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!

Trading Prints!

A while ago I made a set of trading cards featuring 50 characters; I will now be selling packs of trading PRINTS at my upcoming cons! The prints are a very cute format of 9cm x 13cm and there are 50 to collect plus 10 rare cards which are very sparse! Each pack contains 6 random prints and will be £1.50 per pack. I'm hoping people will like the idea - they make awesome little pieces of art and I've always loved the blind-packed collect-them-all format of things like this. I'd love to be able to make my own set of toys like M.U.S.C.L.E Men or Battle Beasts! Anyone remember Monster in my Pocket? :P

Something Weird Is Going On: TV

The Cute and the Weird!

Yay! My new small press books arrived today and they're looking rather nice! I've started a series called The Cute and the Weird which will be a set of 24 page colour books featuring various bits and bobs of my artwork. Volume 1 contains a set of cartoons I drew called Something Weired Is Going On and Volume 2 is more of a random art book. They're both full colour and will be available to buy at the Bristol Comic Con. I will also have some in my online store soon!

Cosmic Horror Activity book!

My new activity book arrived yesterday and it's looking kind of cool! The book is 28 pages, with greyscale throughout and a full-colour cover! It'll be available at the Bristol Comic Con and MCM Expo in May!

I Heart Awesome Commissions!

A commission for a 6 year old girl's birthday. She loves Optimus Prime.

Octopus Crossing!

Childhood Influences: Garbage Pail Kids

Gross things fascinate kids. I'm still kind of fascinated by gross things although I shouldn't admit it but I think I can say that Garbage Pail Kids had a hand in that. I still remember my brother's huge collection of them (still much coveted but apparently he gave me lots of swaps years ago which I then lost - I have no memory of this) and he refuses still to part with the 60 or so cards he keeps with his Micro Machines and M.U.S.C.L.E Men (I'm nearly 32, he'll be 30 this year). Every now and then I will try my luck with him and ask if he wants to give them to his loving sister - along with an original Skeletor figure which he insists is his but was bought for a birthday gift for a friend and never given, therefore is NOT his -but he remains unshakable. So imagine my immense delight when I found this book the other day:

This amazing book collects all of the artwork for the first 5 original Garbage Pail Kids trading cards. What's so great about these? They were gross and brilliant. I can still remember looking at certain cards for ages, thrilled at the grossness of the pictures. It's no wonder parents wanted them banned - they really pushed it in terms of decency! I mean, look at Ned Head (below) - he was one I always remembered and still think is pretty bad taste. But these things left a lasting impression on me as a youngster; they were pretty popular at school which I guess would have been about 1988 even though the cards came out in 1985. I can't be totally sure, but I think teachers started to boycott them in our school. I know they were definitely frowned upon.

As an adult (I use this word in the loosest possible way) I still love these things; to me the artwork is gorgeous; I love the painted style that artist John Pound used and it wasn't totally lost on me as a kid that they were a parody of Cabbage Patch Kids. I also love that they hark back to the days when stuff for kids was a bit less "contains mild peril" and a lot more risky. They certainly made an impression on me and I can still remember the taste of the horrible hard stick of bubblegum that would come with every pack. The designers of the book have made a nice nod to this, not only by putting an image of a bubblegum stick on the hardcovers but also by making the dust cover from the same weird greaseproof paper the cards came in. Genius.

They're disgusting and immature, sure, but children still love stuff like this, no matter how much their parents wished they didn't. I still revel in the books I loved growing up and several of them feature potty humour and even now, working in the children's book field, it's still pretty popular; one book I nearly drew but which sadly got cancelled would have been an activity book about gross stuff for kids. My art director excitedly said in an email "We get to draw poo and snot!" which made me wonder if she liked these as a kid too.