Madefire

When the new digital comics reader app 'Madefire' launched last year, I was asked to contribute a few pages. This strip exists within the 'Captain Stone' narrative, & was intended to be a story within a story. In style, the intention was for the strip to look like one of those comics from the early 90's, when all comic heroes solved their problems with big guns, gritted teeth & (apparantly) no feet... or at least, they weren't visible through all the knee deep perpetual mist/dust.

As is the case with all my comic work these days, the pencils (such as they are) were scanned in then printed out as faint blueline images & the inking was done over these printouts (saves erasing, & also preserves the original pencil should I mess up the inking & require another copy to ink).

I coloured the art in a faux vintage approach, & dropped in a paper texture on a layer below the artwork in order to further enhance the 'old school' illusion.

Published work.

Here's some of the published work I did during the two years that this blog was in hibernation. I'll post more in due course.
 

Commissions

Here's some of the private commissions I did during the two years that this blog was in hibernation.

 

A public service anouncement

Hmmmm.... is this thing still here? Seems it is. Going through some old stuff recently I came across this item. I was asked to do a sketch on this blank cover comic at a Birmingham convention a couple of years ago (probably the last convention I actually attended). The guy who wanted the sketch didn't have time to hang around waiting for it to be completed so said he'd pick it up later in the day. However, for whatever reason, he failed to show up before I had to leave, so the item got thrown in my bag, & was forgotten about until a few days ago when I found it. So if this was yours (hopefully you'll remember), drop me a line at 'staz.johnson@yahoo.com' & I'll get it to you.

From The Archives #11: Zero To Hero

I'm sure some if not all of you are aware that I was involved in a TV show called Zero To Hero back in 2003/4. For those not familiar with it, the show was a kind of combination of Scrapheap Challenge & Gladiators.... what a heady mix.

Anyway, regardless of the show itself, which came & went without much of a fanfare, this post is to show some of the artwork I did to be used on the show itself, & on the website dedicated to it at the time.

The pencil pieces were done to be used as set decoration for a portion of the set which was supposed to be the comic artists studio. It would have taken an eagle eyed viewer to see them in the background, & since the show had problems attracting ANY viewers, eagle eyed or otherwise, I'm sure this is the first time anyone will have seen them. I did 15 or more of these things, but the ones shown here were the only ones I could locate.

The colour images were done for the Zero To Hero website, & were given away as prizes in online competitions. They feature the designs the costume design team & I came up with for the superhero costumes featured on the show. At the time, I had just purchased my first computer, & knew nothing about colouring using Photoshop to colour, as a result, the artwork was all done in markers, but with a few Photoshop filter effects added on top in attempt to mimic the computer coloured look of American comic books. It wasn't a technique that was particularly successful, but needs must. Where possible I've tried to include the original colour marker drawing prior to any Photoshop filter jiggery pokery.

For those who wonder what the heck I'm blathering on about, there's a few You Tube videos to give you a flavour of the show.