawing film characters and energetic babbling cemented a friendship that seems to revolve around David Lo Pan from Big Trouble in Little China. Dylan Cook is another artist that seems able to capture characters perfectly; he works like a trooper and his drawings are always full of humour and style. Dylan's enthusiasm is also very clear in his work and talking to him for 10 minutes is enough to get anyone geared up and wanting to get on and draw.

Link as he appears behind closed doors.

The best Venger I have ever seen. Full stop.

And David Lo Pan. Genius.

New Superhero Prints!

Over in my shop, I've just added a range of cute superhero prints! Included are: Wolverine, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Daredevil, The Punisher, Spidey, Green Lantern, Nick Fury, Batman, The Flash and Clark Kent. These will also be available at the upcoming comic conventions I will be attending so keep an eye out! Added to the growing list of cons, I will be at Thought Bubble in Leeds on the 20th of November.

Sea Anenemyome

Elongated Coyotes and a note on style

Today's inexplicable brain-fart; I really cannot account for the weirdness my imagination comes out with sometimes...

Anyway! This last couple of weeks I've been grappling with overtime at work, commissions, t-shirt designs, looking for a new house, sorting out cons, worrying about bills and subsequently pretending none of this exists by playing video games. I'm in a constant state of nervous panic at the moment; great for drawing, not great for brain! It's all good though. I also had the pleasure of doing an interview with the lovely people at We Blog Artists; read it here!

But enough griping, I want to talk about style. As an illustrator, I constantly worry that my personal drawing style is rubbish. I have a lot of influences that have contributed to how my work looks now (hopefully none of them glaringly obvious) and continue to find new artists that spark ideas of my own and help push my work forward. Trying to carve out a unique "look" is bloody difficult and has taken me the last 5 years to get right and I'm still trying to polish it. What really makes an artist stand out though? There's so much out there, it's sometimes hard to know if your stuff makes any kind of impact.

I think enthausiasm has a lot to do with it which is why I try and go to as many cons as possible to meet people; I get quite manic at these but it seems to draw people in and take an interest in my work which makes me realise that personality also has a lot to do with individual style. I like to think my personality manifests itself through my work; my boyfriend told me that he thought this is what the inside of my head would look like if someone burst it open like a pinata which made me laugh and also pleased me! Does anyone else see their work as a physical manifestation of their brains? How do you go about trying to make your style stand out?

Morning Head Dump