Arrg...ahhh,...nahhh...fuck it!

ITs the bottom left panel, its just annoying me, think im going to rip it out at a later stage, right now I want to power on to end then edit after. This is just the characters, sweet thing about setting a book in your town is you can go get the perfect pic reference for it. Unfortunately I've been too busy to get near the town. Im currently working my through the inking of page 4, and everything else is top secret so your getting more zombies, and thats it. Ok.

A year later..........

So Zombies. 

Thats what I might rename this blog; Gios-Zombie-Art. Everyone loves them, and most comic artists will have found themselves drawing them at some time. Then you and your writer mate are a bit blocked one night and go in to one about - ' it would be cracker if Derry was under seige from zombies' ' toooo rite, with the walls and all...' and so on. The derry zombie seige story was born. But that was a year ago, actually slightly longer than a year. And not long after that I got a graphics tablet and Manga Studio for Christmas, figuring the best way for me to practise was to dive straight into doing a story. Of course Zombie seige was in me head, so below you'll find some of my first digital work and the origin pages of  the new improved 'Zombies Hi'. Those who check the 2Dcollective blog will recognise these pages from last year...

                

The reason I went on this little visually induced time travelling experience was, Im working on a shot on Page 4 and its looking down From the walls at a crowd of zombies, remembered this and figured I could tidy it up and use it. Pay homeage, not laziness. Comparing them to what I'm doing now, I can see a good improvement which is always good.

Just trying something...

This is me started pencilling page 4 of Zombies Hi, no surprise there!

Zombie HI - Page 1 Greywashed

"Suicide 2; the saw"- Finished.

Suicide saw, inked

Feeling more comfortable digitally inking these days,  although the first piece I contributed was by hand, Ive done this by foot. Naw,  not really, graphics pen just. Its kinda scratchy but i think it helps with the tone, im going to throw some greys or something in the back to finish it up.

"Suicide 2; the saw"

Just a rough for now.....

Mess around sundays...

Didnt get awhile pile done tonight, having a sorta lazy one. But you can see it cleaning up alot in what I did do, some anatomy changes and reworking form the pencils in the previous post. Ill get this finished off the mara, then I have to change projects briefly to make sure I meet a deadline, more on that later.....

"In your heeadd, zooom bay zooom bay...."

Yip, more zombie stuff. Its the main focus these days. Below is the pencils, (quite rough and with a few anatomy problems that I'll fix when inking)  a very poor scan of an A3 page using a A4 scanner so excuse the dark bit in the middle. This wont effect me but as ill be making it blue and inking over the top, and the stat of the inking just to show the change, the clean up. Ive approached this one differently, in the sense that Im only doing the charcaters and leaving the background to put in digitally. I just so handy with perspective rulers in Manga studio.

   

Page 2... Complete...

This page shows up for a thrd time, except now it finished-I think. I've being having bother deciding when im finished as ive been told by a few that I tend to over work my stuff. Considering this is the third time this has shown up, do yous liking seeing things being worked up or should I just stick to posting Finished pieces and processes?

Getting there now...

So I did manage to do a bit more, still a good bit to do but this page is coming together nicely I think....

Zombies Hi!

Got the pencils finished off earlier and started inking. The gap at the top of the page is for the title banner, I'll be away from the computer for a while so I won't get to finish this off for a couple of days. On a different note, I've been receiving a few proposals aswell of this one. Some exciting stuff going to be happening this year, I'll keep us up to date as I great the finer details.

 

Fini...well just starting really...

Just thoguht id throw up the finished page saying I just finished inking it. Going to leave the shadows until I greywash it in photoshop, and sure if it doesnt work out its easy enough to throw the blacks around....

Work in progress.....

The previous post, zombified sketch of Gerry anderson was done to let Danny... well get a giggle, but it was also for a story proposal we're working on. So he appears again here in the work in progress of what will be hopefullybe the  first page of "Zombies hi!". This is my first time digitally inking over hand done pencils, I'm liking hows its turning out. Digitally is really good cause I like my work clean ( unless the story is stylised gritty of course ) but mainly cause ctrl z is a miracle for my shakey hands!....

Zombies Hi!

A super fast, Gerry Anderson sketch-Zombified.

Getting creative with Death....

Kill yourself creatively. Ok, sweet, I can do that. Hrmmmm...mmmm...aaahhhh I got it.

Stephen Coffey is putting together a book to raise money for a suicide charity. Through twitter he asked for artists to contribute one shot pieces. So heres mine, with a slight bit of the process behind it.

Once I had me idea I roughed it out digitally....

...I originally intended to try doing this completely digitally but wasn't happy with how raggy round the edges it looked, so it took this as me inked pencils if you will.....

...printed it out and light boxed a roughl outline leaving must of the drawing to be done with me new rotring technical pens....

... was really happy with how it ended up but knew it needed a wee something else, so I coloured the sky with a simple gradient in photoshop and thats it. Finished product below.

Jumping ahead....

...always do it. Cant just go the proper route and do all me character design then location reference. No. I get an idea for a page, or rather Danny gets an idea for a page and I have to do it. What I'm going on about is Hunter, a very re-occurring name on this blog as of lately. Danny had this idea earlier for the opener, so I had to rough it out-Digitally. I think for all thats in it is, its luring you in, opening the door to the story so to say, shining a little light on whats possibly up ahead-thats what got me anyways.

Devil & Walter

Tattoo design...

Just finished this off, have to do an inked outline version then I'm done. I'm currently working on a 1 page story for 'Sugar Glider' anathology, I'll check with the writer- Daniel Clifford- and see if its ok to put up one or two of the panels.

Also head on over to Neilcolquhoun.com to check out his lastest Christmas story and if you haven't already check out Frank-Boiling Point volume 1. Just finished it the other day, thoroughly enjoyable and will leave you craving volume 2.  Of course, with it being Sunday there will be a new Christmas Horror on the Talesofthe.com website at some stage today.

Hunter-again.....

You ever start a drawing that you didn't know was going anywhere? Well you should, cause its just fun, and you get random stuff like this...........

Hunter- Character reference

A mix of pencils and inks here, gone a new direction with this character to try and make him look a bit more militant. I still have to properly lock down this guys face from different angles but I know that will eventually come along if I just keep drawing him. 

Boiling point...

So I've been listening away to Boiling Point, good craic so it is, I recommend it. I was re-listening to the second part to try a catch a description of Franks appearance, and sketching as I did, this is super quick-and slightly messy- shot from the first time we meet Frank and Natasha....

  ....I realised after I drew her but Natasha should be wearing a hat. Done with a brush pen and some Promakers for the greys.

Check this out......

Neil Colquhoun, is a Scottish storyteller, creator of 'Frank', he is a dreamer, night owl, tea-drinker and writer of hybrid horror/ thriller/ sci-fi tales . Frank is a short free novella now in podcast/ audio-book format. 

Frank, a mysterious bounty hunter gets more than he bargained for in his latest assignment. Becoming mixed up in the beginnings of a gang war, he has to contend with a team of hit-men, who are not like your
usual guns-for-hire!
It’s a story about a a bounty hunter, a dead-but-alive hitman partnered with an alive-but-should-be-dead criminal, an escort girl, a man who has a taste for something bad… and the Devil!

Check out the promo by clicking here

For all 7 parts go to his site at http://neilcolquhoun.com/ and don't forget to comment and let him know what you think.

New T.O.T story- process

Just last night I completed my new 10 page story which I've gotten word will be posted this Sunday on the Talesofthe website. So I figured why not put up the process, as it is a completely new one incorporating both digital and traditional mediums.

These days I find I much easier to rough things up in manga studio- it must be the eco-warrior inside me that doesn't like to waste pages. That and the quick and easy edit-ability of it.

Once I have the roughs I convert them to blue then "ink" them on another layer, fleshing it out as I go along and using photo reference where needed, to make sure anatomy and proportions are correct.

When I started this projected, Holly bought me me first Bristol board, and after using it I loved how clean the pencils came out on it. I knew from speaking with the Titan talent scout at 2D that I would have a better chance of getting work from a pencilled portfolio than an inked one, so this was a good opportunity to get a bit of practise doing some tight pencils. I light boxed the outline from the above rough, again adding more detail and tidying as I went, then I shaded her and scanned her in. Unfortunately there was a snag in the road....

....they scanned terribly!! I was so dissappointed when I seen them come out like this. Luckily this is the digital age! Using some level adjustments and going round on a layer set behind the pencils I blocked in some greys to blend the pencils, I starting to feel a bit happier with it but something was still mucky about it....

...into illustrator with it, for dialogue and a great wee filter I just found- trace/color 6. It really tidied it up this filter and smoothed it out. Below is the finished article.

Make sure to check by T.O.T on Sunday for the complete story.

hmmmm....

.... I don't know what style this would fall under, I didnt even know what I set out to draw but 10 minutes later this was looking at me. I like it.

A few Bats later...

A bit of tattoo designing......

So I done a tattoo for Tony, must be a good few months back now. It was on his forearm and now he's getting one done on the inside of his forearm, so he told me roughly want he wanted and I went a bit mad on it. The brief was a boy playing drums with a psychedelic back ground and sound waves, soooo firstly I digitally roughed up a drummer.........

....then I tidied it up a bit.......

....once I had this I moved on the background. I firstly made a rough outline of my arm to give me an approx finished size. Then I quickly traced the outline of the drummer and went mad on the swirly ideas. I done this by hand as it allowed more freedom than digital....

....I then scanned this in and dropped in the drummer and removed the guitar player on the wing-thing to give an idea of the finished look. This is what I  would call an elaborate sketch as I would really need to tidy it up and define it more, but am pleased with its strangeness, but its toes decision not mine so I'll post any edits made along the process.

 

Hunter redesigns....

Previously mentioned, there would be some development work and here she blows, well begins rather. This is the first piece I've done for this new personal project, Danny was back there for awhile and we got the brain jam we needed for us to see our next move. We've done two 4 pagers, and a 12 pager so it's time to stretch out to 23-32. I'm quite looking forward to the challenge! We are actually returning to use a character created for the CADI course, to give it the finish that it deserves. Its being completely revamped, quite simply-without sounding too big headed- because we're better story tellers now than 2 years ago. Below is some new designs for the main character- Matthew Thompson, "Hunter". The face will not be getting used, I was just warming up to the bristol board......

And below a work in progress Daredevil, I've never drawn him before... !

Crimbo horror roughs...

I've started working on my next story for Tales of the and it will be a Christmas horror theme all through December. Found it quite hard at the beginning to come up with a crimbo horror, I kept trying to include Santa or elves or anything else that's directly Christmassy but then I decided that I should just set it at Christmas and let the visuals make it feel like Christmas. So heres the roughs for my first page, im doing the roughs digitally but am hoping to pencil it up as I just got some swanky bristol board thats calling out to be used...