Batman/Aliens II on Ebay.

Just a quick post to let you know that there is a bunch of pages from the Batman Aliens II graphic novel (among others) available on Ebay currently. In a change to the way I usually sell on Ebay, these pages aren't up for auction, but are on a 'first come first served' Buy It Now basis.

Among them are these pages....

Rogue Trooper/Major Easy Commission

I was contacted recently by Eric Moore, author of the rather fabulous AIEEEE! blog, when he asked me to produce for him a private commission of Rogue Trooper & Hellman Of Hammer Force (from the gloriously violent 1970's comic, ACTION). His idea was to combine a character from the past with a more contemporary one. It could be argued that both Rogue & Hellman are old, but since Rogue has had a few brief outings in recent years I figure Eric just about gets away with it. Now anyone who has read this blog on anything approaching a regular basis will know I don't need asking twice to draw Rogue, & since I was a HUGE fan of Action when I was 11 years old, the opportunity to draw Hellman was tempting to say the least.

Anyhoo, I went ahead & did an initial pencil rough of a scene I thought would work, mainly just the figures with little costume detail, but then had to put it aside for quite a while due to deadline commitments. By the time I had come back to the piece, Eric had changed his mind, & now he wanted Major Easy instead of Hellman. This was an easy (pun intended) fix, since I realised when making the few changes necessary that Easy & Hellman have an almost identical silhouette, I even decided it wouldn't be necessary to change the gun I had given Hellman (a German MP40), since I figured Major Easy was the type of unconventional guy who wouldn't be a stickler for using regulation firearms all the time. So this was the final pencil layout, about 13 x 17 cm.






Having completed the layout, I scanned it into Photoshop, enlarged it to the right size, then printed it out & traced it through to the final board on my lightbox, using my usual Sharpies fine liners.












I was going to leave it at that, but at the last minute I decided a little touch of grey marker would help to really make the image 'pop'.

And hey presto, there we are, two characters who are never likely to meet, duke it out mano a mano... or something like that.

Eric plans to make the 'someone old someone new' a regular theme in his commission collection, & as such has started a blog to show them all off. Click the link below, take a look, & tell him I sent you. There's some really nice stuff on there already.

Someone Old, Someone New Blog!


If you're interested in something similar, an A4 'marker sketch' is usually £65 +p&p, but contact me with your requirements & I'll be able to give to a definite price.

Transformers & Heroes art on Ebay.

In addition to the whole heap of Marvel & DC art I put on Ebay at the weekend, I also have decided to offer up some of the pages I did for the HEROES strips (as in the TV show). I recognise that as these are drawn in pencil, & not inked, they may be an aquired taste, but there they are nevertheless, similarly, the work I did on the Titan Transformers magazine a couple of years ago, these are currently on Ebay also.

Here's a selection of the pages, & click here to see the full list of what's available.

They think it's all over...... It is now!!!

No, not a post relating to England's epic victory in the 1966 World Cup, but rather just to let you know that the graphic novel adaptation of Dracula that you & I long thought complete, in fact wasn't..... but now is. "Wha.....?" I hear you mutter. Well, it goes like this. I had thought that my work on said volume was finished over a year ago, but recently, the publishers asked if I would mind producing an additional six pages of artwork, to "fill in a few continuity gaps". After having produced some 130 pages for the book already, I certainly didn't want another artist coming in at the eleventh hour to provide pages which would inevitably be different in style, & a visual jar in the final published book. And so I agreed.

The new pages don't contain anything of real dramatic import, but are rather best described as bridges to fill certain storytelling gaps, & will be interspersed throughout the book. So what's on these pages? Well, more of the same really... blokes dressed in black, & ladies with their boobs hanging out... which pretty much sums up my entire comic career for these last 30 years. Convenient.

Here's some of the raw images prior to being cleaned up digitally & formatted into the actual finished pages. All of these are inked with Sharpies over bluline printouts of pencil layouts.

Ebay!!!

Hi, just a quickie post to let you know that there is currently upwards of 40 pages of my artwork for sale on Ebay, click here to check out what's available.

First Ebay of 2011

I havn't had anything on Ebay since before Christmas, so I figured it was high time I did. Among the stuff on offer this week is the cover art to an old Transformers comic from the old Marvel UK days, back in 1990, as well as the usual mix of Batman, Spiderman, X-Men etc etc.

Here's the link to the stuff up for grabs, & to the left is the Transformers cover art I mentioned.

Judge Dredd Megazine #307

Just a quickie post to say that the current issue of the Judge Dredd Megazine (#307) carries the first part of a three part Judge Dredd story I have been working on. The story also features the return of former Chief Judge Hershey to Mega City 1.

It's a real pleasure to get a chance to work in the world of Dredd again, I really feel at home.

Anyway, here's the listing of the issue on the 2000AD website, & a few bits of the art, pencil pages, inked bits etc. Pick up the issue to see it all coloured up by Chris Blythe.

Just to explain what these are. I pencil out each page at roughly A4 size, then scan it into my computer. In Photoshop I enlarge the pencils, & convert the grey to a pale blue. I then print the blue pencils out in sections (since I don't have an A3 printer) onto regular printer/typing paper, & ink the 'bluelines' with a combination of Sharpies, various other markers & Pentel white out correction pens. This process is a recent innovation for me, though I know lots of other cartoonists use a similar method. I do find it frees me up somewhat at the inking stage (which tends to be the stage I would normally provarocate at), knowing that if I mess it up, I havn't destroyed the pencil, & can just print out another bluline.

I then scan the inked sections back into Photoshop, where clean them up, & I combine them into the final pages.

2000AD Prog 2011

Prog (short for 'programme'... 2000AD speak for 'issue') 2011 of 2000AD, hit the shelves yesterday, it's a 100page monster, & among the 10 stories in there, is the Rogue Trooper strip I drew recently.

Check out this link to read a 'round table' interview I took part in with Rogue' writer Gerry Finlay Day, 2000AD editor Matt Smith & Pat Mills (the creator of 2000AD & champion of GFD).

Rogue Trooper preview

As brought to my attention by the superb AIEEE! blog, a Rogue Trooper strip I drew recently was previewed in the mighty 2000AD last week.
I managed to track down a copy (which wasn't as easy as I'd anticipated, but ASDA came to the rescue yet again), & for those of you who don't pick up the Galaxy's Greatest Comic, here's a scan. As you can see, the strip was written by the original writer of the strip Gerry Finlay Day, so it was a huge thrill for me, being a massive fan of the character from way back.

This particular prog, marks the return of another legend, art droid Brendan McCarthy to Dredd after a 20 year absence, so it's well worth picking up.

I'll post a proper look 'behind the scenes' at the Rogue strip as soon as I get time.

Christmas sale of artwork on Ebay.

I have a bunch of artwork on Ebay currently, any of which would make an excellent Christmas gift...*hint* *hint*

Click here to see what's on offer, & in the meantime, here's a bunch of images from the art for sale.