Out tomorrow, claw-fans. Here’s a Wolvie painting. This was done before the Doc Who, less happy with this, done from a photo – though not really like it enough. Still, if you want a print of it, seem deal as the good doc (£15 incl p+p)
Contact me (hit the link at the top of the page…)
UPDATE: (btw, if you’re keeping score, this was painted BEFORE the Dr Who – I just blogged it after wards…)
Hey gang, I think I’m getting better at this painting lark. This is, roughly, A4. Painted in Acrylic on canvas board. I’m selling A3 prints of this (there’ll be a white border around the print – and the www.pauljholden.com will NOT be on the print) which I’ll sign and do a little doodle (tardis/dalek/whatever) for £15 incl p+p (art will be rolled up and posted in a tube).
Just fire me off an email if you’d like one!
I’ve been doing some paiting, finding it very enjoyable (when I can get the space to do it – well, time and space – I need a painting TARDIS).
Anyhue, here’s Indiana Jones. It’s a little confused looking – neither caricature nor proper likeness. I was aiming for caricature but didn’t quiet push it far enough. Anyhue, opinions welcome. (I also did a David Tennant piece, which I’ve yet to scan – too bloody large…)
(I should add, as a jobbing artist, if you see any artwork on this website, you should consider it FOR SALE – and, if you like you can make me an offer … the painting is A4 – but I’m also going to be offering A3 sized prints as well… stay tuned…)
So, some of you may now, and some may not, that about a month ago I joined forces with some other irish comic book artists and started up the ‘eclectic micks‘ sketchblog thing. There’s seven of us, so we all get a turn – one sketch per day. The one-up-manship has been pretty terrible, culiminating (I hope, not sure how I top it) with the painting I did of a T-rex (go have a look, drop a comment and come back).
I’m the lone northern irish artist in the troupe, I’m pretty sure I’m also the oldest, which means, sometimes, some of the cultural references those guys understand and relish leave me feeling … well… just old. For example, the gangs all pretty excited about a Ghostbusters mash up monster sketch, we’ll eventually do (though, based on previous experience, we probably won’t). I saw Ghostbusters in the cinema, on the Ormeau Road in the Curzon – IIRC, it had four screens at the time (maybe just two, actually). I have a vague memory of seeing it alone – I was 14 at the time. I’m pretty sure the second time I saw it I tried to fib about my age so I could get an under 12 ticket, which, even with my youthful good looks was a bit of a stretch. Suitably chastised, I bought an ‘adult’ ticket and wandered into Ghostbusters. (The tickets were dispensed by a little old lady, wearing a chammy, behind a glass screen – tickets would come out of the top of a metal dispenser on the top of the table, with a lovely reassuring chunky noise). Anyhue, I never really got into the Ghostbusters cartoon, and the film, while I enjoyed it, never left as lasting an impression as, say, Tron.
And on a unrelated note : I WILL attempt to blog more.
I’ve started painting. I’m learning a lot about peoples faces – never really studied things as much as when I’m doing this stuff. There’s still a little work to do on this. Painted on a backing board (don’t have any proper canvases – so I’m using the hard cardboard that is used on A3 drawing pads – it’s a pain, since, when you add even a small amount of water the board goes jetblack – so you have to paint, dry, check, paint, dry, check, and repeat) using Acrylics (orange and blue, mostly, and some white acrylic ink – rather than acrylic paint) and a little digital touchup in photoshop – just enhancing the highlights. Please let me know what you think, I’m still sort of feeling my way around this – it’s really enjoyable, but I always worry that since I’m enjoying something it may make it less enjoyable for a wider audience (and, conversely, I always can tell when an artist is enjoying a job since that joy usually translates into the work – I’m confused).
Caricature of AC Grayling for a magazine. (The finished piece is actually slightly different; changed the colour of the glasses…) Very happy with this illo.
I’ve been tagged by this particular meme a number of times now, so I figure I’ll get it out of the way. But I’m lazy, so unlikely to tag 25 people (and besides, how do you pick 25 people?)
Anyhue, things you may or may not know about me:
1) I’m a pretty sore loser. Which is why I don’t compete.
2) I’m incredibly competitive. Which is ALSO why I don’t compete.
3) I’m irritatingly lazy. Which is a third reason why I don’t compete.
4) I love doing things I’m good at (assuming I don’t have to make any real effort to be good at them) and have managed to avoid a lot of things I’m bad at. Which is a fourth reason not to compete.
5) I resent the fact that despite a couple of close run things, I’ve never actually won ANYTHING (and by which I don’t mean lotteries – though that’s true too.) I tell myself that the reason I don’t win things is because I don’t compete, but … that’s just to stifle that inner sobbing.
6) My mum was an English Protestant, my dad is a Belfast Catholic (non-practising, whatever that means) so I’ve never felt a particular allegiance to the Catholic or Protestant communities. (And for a bonus: we once had a petrol bomb thrown through our window, when I was the only one staying at home – the drunken eejit who threw it didn’t manage to light it though, so it just ended up as a petroleum+sugar smear on the wall of the sitting room)
7) I’m, startlingly proud of being from Norn Iron – even though there’s little reason to be, beyond an accident of birth.
I was christened at five. Or six. I’m not sure.
9) I’m the eldest of five sons.
10) My brother, Mark, passed away in 1997 – he was 26, one year younger than me.
11) My mum passed away three months after I got married, and a month before my wife got pregnant with our first son.
12) The happiest day of my life (and we’ll assume all the other obvious days were better – like birth of son, etc) was when Andy Diggle told me I’d get my first commission. My mouth was sore from smiling.
13) I’ve walked away from jobs/friends/degree and never looked back. This is probably a very unpleasant aspect of me, but it’s how it is.
14) My family thought I was gay when I was younger. Probably because of my predilection for drawing male superheroes – which I only drew because I thought drawing female ones would make me look like a pervert.
15) I like words.
16) I keep hoping I’ll stumble across that one thing that I’m REALLY fupping amazing at. Everytime I try something new, I think ‘Maybe THIS is it!’. So far? zip.
17) If I pay attention, I can remember every word and nuance of a conversation. I rarely pay attention.
18) I often joke that I MUST be clever, because how else would I have done so well in my life while being this lazy. I say it as a joke but I genuinely believe it.
19) I am vain.
20) I’m a pacifist. But that might be borne out of laziness (and my strict avoidance of any sort of competition)
21) When I was a kid I had a recurring fantasy that the world would have a nuclear holocaust and I’d live in a bunker why my family and a massive video selection with enough food for us to live there forever. This wasn’t a nightmare fantasy, it was more a lovely daydream to while away the hours.
22) When I do something I know to be wrong I’m wracked with guilt for YEARS. This is the unpleasent side effect of a catholic upbringing (AND I didn’t even get full bore catholic – god knows how mad I’d be if I did…)
23) I need attention. A LOT of attention – but only if I’ve directed it at me, I don’t want attention unless I call for it.
24) I’m rubbish at introducing myself or going up to someone and saying hello. But if I’m introduced or THEY say hello, I’m very good that running from there.
25) I have a funny birthmark on my bum.
That’s it, your 25.
Quiet pleased with how this turned out (Alan Henderson commision). Oh yes, I’m doing commissions, if you’re innerested…
Hey, 2000AD Prog 1624 was out last week – it’s the start of the six part 86ers finale. Will there be more after this? Not likely. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Currently drawing: three part Judge Dredd with Gordon Rennie. Hilariously funny story, of which I can’t talk.
I think my ability to write/form longer than 140 character thoughts has become somewhat impaired by twitter.
I am, pretty much as of this month, a poor struggling comic book artist. I have thrown off the last of the shackles of a regular pay cheque in exchange for the unbending reality of a barely above the poverty line existence that pretty much all comic artists have come to know as normal.
For the past several years my meagre comic income was always nothing more than some pocket change to my well paid, somewhat plush, part time job. Which was, I think/hope, preventing me from improving as a comic artist and from having a much healthier comic art career. God, I hope it was preventing it (otherwise it was just me preventing it on my own).
So now I have more time to draw, and less money to spend. If you’re an editor or know an editor, now is the time to let them know I’m available and great…
(But don’t let them read this next part)
I’m really struggling with the drawing at the moment. It seems to me that my inking and drawing, hitherto constantly improving (if only by miniscule amounts) has actually regressed. Looking at the latest 2000Ad and my work seems to be the crudest stuff in there – it’s pretty disappointing to me (and that’s in reference to my own work, no-one else’s).
I’m going to be trying to address it, because I need to if I intend to draw for a living and because I need to if I intend to be a good artist (which, truth be told, is more important to me than earning a living).
Anyhue, that’s all for now…
Me and my mate Jimbo (who isn’t actually my brother – just my very good friend), talk rubbish. We do this a lot, but don’t normally have the foresight to record it. Now we have. And we’re gonna try and do it regular, like…
Please forgive how appallingly badly organised this is… will try and do it better… (also: NSFW and 20minutes long and audio is a little skwiffy in bits..)
[podcast]http://www.pauljholden.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/pj_and_jimbo_1.mp3[/podcast]
Wherein we show our lack of knowledge on a wide range of topics. Including drum and base, RnB, how to use Garageband to record a podcast and some parenting advice.