Desk

Here's my desk under construction that'll hold my light box, guillotine, computer, etc.

Nearly there!

Well, it's been a while between posts about the studio. And a lot has happened in between - as you will no doubt notice.

Today A mate and I put up the facia boards and the gutter. Fuck, that's been weighing on me a long time! They went up rather quickly with only on little problem at the end - I attached the gutter hangers on upside down... easily fixed though.

My side of the studio is almost completely painted - just another coat on the ceiling. Skirting and architraves still need doing. A few panes in the front window and then it's done...well, nearly. There's still the other side...

Carpentry done

I'll be ordering the roofing iron tomorrow. Woo hoo! Still a long way from the end but the building inspector came and passed the frame work so I have only the final inspection left and all that really entails is making sure the tank is conected to the gutter. Easy!

These photos were taken a week or so ago before the weather got bad again. The weather isn't set to improve but I might aswell have the iron waiting for the next good day.

The stuff on the front is bracing ply, it holds the frame rigid and acts like the diagonal steel bracing you can see on the right hand side of the image above. The intermediate board and rafters are called hyjoists. They're a manufactured timber beam made from ply. Very strong, very light and very straight! I went over size with them so I could fit R6 insulation in the ceiling.

The Studio Continues

Things are moving along. Tomorrow I think I'll order the rafters and battons etc. I'm a bit further on in construction than in this picture but basically things look pretty much the same (except that wall that's lying down is up).

What we're look at is my half of the studio and that far corner is where I intend to dig myself in and create my rats nest.

My Studio

I've not really had a proper studio space since I finished art school 11 years ago. In share houses I, of course, worked out of my room but since then I've worked in what ever space I managed to scrounge. I did one year have a whole room to myself but it was a very bad year for production - I hadn't yet got serious. My most productive year was 2008 when I did 170 pages of comics and illustrations which I did in a room I shared with my son - it was his toy room (it was only a 2 bedroom house and he slept in our room). I hope I'll be able to achieve this again with my studio even though I now have 2 children.

I have finally pulled my finger out and have started work on a purpose built studio for myself and my partner. We will each have a room of about 30m squared. I have jumped through all the hoops, got my owner builder licence and have finally laid the foundations so that I may pour the concrete for the slab on Friday.

This is a very exciting time not to mention scary. I've never built anything of this scale by myself and though I've been a builder's labourer for my working life and grew up helping my dad build the family home it's quite something else to have all the responsibily all of a sudden. The carpentry doesn't bother me really but the slab is pretty damn daunting.

Anyway, here's my studio as I work from it at this very moment.





That's a light box under the mac, reference books underneath the desk, various papers (including the inked List pages) next to the printer, a pair of antlers keep my drawing boards from slipping, a Balinese mask grins at me and various bits of this and that litter the general area.

Here's the studio site with the footings and slab all set up ready to pour.

Many things are going to changein the landscaping and seeing as I'll be devoting most of my time to building this thing and doing minimal comic work I'll be posting up the progress here,