Unknown Soldier

Last year I did a short run on the 'Unknown Soldier' back up strip in DC Comics now defunct title 'G. I. Combat'. For those who didn't read this incarnation of the character, the premise had nothing to do with those famous Joe Kubert World War II stories, infact (from my point of view at least) it has more in common with the Jason Bourne movies than anything else. Lot's of gritty (at times even brutal) action, lost identities, covert government agencies etc . An absolute BLAST to draw, & I think a lot of fun to read too.So, if you're into that kind of thing, you could do a lot worse than track down a copy of the G.I.Combat trade, which not only has the Unknown Soldier material, but collects all the other storied that ran in the title.

Anyway, there is much too much material to put in one post, so I may return to the subject at a later date, but for now, here's some of the pencils & finished inks for the first episode I drew. As you will see, the script (by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Grey) gave me lots of opportunity to draw a variety of historical combat scenes, & since doing the research is one of the fun parts of this job, I was as happy as a pig in the proverbial...If you want to know why the character appears to be talking to a crow in some scenes, well, you're just going to have to go buy that trade to find out..... 'cos I'm damned if I can tell you. As usual, I printed the pencils out as faint bluelines, & inked those inorder to preserve the original graphite drawings.

Wolverine Private Commission

I haven't had many opportunities to draw Wolverine in full superhero gear, so it was a pleasant surprise when a client (Rob Green) asked for a commission of him in any costume of my choice. I opted for his original yellow & blue combo, but decided to leave the cowl off so we could see his face, & instead show that in the background image. Having sketched out the two elements separately, I scanned them & combined them into this layout in Photoshop.

I printed this out, & with the aid of a lightbox transfered it to the artboard. Laying colour markers over black fineliners can result in smearing of the linework, so to avoid this, I layed the colour in first. I don't usually put this much colour into a commission, but this time, I felt the piece required it. All finished, client happy... sorted!!

The Usual Suspect...MegaCity1 styleee

Here's a private commission I just did. The client wanted this Usual Suspects style identity parade, but with Kevin Spacey et al substituted for a roster of Dredd-verse perps.... a no-prize for the first one to name them all. If you think you see Catwoman in the mix & are wondering why, well you're right, & the reason is that the client (a mysterious shadowy figure, known only as 'Chief') wanted one of the characters in the line up to be a character with whom I am associated. Of all the characters I've worked on Catwoman seemed best to fit in with a line up of crims, so that was that.

I sketched out the five characters separately, then pieced it together in Photoshop, trying them in a few different orders until I got one that I thought worked best. On a side note, I obviously wasn't switched on when I sketched out Catwoman, for some reason I forgot to give her the cat's ears to her costume... sheesh. I also got Judge Fear's helmet almost completely wrong...

Anyway, the client approved the pencil layout. At this point when doing art for publication I would print this image out as a blueline & ink that, however, since this was for a private commission, & may well end up in a frame, I figured that those printed blue pencils might look a bit 'nasty', so instead I printed it out as a black image & lightboxed it through onto the actual artboard prior to inking.

That's it, all done. As I mentioned in an earlier post, if you want something similar, it will cost you £250+p&p.

Quick Superman sketch

Not really much else to say about this......

Commissions list open

I am opening my commissions list, so if there are any of you who have had commission requests turned down recently, or anyone just considering having a commission, now is the time to get your requests in. Prices are now as follows;-

A4 single figure marker drawing. £85 + p&p. These will have some background elements, & will generally speaking be in black & white with a little highlight colour added if I feel it works.

A4 two character marker drawing £150 + p&p. Similar to the single character piece, except it has 2 characters.... obviously

A3 single character marker drawing £150 + p&p. A gain, similar to the A4 single character, except it's bigger, some might say "better for framing", I couldn't possibly comment.

A3 two character marker drawing £200 + p&p. Do I really need to explain what this one is? I haven't actually done one of this type yet, but a couple of people have enquired about this, so I figured I'd add it as an option.

A3 print quality art £350 + p&p. Bit difficult to explain this one, basically what you get is a piece of art which would sit comfortably along side any artwork I have produced for Marvel, DC or 2000AD. There are no limitations on the content (up to a point... don't ask for "every single member of the Legion Of Superheroes, EVER!", just use your common sense) so if you are wanting cover recreations, this is the one you want.

Deviant Art

I have started a Deviant Art page, actually I opened the page three years ago, but never actually did anything with it until today. Anyway, I'm going to use it an an updatable online gallery. But I won't just be putting new material on there, there'll also be some much older stuff too, some of which was created before I had any kind of online presence, & as such will be seen for the first time.Also, if you're just interested in looking at the art, it will be a lot simpler that scrolling through page after page on the blog.

Anyway, here's the link.... DeviantART page.

Wolf/Werewolf Sketch

For a proposed project recently that in the end didn't happen.

A Taste Of Things To Come......

Yeah, I know, shit joke.

Knight & Squire

Some time ago I was asked by my pal & partner in comicbook crime, Jimmy Broxton, to help him out on a project he was working on for DC comics... Knight & Squire. Jimmy was pencilling & inking all the art on the book ( as well as creating lots of back up material) & this intense workload had left him temporarily behind the deadline eightball, something every freelance experiences from time to time. He asked if I could take his already competed thumbnails, & work them up into a more or less inkable pencils cum layouts & I was happy to oblige.

Below are examples of Jimmy's thumbnails, my pencils/layouts, & most interestingly, Jimmy's final inked artwork. Where I still have copies of all three versions of the page, I have combined them into little 'triptych' images. Comparison of the three stages will demonstrate the truely organic method on display, & how the artwork developed through the stages from Jimmy to me & back to Jimmy.

If you want to make some comparison for the pages where I don't have copies of either the thumbnails or the final inks, you could do a lot worse than pick up a copy of the Knight & Squire trade. Written by Paul Cornell & drawn superbly by Jimmy Broxton, it's a fun look at superhero tropes, filtered through  a uniquely British lens.

The Ice Man.

No... not the guy from the X-Men! This is more of the work I did in the last couple of years when I wasn't posting on this blog. For a children's non fiction book about an 'ice mummy' found up in the Alps. As is my usual practice when doing this kind of work, I did the pencil sketch on a printout of the book's layout so I was sure of getting the dimensions correct. This was especially significant on this particular job, since the illustrations vignetted off at the top without a definite border, & I had to be sure that the artwork didn't clash with the body of the text. As you can see, between the sketch & the production of the final colour artwork, I was asked to add some clothes to the figure.