Grail - T-Shirt element

 I did a bit of punch-up work on a student submission for out school's current production t-shirt. 

I re-did the Grail image - made it a bit fancier. Here it is. Just finished now. 

I learned how to do a proper halftone effect with photoshop with this, so some good learning as well. 

New Project idea - "King in Yellow" playing card woodcut

 I've been wanting to get into a new woodcut, and nothing was coming to me in terms of imagery for a new Tarot design.I was scrolling through Pinterest for ideas, and I happened on a piece of art on the 'The King in Yellow' - the eldritch horror fictional play. I've loved the idea of 'The King in Yellow' ever since I first encountered it in a game of Call of Cthulu I played back in the 90's. 

 It was a neat picture, and was a cartoonish representation of Hastur ( The 'King' ), Queen Calisda ( one of the tragic figures in the play ) and her children. 

 And I thought - 'Hey, a playing card - one half Hastur and the other Quean Calsida - would be pretty cool.' 

 So that's where I'm going ! I've done a couple of experimental sketches ( nothing amazing there ! ), and I think it could look good. Here's the current one. I think I spent more time measuring up the dimensions of the card ! 

I don't like the current placement of the staff, and I think I could change the arm to a mass of tentacles. The mask is alright, but I could make it look much more sinister. The cloak needs work. BUT - I like the idea and the direction. 

More as it happens.

FInished

 I think it's done. Let's see what the Art Director of the Drabblecast says !

Colour

 

Stuff I did - Tarot Woodcuts

 In the last couple of years I've tired my hand at making woodcuts. I hadn't done one since I was at high school - so a good twenty or so years ! 

I made these for friends of mine, and was very happy with the way they turned out. I'll have to break out the gouges and make another one sometime soon ! 

Stuff I Did - 'Thee Time Visitor' cover

 I really like the way this turned out - even though all I'm doing here is messing with photos that other people took.

Stuff I Did - 'My Friend of Misery' cover

 Another cover for Rish. I'm really happy that Rish likes the stuff I do. I often flounder around if I have to think of stuff to draw myself. Having a direction from someone else is weirdly liberating. 

Stuff I Did - 'Podcatcher' cover

 I'm going to post some of the stuff I've done since 2017. I had a friend who wanted to see some of my art stuff - but I didn't get to the last time I saw her. Also - constant reader - you may enjoy it too. 

I hope so ! 

Crosshatching

 I did a piece of cover art for storytelling genius Rish Outfield earlier this year. He specifically asked for an 'Edward Gorey' type effect - which meant a LOT of cross hatching. I quite liked the finished look of it - so I'm trying to use some here as well. 

What do you think ? I like it. ( *King Julian voice* ) 

Development

 I was hoping to get more done on this over the last couple of days. Was not to be. Still - something is better than nothing !

New commission

 I recently got in touch with the Art Director of The Drabblecast podcast, and asked if he needed an artist to volunteer. I had done a few covers for The Drabblecast a few years back, but then they stopped asking me. I wondered if I'd somehow offended him or said something stupid - or maybe submitted some really bad art. But no - I'd just fallen of the rotation, and he seemed quite happy to have me back. 

I'd played around with a couple of sketches eralier in the week, and decided on a way to go with this one. 

 I managed to scan in a rough sketch, and have spent a couple of hours getting the outlines of the main figure done.  I'm happy with how it's going so far. 

It's alive !

 Oh boy. 

2017 huh ? 

That was a while ago, wasn't it ? 

Ummmm .... yeah. 

No excuses really - I just have been bad at posting anything. 

Here's a thing I did this year ! I have to go put children to bed now. But I'll be back again soon ? 

Promise ?? 

A couple of covers

Not much work on the comic this last week, but I have done a couple of cover pieces for my author friend Rish.

The first was more lettering, though I did mess around with the photo he sent me for the cover - layering in purples into the sunset, darkening the branches, and intensifying the setting sun. Worked out fairly well I thought.

Here's the original photo :

And how it ended up : 

The other one I was supposed to do a LOT earlier. I offered to do a cover for Rish's story 'Murdertown, 1 Mile'. I had what I thought was a really good idea, though when I came to create it, it didn't live up to my hopes for it...

 I was pretty unhappy with it, and I left it for quite some time. A couple of days ago I opened the file up and was struck with a way I could make it better -

I had to find some 'splatter' brushes on line - but that wasn't too hard. I'm much happier with the way this version looks !

First post for 2017 !

Been a long time coming ! I have been meaning to post thing ... but I just didn't get round to anything. Argh.

Still - it's not like I've been doing nothing. I DID spend too much time playing video games over the Christmas break though. I've given up video games for this first term in order to try and make more productive use of the time I've got.

I have made some progress with 'Tuesday'. Here are the current states of the three pages. Not long until the first ep. is finally done !

Pro Bono RPG illustration - Finished

It's done :

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out in the end.

Pro Bono RPG illustration - Colour refinement

I didn't really like the star trails - even though I was very pleased with the idea - so I tried something else :

I like this better. The stars were too busy. I think I might need some more of the tuning lines towards the bottom of the image.

Pro Bono RPG illustration - First colour pass

Been playing with colour today :

Not much time left to get this done on schedule !

Pro Bono RPG illustration - Radio building mostly done

Haven't had a lot of time to be working on this drawing ( or any drawing, to be honest ), but I have made some progress :

Pro Bono RPG illustration - Start of central figure

Spent some time over the last couple of days getting Steve's illustration started :

Not bad so far.

Pro Bono RPG illustration - VERY rough sketch

Last week my good friend Steve asked if I would be interested in doing a piece of illustration for an RPG article he's writing. I'm always interested in things like that ! 

What I'll be doing is a piece to support an idea of a radio station transmitting the voice of a dead god. 

I've been playing around with some ways of doing that - and I think I hit on the general direction I'm going to go with it yesterday. 

It's VERY rough at this stage - but here's the final base sketch : 

I'm excited to see how this turns out in the end !