ZH desktop wallpaper...

Hey folks, I was messing round in the wee hours of last on photoshop, and Holly gave me the idea of doing up some Zombie Hi desktop wallpapers. So heres me first attempt at one, its proper sized and all, so feel free to click the image and set as your desktop.....

Uproar on Facebook stuff...

So over the last week I've been running a few competitions and like on the Uproar page to get folks interested in Zombies Hi, and it seems to be working a treat.

The competitions, cause the stories Derry based and we're targeting a mainly local audience, have been mainly "name the zombified derry heads" and I stick up pics like this...

...and if they get them right they either get a free copy of Introducing Zombie Hi, or a personalised zombie sketch, like these....

..they seem to want the sketches more than the books. hrmmm. i don't if thats good or bad....??

Pages 1-3 line work, "Zombies HI". . .

Jason the Ghostbuster

Its me mates, wee boy's birthday is coming up in the next few days, and he's mental into Ghostbusters, so I thought I'd make him one. Quick pic just, couldnt be bothered patching 2 A4 scans together in PS.

The Slaughterman...

Quick wee digital sketch from the fantastic book "The Slaughtermans Creed" that I puck up from Stephen Downey at 2D.........

aaaawwww yeaaaahhh

WE ARE A ROCKING....

So I've set up a big cartel site so I can finally start selling our books, the first up is Introducing Zombies Hi, which contains the first installment along with an illustrated prose and a stand alone 12 page comic. Just click on the uproar comics logo at the side to go to the shop. Or click here.

Me and illustrator just had a little affair........

....that's all.

More "Con" sketches, suggested by redditors...

2D's round the corner...

....and just as I did last year I'll have a big folder of free sketches to give away to people. I'll be sketching as well on the day, so its practice too. Here's some of the usual suspects, and if theres any you would like me to do either say in the comments, or facebook or twitter....

**gust of wind**

Yes, that post title is actually a verbal sound effect. Enter the tumble weed. The blog has been very quiet recently, so I had to break the silence with this page from Zombies Hi. I didn't want to be putting up spoilers so this has the least storytelling spoilers in it.

What Ive been up to...

The blog was under siege from a zombie horde for a while, then I kinda slowed up on that project to focus on another. Colouring, something regular viewers would know I never considered a strong point of mines, but recently things have changed. I just needed the practise really.  I was waiting on the writer behind the project's Stephen Coffey to put these up online before I did, and proper order too. The first one here is from the story "Red Ghost" with fantastic artwork from Robert Carey  ( theartofmansloth.blogspot.com , seriously, check this dude out!!)

Secondly, the equally great work from Cormac Hughes from the story "Society of the remarkable suicide". 

"I'm not a procrastinator....."

Pomodoro sketch...

...pomodoro, you know that 25 minute time management technique I was on about, well done this well before the timer went off. I'm pretty slow drawer, and I'm always looking to improve me speed, so going to keep doing this as practise.

Skimming the archives....

.. archives, I like that word. Its as if I have a dusty old room filled with forgotten art locked away in cob web draped drawers, lit by a swinging bare bulbed light dangling from a low ceiling. Yes, it conjures up some imagery for me.  But in reality, archives are just a folder named " Kevins arty stuff ", and in there was the below pieces. The first is the pencils from a recent piece I done for the Eclectic Micks  birthday bonanza , click the link there to see the finished piece sitting nestled amongst some amazingly talented people.

Some of yous may have come across the story I done for the Talesofthe  Christmas season, below is the first  sketch I done for it. EMO kid, Elf, its already a dark christmas in itself.

And finally, these two sketches are different concepts of MARK, I cant tell you who or why he is yet, but in time...so stay tuned folks.

40 minute ink attack......

...Every now and then I like to leave the pencil and just try and throw something out in ink, its not intended to look perfect but rather to try a capture an atmosphere........

Page 4 coloured (finally...)

Some of the survivors...

These are they first attempts at some of the characters that will be appearing in the "Zombies Hi" story. I couldnt have been bothered with scanning each one so I just went down the much handier route and took pictures of them. These were done real quickly so some of the different profiles aren't exact but I'll sort that when i do proper data sheets for each of them. Done 4 of these on a3 bristol board, so there roughly a5 with a good oul pencil.

...and bats and hellboy, just cause their cool. ( they will not be in the story, unfortunately!!)

Productive productive... ( BIG RED )

What an evening folks. I've been using a time management technique for the first time ever, I seen Jim Campbell and PJ Holden talking about it on twitter - promodore, pomorodo, pomeranian, something with p,r, and o anyway. You get a stopwatch or any alarm device, set it for 25 minutes, work flat out, no lifting that head then when the alarm goes off you break for 5. For me its been great, it like your racing yourself to see what you can get done it the 25 minutes. Also it stops me from being distracted by the inter web, ill have 5 mins to do some mild coast the cyber waves. So using this, I got a page nearly fully coloured tonight plus 8 charcater designs done! For me this is muy mucho production. And just to wind down I done this uber quick wee sketch in manga studio.......BIG RED....

Sketchy fake possible cover...

Ties of Blood

Our story done for the "If stones could speak" anthology, written by Danny McLaughlin and art myself, and of course not to forget the wonderful Holly for putting up with all me photo ref torturing and doing the majority of the flat colouring for me, has went online. You can check it out by clicking here.

Creative Suicide- Number 3

This is alot sketchier than the others I contributed- its a time issue......

What lurks behind the cupboard door....

Theres this cupboard, right beside my desk. The mess of it was unreal, stray pages, forgotten sketch pads, abandoned stationary and much much more, I was always scared of opening it incase it came toppling out on to me. But recently its been really annoying me, so today when I got in from work I ripped everything out and organised it. Amongst it was a little A5 sketch pad from last year sometime that i had all but forgotten about. There was 8 pages in it, 8 pages I challenged meself to, one page in one hour. I remember doing this to see if I could tell a story without any direct dialogue, and to see if I could draw fast... so here they are ( rough round the edges but with a lively energy I like) .....