Category: Uncategorised

Ah – a project that has a name so cool it might have killed it. I won’t name it (the name might be a curse, like the time I told a mate his girlfriend’s new haircut made her look like Hawk from Buck Rogers, and it might have been the end of the relationship – I shouldn’t have said it, but I did). This was a thing Rob Williams and I were kicking around. Still pretty happy with this cover/promo piece though. 

I love stuff like this, soldiers laying in a battlefield with wounds found they survived better if their wounds had been glowing overnight – 

“During the 2 days of fighting at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, over 16 000 soldiers lay wounded in cold, muddy fields waiting for rescue.   During the night, some of the men noticed that their open wounds began to glow in the dark  A  greenish blue glow”

“The men had no explanation for this strange glow.  Doctors discovered that soldiers who had reported seeing their wounds glow had a much higher chance of survival than soldiers who did not.”

https://twitter.com/Flaminhaystack/status/1428367354421944322

via twitter

https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1428393826360520707

 “Hundreds of thousands of years in the past when the Long Valley Caldera was created by violent volcanic action, the ultra hot lava flows created California’s Bishop Tuff tableland range, an otherworldly length of stony waves and columns [read more: https://buff.ly/2FywOLZ]”

Things to come, a pin up I did. I entirely forgot I promised to do this pinup, when asked I couldn’t remember a damn thing about it, and hadn’t realised I’d actually drawn a sketch (in which, I’d unhelpfully added the note – “should look cool, not sure how to do it”. Not sure if it succeed to be honest, but here it is.

I’m still mulling ove rhow best to put stuff I’ve done in the week just past here, right now I’m gonna preload a bunch of things you’ve not seen yet – since they’ve yet to appear in print. In order to avoid any stepping on publisher’s toes, I’ll try and limit it to small press or sketches or some other smattering of things.

This is what I’ve beem spending most ofof time on at the moment. 160 pages. I don’t want to talk too much about it (vaguely supersititous about these things) and I’m not even at the halfway mark yet. But I will try and get some sneak peaks up as I go… 

Sometimes, when I’ve got a war comic on the hop, I’ll create a file for reference and drop ref in to it, using clip studio’s 3d tools I’ll download a 3d model (using sketchfab.com) I’ll bring it in to clip studio and render it out as a couple of useful angles and then I’ll use that as the basis for the pencilling (I’ll copy and paste the ref gun into the page and make it a pencil layer and ink over it)

IT’S A CHEAT!

This is the entire black and white art from the Judge Dredd story three kings by Kenneth Neimand… you may have missed it. 

I designed the robots to look like the rock ’em sock ’em robot, a point missed by a number of common taters who suggested they just didn’t look very interesting (a fair point, next time I’ll be less subtle about it)

Struggled with the inking on this, and ended up starting with pen and paper and almost immediately went all digital. Sometimes it’s a struggle.

Hey ho, decided to come back and mull over patreon. I think I can think of a way to make it work – Monday will be a look back, I’ll find something old and post it up – usually the lineart, sometimes the pencils. This will be for level one patreons.

 Friday will be more interesting, I think. Friday will be “The Week So far” – I’ll drop bits and pieces of what I’ve been working on. This will be for higher level patreons.

My plan is to set two patreon levels – $2 and $5 (and maybe $10 for you billionaires out there, determined to spend all your money supporting artists)

This new way of using Patreon will start in September – that’s when the tiers change. (and there will be tears)

Before then I’ll start to build the muscle memory/habit of shoving interesting things up here maybe with a Friday update – available to every level of Patreon, so you can see what you’re getting.

Look, thanks for sticking with me, if that’s what you’ve done (and apologies if you just haven’t been paying attention and the whole thing has happened without you realising)

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make Patreon afford to pay me to make comics, so instead I’m gonna use it as a little window into my work-life here.

(Clearly, I’m not in a position to have to ponder the ethical questions of what would I do if substack offered me $100k to do a comics newsletter, but until patreon do the same thing, I think I’ll be very happy to make a nice even $100 per month off here…)

My youngest son has introduced me to Junji Ito how does a magnificent line in existential dread and horror, so I’ve been playing with that with a view to seeing what I can do in short one page form. I’ve written ideas for two other things done, but here’s the only one I’ve fully written, drawn and lettered. Hope you like!

Gosh, I’m amazed some people have stuck around. I guess you’ve probably forgotten this is even a thing, patreon slowly leaching money out of your account and over to here, where I’ve rudely not posted anything for some time.

I guess the big problem is having things to post, but, you know what… if you can keep a secret, what I think I’ll start doing is posting work that I’m in the middle of here. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES PUT ANY OF THIS OUT IN TO THE WILD! Cheers

It’s all gonna be here for you. This is from an idea that a writer pal and I were bouncing around. It wen’t nowhere (pandemic took over).

Maybe it’ll be resurrected at some later date. Who knows. Any way. Get ready for weekly updates…