day 3 - FLyIN' mONStuR

So if the soldier aint climbing over big monsters what else are they upto? Well...I supppose they could grapple onto one of these wierd things, use them as a way to get from place to place....or just take a ride for fun :)
Really enjoyed these 3 pieces in this theme so far, think that each piece is an improvement on the last....for this one I was lookin at stuff like Walrus's and Coral for reference ideas on the flying creature, and u might just spot some little star fish attached to it's body. Don't think there'll be anything else this week, maybe a small real quick piece like a soldier helmet detail....but back next week! Let me know what u think of these 3 and have a good one!

day 2 - mON-StUR

ok, so today i thought 'what the heck are these soldiers doing? ....well turns out their climbing buildings then trying to get onto one of these crazy things...been lookin at some wierd mole and turtle claw reference recently, so that's kinda inspired bits of it....anyways, had fun doin this, probs won't get sumthin up tomorrow, but maybe day after along same theme. I like the idea of tryin to grapple onto something that isn't stationary in a game, could be fun....

1-a-day - GO!

Howdy....I thought this week i might try to get a picture on my blog everyday....well, atleast for the first 4 days before i get busy at the weekend with other stuff, but anyways, I'm gonna try to keep the ideas within the same theme / world, so I've gone with this soldier guy to start with. This kinda character pops up a heck of alot in video games, and i always think it must be tough to come up with a new lookin variant on the future soldier idea. Luckily this kinda quick painting means i dont have to go too indepth into the design, but I'm quite pleased with his initial visor design and the guns. All good practice, and enjoying just painting. Anyways, tomorrow night look for something else from this world.....maybe something ....monstrous maybe :) Sleep times beckon!

Bonus Stage

After taking my little thundercat themed break, I got back to finishing my SF4 piece, and here it is. I certainly need more practise in the painting department, so this was a good exercise, and I'm quite pleased witht the result. But i need to get alot more digital painting done, get better and quicker, so expect more of this stuff soon hopefully. Anyways, streetfighter rocks, enjoy!

Thundercats

Ok , so I know I'm in the middle of a Street fighter painting....but i started doodling my faovurite thundercat on the train back home, and couldn't stop! :) I did get the sf pic almost finished, so it will probably go up tonight or tomorrow, but for now here's what i've been upto for most of my day....aah, sweet drawing days.

This drawing is for a couple of people - firstly me, I love Thundercats, and it's about time i did a colour piece of one of those cool cats.....and secondly for my little bro, who is also a big fan, particularly of this guy. Hope u like it big guy! ( aint it a pain when you're little brother is bigger than u ) :)

Anyway, this was mega fun, hope all u cat fans out there enjoy it! HOOOO!!!

Street Fighter Train-ing

HADOKEN! Woo! I'm back up in the amazing capital city of Edinburgh, and on the way up here i thought I'd keep myself busy by doing a quick painting on the train. Seen as I'm looking forwards to playing Street Fighter 4 next weekend in London, I thought I'd pick from the roster of awesome sf characters....the two i've picked are gonna be console exclusives in sf4, Dan and Fei Long. I quickly mocked up the colour / composition test, then spent an hour fleshing out the line work and blocking in base colour. I should get the next part done on the train back on monday, and want to spend about another hour or so adding some tone n stuff with the paint. Anyways, really enjoyed this, hope u all likes...finished version in a couple of days!

Oldman Batman

Not just any oldman....Gary Oldman! :) sorry, i am a Dad, my jokes are only gettting worse, and they were never that good in the first place.

Fancied getting a portrait sketch done last night, and since I'm mega hyped about the new Batman Movie, I thought I'd pick a character from the Dark Knight. Always been a big fan of Gary Oldman, so decided to go with Jim Gordon. Really enjoyed scribbling away at this, and just generally want to get a greater variety of drawing done, so it was a nice change, and next I'm gonna aim for something similar but then digitally paint it up. Anyways, I wanna see Batman related pics on all the blogs i visit, so get drawing!!! :)

ASTROFUNK 2

OK here goes...this is the first look at Astrofunk issue 2, and about time u might well say :)
Right now it's going really well, I'm enjoying scribbling away in sketch pad and roughing out the last of the pages that aren't yet there...then there's the fun of cleanup on the ol' lightbox....then the joys of photoshop. I'm finding it pretty easy to get inspired to draw these days, reading so many fantastic comics...Lenil francis Yu on Secret Invasion, and Oliver Copiel on Thor are constantly blowin my mind, and it's amazing to see Joe Mad back on Ultimates, plus I'm mega lookin forwards to the new Sharknife Double Z by mr.Reyyy. So big thanks to all of them and everyone else whose amazing artwork inspires me to keep the pencil going.....

I don't have any finished pages to show just yet, but right now i wanna wet your appetite with a breakdown of 2 pages from the new issue.....these show the process i go through before taking the page into photoshop to colour it up. Some roughs can be really messy, so the biggest amount of work at this stage is getting that to a cohesive pencil that i can easily clean up. So check out the pages and let me know what u think....personally i feel it's gonna be better than issue 1 in every way, but that's just me :)

As for what else i can say about issue 2.....well, there's more main story, covering 32 pages compared to 26 in the first issue.....and Captain Fuzzball is back, with a 7 page story that ties in to the main story arc, so that's been cool doodling his lil' fuzzy bits :)

So that's me for now...will be back very soon with some doodles of new characters and stuff, thanks again to everyone who has picked up issue 1 and for all the awesome comments. Comics Rock, and drawing them is sketchtastic!!

DEADHEAD!

yO! Just a quick drop in with a couple bits of news....

Astrofunk is now on Sale in the fine city of Edinburgh, so any scots who want to check it out on the shelves then get down to DeadHead Comics. You can find it on CandleMaker row, just down from GreyFriars Bobby and the museum, and it's got loadsa great titles so check it out.

Second bit o' news - Astrofunk is now on Facebook. Yup, there's now a fan page for my little comic, where u can check out loadsa pics and cool stuff. So get over there now for astrogoodness!

Astrofunk on Facebook

Other than that, thought I'd better include some artwork with the post, so here's the first full colour picture of Captain Fuzzball, which was for a stand at the London Expo.

Issue 2 is going really well at the moment, so there's gonna be some preview pages up very shortly, look forwards to hearing what folks think. Until then, have a good one!

Howdy! Just a quick post to mention a couple of games announced recently. I've been lucky enough to work on some fantastic titles over the past year at EA, and i can finally let u know about another two of them. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and Hasbro Family Game Night. Both were amazing to work on, and challenging in diferent ways, so really looking forwards to these coming out. If u wanna read more about the games then check out the links below. Adios!

HALF BLOOD PRINCE


HASBRO FAMILY GAME NIGHT

Convention sketches, ended up giving a couple away to awesome customers, thanks again!

hOLEY mOLEY! i am knackered! Sellin you're comic is more tiring than i imagined :) Been at the London expo all weekend, had a great time, met lots of awesome folks, thanks to everyone who popped over and said HOWDY, and an even bigger thanks to everyone who picked up the comic. or a badge pack, or tees, all muchos thanks! Got some great feedback and awesome comments from peeps, and I was especially chuffed to get the "hey, reminds me of jet set radio" nod, made my day :) even one guy who didn't pick it up coz it was "too cartoon network" i took as a pretty big complement :) Now it's on with issue 2, got some good rough work done today at the con for some pages, plus i got a bunch of sketches done over the weekend that i'll post tomorrow, but for now sleep beckons, so thanks again to everyone for an awesome weekend! gidnight!

LONDON MOVIE & COMIC EXPO

howdys! This weekend is the London Movie and Comic Expo at the Excel centre in London. Astrofunk is gonna be there selling issue 1, plus the brand spanking new Tshirts and some sweet little Badge packs i just got sorted. So look forwards to seeing folks there, and here's some info on the event. Over and out!

http://www.londonexpo.com/index.shtml

So that was Bristol! My almost first convention went pretty well, even though me and some other guys were slotted into a side room as late applicants it was still cool to be there and meet lotsa cool comic fans and talented creative style folk, plus just checkin out the other stands was useful, so hopefully my next con will have an even better stand with lots of cool stuff! and it's not far away, more details in my next post tomorrow. But for now here's some pics from bristol, some sketches i got dun inbetween chatting to folks, possibly for a 'villains' style poster to mirror the heroes version i already have. Back reel soon!

Bristol here I come..

..this weekend is Bristol Comic Convention, pretty much the biggest in the uk i think, and my first time there...plus my first time at a convention selling the 'Funk! So I'm pretty excited, and look forwards to meeting lots of like minded geeks :) I'll be sitting in front of this poster which i've been slaving away on this week, but I'm pretty pleased with, so hopefully it grabs peoples attention. I'm not gonna be in the main hall, i'm over near where the signings and portfolio stuff happens, so if your in the area say hi. Photo's coming next week, if u wanna check out info on the con then cick here Bristol Comic Con

iNTER-WEB-SITE-THING is GOOO! Phew..the official Astrofunk website is now
online, the best place to find anything funk themed, download desktops, previews of issue 1, and most importantly - details of how to BUY BUY BUY a copy! Which would be muchos appreciato :) Anyways, thanks to everyone who's picked up a copy so far, and hope u all enjoy the website. Now that it's done i can get on with preparing for my first comic convention! woo!

check out the website here

www.astrofunk.co.uk

WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO

GOOD TIMES AHOY!! Astrofunk is here at last, and it feels awesome :) Got 500 copies sent my way at the beginning of the week, so now it's SELL SELL SELL! I'll be updating the official astrofunk website over the next week, and that will have full details of how to order a copy online, but it's already onsale in Guildford Comic and Games, amazing to see it on a comic shelf sitting next to Ultimates, Iron Man and Wizard. Plus I'll be putting it out in a couple of London stores over the weekend, so will get more news on that next week. But if you're desperate for a copy then drop me a line, otherwise details in afew days. And if u have a copy, then post up some feedback, let me know what u loved and what u hated, only gonna make no.2 even better. Cheers to everyone who helped make this possible, wouldn't have made it without all the support and encouragement everyone's given me through the whole process. Well worth it. Man i am excited :)

...Just Plane Boring

sorry for bad pun, but when yer bored on the plane home from Barcelona, why not try scribbling on a sick bag or two? better yet, a big skateboard shop bag, from the lovely folks at Ikara. I got my black marker out and just started to doodle, good times :)

ZUBOOOOO!

My first post as a newly married man is to show off the game I was working on for about 1.5 years at electronic arts, which has just been announced - ZUBO! it was great fun working on the game, and I can't wait to play it finally when it comes out....u can read the press announcement at the following link, not much info yet but more to come over next few months.

http://uk.ds.ign.com/articles/862/862808p1.html

Plus - very exciting comic news coming later today or tomorrow....oooh yes :)

and the rest

me photo graffiti

ok so not very sketchtastic this post...but what the heck, i stumbled upon this wicked little area in Geneva last week, walked through some gates to find a feast of graffiti covered buildings, and snapped away with my rubbish little mobile phone camera. Just ana amazing place, mixture of what appeared to be bike courier offices, squaters digs, skate areas and all covered in tags and paint. So it was awesome reference for the funk, hope u dig the photos.

coming soon - another poster , focussing on main characters this time, and eventually the actual launch of issue 1 , which is at printers now!

Naked man action ahoy!! Life drawing started up again, and it was great to get back into it, we have a great model who holds poses well, and the tutor has some interesting and challenging ways of getting us to work, so I'm lookin forward to keeping this up - which means even more nakedness for u lucky people!!

SUPER! NEAT-O! WOOOO!

YOU WANT PROOF!!!! I'LL GIVE YOU PROOF!!!

heheheh ....man i am excited today! For the first time ever i held in my hands a copy of Astrofunk issue 1! Now ok, it's only a proof copy...but jeezo it felt good. After looking at each page so many times whilst working on it, and then checkin print-outs on a4, i was kinda getting sick of the sight of it, so really didnt expect to be so thrilled to see it in comic book format...what a diference it makes, and it's made all the hard work over the past year or so completely worth it. So now i'm gonna go tweak the tweaks, submit the final...and print this bad boy off so u can all share in my excitement!! oh, and as u can see form the pics, even my son loved it!! - suitable for all ages :)

Issue 2 is also going well, got the cover roughed out and am really pleased with it...might stick it up here soon, it's a wraparound and features a couple of baddie flavored characters, so that's been fun. See ya soon!

JET SET GO!

hOWDY!

so first up, voting finished for monkey tshirts....and it got an average of 2! which is..ok, better than last time at least! Plus it got a lot of good comments, so I'm hoping it maybe gets chosen for print, but guess I'll have to wait and see. Will keep u all posted.

Next up - Astrofunk round 2....the board in the first pic is really helping me plough through the second issue right now, i have a post it note up for every page and just peel one off, draw the page layout, and put it back! So currently i have about 16 of the 26 pages thumbnailed, although i think it will become 28 pages for this issue, with everything i have to squeeze in. But I'm finding it really useful to get an overview of the issue, and compare page layouts and pacing. So it's going well, gonna take the pages to the next level very soon, so it hopefully won't be long before the first finished pages from issue 2 are up here!! woot!

Second pic is of pretty much my favourite game ever - Jet Set Radio Future. I'm going through it again at the moment now that it's playable on the 360, and loving it...just awesome. Plus i went into the graffiti editor and scribbled a couple of mediocre astrofunk tags, so it's fun and wierd to see them in the game.

Oh - news just in - looks like I will be at the Bristol comic convention in May...selling astrofunk...even though i don't have it properly printed yet :) better get movin!!!! Hope to see u there!!!

munkey luvin

T-shirt time again!!! Soooo....not such a top score with mr.giantboy....but thanks to everyone who took the time to vote, muchos appreciated. Hopefully it's second time lucky with this design....it's based on an ol' pic i posted up here months and months ago, which seemed pretty popular with some folks...so i thought i'd bring it back, and whilst i was fiddling in photoshop i thought 'hmm..maybe a black monkey is kinda cool...plus valentines is coming up'....and so, his n hers tshirts were born!

Anyways, if u get the chance to vote for this one then thanks a million, u can find it at the link below!!