BUSY

I've been pretty busy doing work as we gear up for our final times on this old degree thing, but I've got a backlog of stuff to upload when I get the chance. This is from a comic I did last year/January- it was for the Eagles Initiative, a comic competition, but I have no idea when the results come through. When they do, I'll post the whole thing!

FEVER RAY

Here's another music themed NES label. Any feedback is appreciated, I feel like this one needs tinkering with.

If you ever get the chance to see Fever Ray live, you should! She's one half of the Knife, but her solo stuff is incredible, all thundering and tribal. Her live show is like an act more than a gig- Fever Ray and her band all dress up, the stage is completely decorated and all around there's lasers, smoke machines and lamps that light up in hypnotic patterns to the music. Unlike a lot of gigs, with Fever Ray you feel like a participant in the experience, not just someone watching. You feel obligated to dance, just to match the life of their music!

Here's the black and white version of the artwork in the background. I had a lot of fun doing it! And wouldn't you know, I learnt something too. Very wholesome.

WIP

I heard that fanart is good to try when you're in an art rut. So here's a picture using Corey Lewis' version of Wonder Woman. I didn't get the balance of indy hotness to badassery I wanted to, but ah well. If there's more of a fantasy vibe to the picture than the original, it's prrrobably because I've been reading a Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin, which is incredible. I know nothing about Wonder Woman, but there should be more stories of her growing up alongside warrior amazon ladies, getting fucked up and cracking skulls as she learns how to fight and survive.

The Storyteller

I forget how badly I paint. It's not that my knowledge of colour or tone it particularly bad, but more that I get overwhelmed with what you can do, and have a habit of overthinking and overworking the most basic things. This started out as a speedpainting, but I gave up, blurred it all and changed to a tonal study. I'd like to come back to the picture though, the original is quite a beautiful photo.

While in most ways I feel like I was a generation too late to really get the chance to appreciate Jim Henson, he seems like an incredible man. If it wasn't so late I'd wax on forever about the guy, but even from the little I know of him he seems like a man to aspire to be like.

24 HOUR COMICCCCC

Woo! So here's my 24hr comic, completed at the beginning of February at the amazing Eden Project, which if you haven't been, is like a slice of the future- today.

It was for 24hr Comic etc., where three events in different parts of Cornwall were set up for us participants to try and complete 24 pages of comics,24 illustrations, 24 minutes of film, 24 songs, or whatever in the allotted time. It was awesome! Real good fun, with amazing people and organisers.

Although having to get a bus and a couple of trains back home after a distinct lack of sleep is a lot harder than you'd think.

Anyway, here it is! I used photoshop magic to get rid of my coloured pencils and level the pages (here's what an original looks like), so that might be thought of as cheating (going outside the time limit). But I don't care.

It turns out there isn't a photoshop tool to airbrush out bad storytelling. Here's my comments from a questionnaire I gave to the organisers:

"I don’t think it’s explained very well in the story, but the idea is that scientists and biologists created a giant machine for harvesting natural resources, but it malfunctioned and ended up destroying the local environment by letting anything useful rot and stagnate within its structure. The scientists made underground stations to help maintain whatever plantlife was left from above, using mirrors to get sunlight underground. That’s the backdrop, anyway. The creature/machine was inspired by the giant scrap robot in the eden project, and most of the rest of the comic is inspired by all the people and bits and pieces dotted around the area."

So yeah. That's it!

character designs for an illustrated book I'm starting, which was actually mentioned... here. It's gonna be fun to do! These are tests for a single character. Her personality isn't really defined yet though, so I've got a little way more to go before I'm done narrowing down.

Also, the go team piece I made was linked here. More work goes into that website than the official page!

Lastly, I've been listening to this cover more than I should: http://hypem.com/#!/item/vhqa/The+Bamboos+-+King+of+the+Rodeo+feat+Megan+Washington+

So I saw the Go Team live the other day- one of the few bands you've actually heard of that's played in little ol' faltown- and decided to make a game label/music promo for them, too. Those are actually my NES cartridges in the pictures, bought in Super Potato in Tokyo, but I haven't put the stickers on yet.

Here's the inks for the Go Team piece. Came out pretty nice! I've got one more cartridge left to make a label for. I'm thinking Fever Ray...

MONAE

When I went to Japan in January I bought a few old NES cartridges (which are different to the PAL versions) to make some custom labels for. Turns out they're going to be music themed!

First up: Janelle Monae. She's on tour in the UK atm, but I'm not gonna get the chance to see her. She seems like she has a James Brown style of energetic performance, which would be awesome to see! I uploaded the process here, just because the terrible first rough makes me laugh.

Comics Manifesto

From Comicz Quest:

"We are sick and tired of the communication media and their self-proclaimed role as the guarantors of public freedoms, as the guardians of the public spirit, the popular sensibility and conscience. Under this cloak of words they are concealing a thoroughly sinister complex: the manipulation of public opinion, the numbing of popular conscience, the substitution of genuine commonality by the logic of economic forces!

And what can you say about common mortals? Frozen in their present, assuming their role without protest: Politicians and terrorists, bishops and rock ‘n’ rollers, pedophiliac internet predators, students, workers, and executives, writers and artists, all utterly predictable and bored, all contributing to the same chorus of tedium, incapable of creating anything genuine!

Where is the virtue? Where is the love?

Wake up, O cartoonists, wake up from your Marvel-ous dreams! Create comics even though no one pays you for them, even though no one reads them! Cartooning is an act of virtue!

Let us undermine the syntax of sense, the logic of profit!

Drawing is an act of love, free, anonymous, and automatic!!

It’s free because no one can ever pay what it is truly worth. It’s anonymous because it’s aimed at the world in general and no one in particular. It’s automatic because, indeed, it’s done with no rhyme or reason whatsoever.

It’s an act of selflessness and purity!

"When the government is evil, the wise man practices virtue in his own home. When the government is good, the wise man does the same.”

We refuse to play your game! Even though no one needs them, even though no one buys them or reads them, even though no one ask us or thanks us… WE SHALL DRAW COMICS!!"

- By Max in Bardín the Superrealist.

I finished a 24hr comic. I'll post it when I'm blessed with scans of the stuff