Big Bad Wolf

Black Cat Marvel

Physical inks on watercolour paper.

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Sketch Overload

These ladies were sketched a little while back. They were a lot of fun to draw. I was originally going to sell them and I still might on Etsy or something, now there's commitment.

Bear in a hat

This is an illustration for a story I wrote myself. I do like to ink now, but when I first tried it I was trying to be all neat and precise and it wasn't really working for little ol' clumsy me, but after looking at people's work like Dave McKean and Bill Sienkiewicz, you know the greats, I realised inking didn't have to be slick to be good. This is just an initial illustration, the story's half written, so I haven't submitted it to anyone yet. I'm working on other things at the moment, but hopefully I'll get round to completing it one day.

Self Portrait

Here's a little sketch of yours truly. I used a Koh-i-noor Nexus, which I bought in the US years and years ago.

Viking Marauders

This is another illustration from the Robin the Hoodie book. It might be my favourite. It's not often I get to draw vikings, so I decide to go with the fetching, but historically inaccurate, horns on helmets.

Robin the Hoodie

I recieved my copy of Robin the Hoodie yesterday. I'm really happy with how it came out, it's the first book where I've inked it physically. Stephen and I are moving in opposite directions, as he uses more digital media I use more physical stuff, it's how we keep the force in balance.

There was some ink splatter I wanted to use behind Crack Beard, but the printers were worried about how it would print. I mocked up a version anyway for my own sake (but it's elsewhere), it helps the smoke stand out.

Update: I just discovered the Crack Beard story was dropped. Dang! That was one of my favorite illustrations.

Bear necessities and IKEA

We went to the Irish opening of IKEA yesterday and met the fanfare outside. I would have been happy to have waited 'til the next day, but we needed our desks ASAP. We got there an hour before the opening and had to endure the entertainment, the worst of it was probably the 98fm trucks blasting out Bewitched. When we got inside the staff were lined up on either side waving flags, I thought this must be what royalty feel like . . . awkward!

We scooted quickly through the store and got lots of help from the staff who were just lovely. But, unfortunately they only had one pair of legs for the desks, so I'm doing without for the moment, Stephen's need is currently more urgent. I did get my chair though, the Kläppe, yep, I got the Kläppe. I gave it some consideration, but decided against getting the Kolon (floor protector) for it.

We also got some Billy shelves and when I pealed opened its cardboard box two of the shelves popped out and fell on my foot. Oh man, that hurt! Anyways, I gotta go back tomorrow to get the legs for my desk and maybe pick up some egg cups.

Maned Wolf

I did this in my new moleskine A4 watercolour sketchbook. There's A3 sketchbooks as well, but at that size they're better for working in at a desk.

We've got a great view from the kitchen window of our apartment, we're on the top floor and there was a short thunderstorm a few hours ago, which we could see approaching from a distance. I glanced up just in time to see a bolt of lightning.

Inks and New Portfolio Site

I've been doing a bit of inking and while I still love the dip pens I've had a lot of fun with the brushes. The first bear here was inked with a brush and the second one with a G nib, he's not finished yet, but it was mostly an experiment. The trees are inked with a brush pen and a nib.

I've a new site for my portfolio, which I was working on yesterday. There's still more to do apart from uploading the artwork. Having had problems with uploading websites in the past I was a bit confused about what route I should go, until Stephen suggested just making another blog, and reassured me with a "that's what most editors ask for". So I knocked this up in a day. I salute you Stephen and your clever brain.

Some Good Support

My bank card got swallowed by an ATM today, fantastic!

Anyway here's a little story about paper. This is the paper I used to paint on:

Daler Rowney have fairly recently changed the smoothness of this paper (and the weight). It's now just cold pressed but it used to be so shmooth. The advantages of the old stuff were several fold: a paper capable of taking ink and watercolour; good for glazing techniques; readily available in big newsagents; affordable enough that you can just muck around on them and not feel like everything you do on it has to be a masterpiece.

Now that it's just cold pressed like every other pad of watercolour paper next to it on the shelves it's lost the first two qualities.

Here's some stuff from 2006 on the old paper:

The paintings in my first post were also painted on this stuff.

I was trying out some Arches Hot pressed and these were the results:

This paper's a lot pricier, but I got this block for free from my wonderful and kind Stephen. It is really, really nice, but it doesn't handle the dip pens as well as the old Daler Rowney Aquarelle.

DR Aquarelle:

Arches hot pressed:

These are the exact same zoom and size. But it is VERY zoomed in. It's more something you notice when your drawing.

Well, I've yet to test out every other hot pressed paper under the sun and that is fairly probable.

G nib etc.

Well, I'm busy at the moment with illustration work and I've been painting solidly for the last 3 days. There's paintings covering every available surface, including taped over my computer (I have my reasons). But in the mean time, here's something unrelated I did a while ago.

This is a sketch I did with a G nib, I'm pretty enamoured with these nibs at the moment. It was done in a Moleskine which always acts funny with wet media and the ink bled a bit on it.

Here's the little blighter, this particular one is made by Deleter and as you can see was purchased in Forbid, not one of the usual places I get my art supplies. You get 3 in a pack, which I reckon is to shift more stock. I found an old one I had ages ago (made by I don't know who), it looked broken with the two bits twisted open, but they just popped back into place, neat!

Here's a bunch of my nibs. The one at the top is a Brause 361 and is an old favourite, I'm using it at the moment on my illustrations with acrylic ink and it's working very well on the rough support.

Sketches in colour no less.

The big guy here has been painted with watercolour. It goes onto Moleskine sketch book paper kinda weird, it beads a bit when you first paint on it and it never really takes the watercolour properly, it can smear after it's dried and then rewetted, as I discovered today.

The lady was inked with a brush pen.