What is this?

Simple idea for a T-shirt.

Smith

Harry Smith, yet another character from yet another project I have in mind.

Graaar

It's another bear.

Well at least I tried

As anyone still reading this blog will have figured out, my attempt to create one image a day for a year has already failed, my mac being totally screwed and me being too busy at work to find time for regular posts means that I will no longer be posting all the images I would like. Still I will attempt to get as close as possible to one image a day and sometimes more to force myself to keep working, maybe I'll even get around to finishing some of the projects I started (especially those recently). Ah well 'til next time keep it foolish!

More animation stuff

Another character, meant to be a rocker, anyone guessed this is meant to be a music based thing....

Punk

Punk character from cartoon mentioned yesterday. Needs a bit of work.

Broken Macs suck

My mac's been playing up which is why I haven't posted the past few days, so here are a few images to make up. Two sketch pad pages and a finished character for an animation collaboration.

Work In Progress

It's a logo idea, innit...

Garish

First completed S&P overview shot. Probably going to have to work on that background though...

Comfortable Shoes

Here's yet another comic concept I've started, though it's most simple one yet. Two old men in a pub chatting. Well they will be when I finish a complete strip (top one's full body of fella on left).

Bobby 'Fly' Posters

To hopefully make the cartoons easier I've started to trace the characters in illustrator, so I can start to build a library of elements that I can just drag and drop to create fresh cartoons. It's going to take a long while but I guess it's important to do it bit by bit. This is as far as I have got with Fly so far.

First full colour 'Stickers and Posters' one panel.

Right, finally got a finished piece done. I know, the humour's terrible, but it was about the process of completing a full work. I'm sure it will evolve and get better (hopefully) as time goes by.

Slipping

Been lazy again and forgot to post, here're two oldies.

The Manifesto

The past couple of days/week or so I have been a little lax with my posts putting little or no effort into the work I produce. This has been as a result of my getting bored and frustrated with the work I have produced.

As a result I have decided to go right back to basics with what I churn out, trying to rediscover what I wanted to do as a kid, which was to draw comic books. However as I got older I realised I probably didn't have enough talent to do this and so looked to finding employment that was more likely to guarantee income, hence the job in graphic design. Since then I've been trying to 'discover' what area of art/illustration I was best at and most enjoyed, and yet at the same time not really given myself enough time to explore these areas fully enough.

So now I have decided that I am going to go back to that dream I had as a kid and actually try to produce some finished comics, starting with a few basic three to five panel strips then maybe a page and so on. I'm going to first work on ideas that I have had already and take them further (for instance the Stickers and Posters strip). Because of this all my daily posts will be cartoon-centric and some will be step by step stage reports on various projects. Admittedly it's a change of direction for the blog which I set up to allow me to explore various ways of working. However, I feel I've very much started to become a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none.

So there we have it, the blog posts will still be daily but now focused on me trying to develop my ability as a cartoonist. I hope those of you that actually read this won't be put off and will continue to lend support.

Thanks, take it easy
Si

PS The guy in the image is meant to have his hand on his heart, see what I mean about lack of cartooning ability?

Profile pics

Profile pics of a couple of guys from work for the work website.

Sketchy

Poor photo of a poor sketch of a character for a comic I want to do.

Pull shapes

Had a busy weekend so haven't really able to get down to work, so here's a couple of images I did toying with basic shapes to create quite pleasing abstract images. I was working on some t-shirt ideas in this theme, because I like the simplicity and bright flat colours. Oh yeah, the black is what the colour of the tee would be, I think a shape in a square might ruin it a bit.

Wolfman

Finally...

This was what I meant to upload yesterday, Cyclops in the same theme as the Vampire and Minotaur (he's meant to be a bouncer).

Cogs

Nuts, utter fail again, forgot to upload the piece I did yesterday.
This isn't it, but was a fun piece nonetheless, did it for a competition (I didn't win).

Quickie

Just a quick sketch I did in the same vein as the Minotaur about a week back. Awhile ago I planned on doing a series of little illustrations transposing mythical creatures and monsters into modern day situations/environments.

This piece is meant to be a Hoxtonite style dandy vampire, I always saw them as a little fey, but charming. More will probably follow over coming days.

Done

Without spending another week (or more) on this, I think I have taken this piece as far as I can.

So here is the finished article for your delectation or derision.

Hard to see the changes

Made some minor tonal changes and added lots of line work, kinda need to see the real work to see the suble differences here.

Getting there

Making good progress, more tonal work on the face, and started to correct glasses, also started to draw in some shading detail in similar style to earlier work I have posted.

You may also have worked out by now I'm only going to paint his face, the rest is going to be done in a mixture of styles which will be revealed as the rest if the painting is done.

Part 3

Phew. Actually got a chance to work on the painting again today. Started adding a little more detail, but there's still a long way too go. I expect most progress to be made over the weekend.

Rubbish

I was working late tonight, so failed to get any further with my painting, however, to make sure I uploaded something I've put up an old biro sketch from way back in '07.

Stage 2

So here's the second stage of my painting 'experiment'. This time I laid down some rough midtones on the face, and it's already starting to take shape.

And now for something completely different

I"m trying something a bit different over the next week. I shall be working on one piece -a painting- and uploading images of my progress each day. As the piece is A3 and I only have an A4 scanner you'll have to make do with dodgy phone camera photos.

And for day one, the basic colours blocked in, hoping to do one of these larger scale pieces a month.

Utter Bull

It's a hillbilly minotaur. Woulda coloured it but it's getting late.

Goldfrapp

Here's a pencil sketch of Alison Goldfrapp, really enjoyed this, it took just over an hour, and I only used an HB pencil to do it, up yours college tutors who told me I had to use a variety of pencil weights (only joking, much love)! I may have to start trying to do more of these in my lunch hour at work.

If you squint it sort of looks like a hill

I went to the Turner exhibit at the the Tate Britain today, and inspired, I created my own landscape based on an image of the lake district. Admittedly it's a bit poor and somewhat abstract but I'm feeling a little tired. Surely that's excusable?

Afstract

Found an image of a woman with an afro on the web and started messing around with it in Illustrator, quite pleased with the result, though I'm not sure what I would ever use it for...a t-shirt maybe...

Multi purpose

Sorry for the poor quality of image again, but I don't have access to the scanner again tonight, hopefully have a decent version of this image uploaded some time within the next 24 hours as I'm quite pleased with it. It's basically an image created using a mix of some of the styles used on images posted on this blog. And is something I'm looking to explore more fully over larger pieces in future.

Just got to find me some massive cardboard boxes to paint on...

Annoyed

Here's an image of the main character of a graphic novel I've been planning for several years, and a good example of why it will probably never come to be, namely that it's RUBBISH!

Every time I sit down and spend time on producing a decent image it inevitably ends up looking terrible and with me feeling fed up with a lack of any comic drawing ability.

Still it was about all I could produce today so that's why it's up here.

I'm off to sulk.

Another new fangled computer thingymebob piece.

Here's an illustration I did for a feature on card counting at work, as usual due to deadlines I didn't have enough time to make it as 'finished' as I would like. Nonetheless I am still quite pleased with it.

Studies..

I walked past an art exhibition on the way home today which (from the outside of the gallery at least) appeared to consist solely of images of skulls. As a result it reminded me of one of my college tutors favourite things to give her students as a life studies object; a cat skull. The form of it always used to fascinate me so I thought I would try a swift illustrator version of an image of one I found on the web.

I think it turned out pretty well, and it made me want to revisit studying found objects in a traditional media. Now I just have to find me a cat skull...

Study

Here's a simple line life study I thought I would try on illustrator to see what it would look turn out like, I'm quite pleased with the outcome and may try some work in the same vein on a future date.

Freaks and geeks

I thought I would try a continual drawing of a bunch of characters that came into my head as I was drawing them, I thought it would be quite a simple and quick, but fun, thing to do. It took longer than I thought and my character pool dried up pretty early into production. Still I chugged on through and I'm fairly happy with the end result.

And another one...

As I was out today I've had to resort to posting another oldie. This is a T-shirt design I planned based on putting the four face markings of 'Kiss' on Pandas, I've since tried to work this idea in other ways, but this was the furthest through a design I ever got.

One day I may finish the idea if someone doesn't do it better first (though it's probably already been done a million times). Oh well I'm off to watch The Wire.

Child soldier

Here's another piece in the 'paint by numbers' style, but done by hand and not on the computer. I'm yet to get bored of it and there are still a few things I would like try before I move, so expect to see a few more pieces over the coming weeks.

I would be interested to know what people think of this particular style, if they like it or not and any ideas.

'Til next time. Take it easy.

Argh!

Argh (again)! Wnet out for a friends birthday drinks and got back too late to post an image, I've already failed my one a day image thing, but I'm going to stick with it and post two images today instead.

This first one is an illustration I did for WPT Poker magazine, didn't have time to finish it to a 100% satisfactory level, but still pretty pleased with it...

Bald

Here's an older illustration I rediscovered today which I am quite pleased with, it was originally going to be a t-shirt design but it evolved into quite a nice work on it's own.

Brrrr

In honour of the Big Freeze and at my brother's suggestion I have just 'finished' (read, got bored of) a cold weather based scribble. Seeing as the cold snap has passed now (at least it has in London) the sentiment seems a little empty.

Still, I produced it, so up it goes. This took several hours doing bits here and there over the course of the past week.

Toothless

Expanding on the idea I posted yesterday, here's a more detailed example of a portrait using the same style. It's sort of like an OS map of his face...

Tally-ho

On the right is a piece I did at work today that was quite fun, on the left is what all the elements that make it up look like just in outlines, I quite like this effect and will probably explore it in bigger and more detailed depth. Hope you like it tooooooooooooo.