Billy Final Inks?

Not sure if this is quite finished. Gonna leave it a few days to mull over it.

Billy partial inks

Billy pencils

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,

Two more pages

Kensuke has begun.

The first page.

This ink and black and white gouache on canson water colour pad 270gsm. I'm not sure if this is the way to go but I reckon I'm getting some alright effects. Stay tuned there be more to come.

Umber Hulk

An Umber Hulk for your viewing pleasure.

The Biz is Back

Well, it's been almost 20 years but Simon Bisley is back in top form.

When I first encountered Bisleys work in Slaine the Horned God in 2000AD I was blown away. I couldn't get enough of him I bought up as much of his stuff I found and tried to copy his painting style. Nothing popped off the page like Bisley did. Judgement on Gotham was another fantastic work: I don't think anyone had seen Batman like this:

After this though Biz got caught up with Kevin Eastman of Ninja Turtle fame and went down the gurgler. Kevin Eastman is the worst thing that ever happened to Simon Bisley. Melting Pot, Body Count, FAKK2, Fistfull of Blood, Simon Coldwater and countless poorly proportioned pinups have, in my opinion, been a stain on what started off a fabulous career. Images like these blow me away.

I still have kept up with what Biz has been doing for the past 2 decades and it took me a long time to stop buying his work. I have since sold or given away everything from this time but I have now come across his recent work on Hell Blazer and am about to open up my wallet again.

As far I can tell the reason that things are looking up again is that he's been given a script with some substance and characters that aren't all tits and muscle. His new style may have something to do with his return to form, I'm not sure but I'm looking forward (almost drooling) to getting my hot little mits on the collected trade of Biz's run on Hell Blazer.

Crystaline

Some of you may know that I've been doing illustrations for a D&D rpg for the past few years. The descriptive art (images that help you locate your possition) are finished and now I'm onto incidental art. With the incidental I've been given a lot more freedom and can choose the perspective, angle and size of the work. Consequently I'm having a lot of fun with these. Here are the first 5 out 15.

A dead elf.

A gibbering mouther.

A mushroom man

A rat vender.                                                     

A tree man (or ent, though I could get sued for saying such stuff).

Dicks gets another Review

Click here to read it.

Kensuke

Kensuke is back!

When I did the 12 pages issue 0 for Small Press Idol way back in 07 I knew there was a bigger story there but if it hadn't been for Jason Franks Kensuke may well have become one of those projects that sits on a shelf gathering dust. We've actually been talking about it since 07 but it wasn't until a new anthology, published by Black House Comics, started to rear its head that Kensuke got the reboot. Kensuke is looking to be a long story so while many of the stories in this anthology are only go over 3 or so issues Ken will be there for long haul.

The anthology is called Terra and should be appearing in the late year or early next year. Terra has been in the pipeline for quite a while but I've been so busy with other projects that I've not yet been able to get onto  Kensuke. That is, until today. Well, I've been naughty and instead of working on what I should be I thought I'd give Kensuke a little go with a couple of quick sketches.

I intend to do Kensuke intirely with a brush and washes which, while not really reflecting the woodcuts of Japan should help give it a bit more of an oriental feeling. We will see.

Zorro

Zorro is back! I hadn't noticed that he'd left but local boy Sorab del Rio has kickstarted The Fox again with a whole new flavour. The swash buckling is still there but a whole bunch of new stuff has been thrown into the pot. Zombies, samurais, drug dealers, ... zombie samurai drug dealers.

The second issue of this new Zorro is about to hit the shelves so get down to your local comic shop or newsagent and pick your self up a copy. I might also add that I have a pinup in this comic. This one in fact.

For more info and all that jazz check out Silver Fox Comics.

Sydnova 2011

Man, and I thought the MCA zine fair wasn't for the likes of me!I made more money at the MCA in 6 hours than I did over the whole weekend. I was friendly, I chatted, I complimented peoples costumes, I did the hard sell but nothing doing. I sold 7 copies of the Dicks anthology, did 4 commissions, sold a  decent amount of comics for $3 and some old stuff I had lying around and still came home short. What an arse.
As per usual I shared a table with Trev Wood - he was so peeved off by the whole thing that he pretty much swore he'd never darken their doors again. Understandable as he has to make his way up from Melbourne.

Personally I blame our lack of success on the layout. Stars are grouped together away from us plebs and us plebs have to fight for our right amungst Pokemon T-shirts, cute toys, spray on tatoos and all sorts of merch the retailers probably didn't have licences for. Artists Alley is a bloody joke. And even with Tim McEwan being an organiser they still can't get it right. At least I was in a corridor away from the wrestling, though it was still loud enough.

I reckon all the comic related stuff ie artists, writers and publishers should be all grouped together all mixed up. None of this 'this is the pro corner and this is the slops corner' all together in one happy family out to help each other. It's not like the pros are going to lose money from being next to us.

A pretty uninspiring weekend all in all.

MCA zine fair II

It's been too long for me to write an indepth post so I'll just say though I made as much money as I usually make on a day I didn't have the right things for sale. The girls I was sharing a table with was selling envelopes and making a fucking killing!

I should have had some badges or posters. I thought that seeing as Brendan Hallyday wasn't there I'd pinch his gig and zombify people but Karma instantly hit and not one person was interested. I asked my mate Marcello Baez if I could use him as a promo but it still didn't work.

For $7.50 and the cost of the petrol this was a worth while gig. While the crowd is mostly ziners and strole ins there was enough custom to come out on top. A gimmick or other paraphernalia to sell is needed though - one comic will not suffice.

Thor

I am now vindicated, knowing that Thor was never a comic worth reading!

MCA zine fair

Sunday May 22 will see the MCA's annual zine fair where I will be hawking my wares and drawing pictures for those that want them. The fair starts at 11am and finishes at 5pm, admissionis free so there's plenty of time and no reason to get yourself down to Circular Quay, sydney for all the zines you can eat!

Lost and Found

I was rummaging through my pile of art the other day and found some stuff I did back in 2008 while I was in England. I hadn't scanned them onto the computer so I thought I'd chuck them up on the old blog.

These first 2 are some sketches I did for The List part 2. When I did the first on I thought I was going to do the cover. I did this sketch to show Paul, though he liked it he had decided to get Wayne Nichols to do the covers.

This one is of the son in the rain (der) I thought it might go in the pinup section but I wasn't really that happy with it.

 

These 2 pages are from a short comic Daren White wrote which was to appear in the next DeeVee. I'd just got these 2 pages of 4 done when Diamond changed there presales quoter which promted Daren to stop publishing DeeVee. A shame this comic never got to see the light of print, I was really happy with the figure drawing and normality of it all. It's title was 'Just'.

Drunk Drawings

I came home from an opening last night rather tipsy and kept on drinnking while I did these.

Listy things

Well the launch was quite a success and along with Supanova many copies were sold. A good start to a great book. But things are even better scary minds has already reviewed the book which can be read here. And if it isn't at your local comic shop already then you can buy it here.
The launch was at the Loop bar in Melbourne cbd and went swimmingly starting off with a trailer made by Trevor Wood and then went on to speeches. Paul and Henry gave very clear and great speeches where as I got tongue tied and mumbled a lot. I hate public speaking and was hoping to get away with just a grunt but was cajoled into speaking further. Bobby N, as reliable as ever, posted up photos on his blog here.

FINISHED!

After 4 years The List is finally finished! Well, 4 years for me. Many more for penciller Hpop and many, many more for creator Paul bedford.
This 3rd and last installment sees the honouring of the 2 final commandments tatooed on the son's chest. There is blood, sweat, nudity and tears and an end so shocking you'll wish you stayed at home.
So come one and all to the Loop Bar, 23 Meyers pl, Melbourne, tomorrow night at 7pm for booze and a signed copy of THE LIST.

The tantalisingly juicy cover by Wayne Nichols.

Nate Van Dyke

I came across this cool video on youtube the other day by Nate Van Dyke a free lance illustrator. I can't say I'm a huge fan of his work but this clip gives a great insight into the way a professional works. I especially like how he makes it up as he goes along. The pencils are really just a guideline.

If anyone know what pens he's using I'd love to know. I need me some of those!

Old Cowboy 3

Through some other project I came into contact with luke Pickett and got him to do a little colouring work on the ol' timer.

Stage 2
2 different eye colours, 2 different coats and a couple other things changed.

I had a go at colouring myself with water colours. Still some more work to be done. Stay tuned for more.

James Andre on 3CR

Over the years I've done a bit of work for James Andre (a fellow Canberran) and heard him just recently on The Comic Spot on 3CR. He, Bernard and John gave me a nice little plug about my ability to draw monsters.
James Andre is proving to be a bit of a power house in Aussie comics. He is a writer and as such needs artists to illustrate his work. This isn't always the case with people who ask you to work for them but James publishes every line you do for his and he does it beautifully. This isn't sneaking the code to the library photocopier and stapling it on the floor amungst a pile of pages (which I've done). The is really nice stuff. Check out his stuff here.

Old Cowboy 2

As I said: on to the brush.

I was given a Pentel cartidge brush pen 12 years ago and ever since it has been one of my favourite tools. Almost. It has several major draw backs. You have to work slowly otherwise the line starts to break up, this can be useful for dry brush effects but i find it a bit of a bummer. You can't rub out pencils underneath, you rob out the ink too. Other than that you get a nice point, it feels nice and you can take it anywhere. So I gave the old timer a go with it seeing as I wasn't going to do rubbing out.

Stage 6

Stage 7

The Pentel cartridge brush pen didn't cut it so I moved onto another Pentel brush pen. A refillable one. These are great you can put any ink you want in them and like the other one you can take anywhere. The main problem with these is that the ink tends to rush out so the fine lines end up being just the opposite.

Stage 8

I've managed to get a bit a dry brush thing going on with the brush pen but the black is too black for my purposes so I've whipped out the white out pen. Good for stubble and hair. I also figured his hair was a bit lifeless so I put a bit of a wave into it.

Stage 9

I've ditched the other pentel and picked up an old sable, a bit too beaten up for really fine steady work but great for getting lines down fast.

Stage 10

Quite a bit more white out. It's nice o use white out as a drawing tool rather than a correction pen. You can get some very nice effects. I've taken away part of the top of the head and hair on his right. 

I'm pretty happy so now onto the colour!

Old Cowboy

Inspired by True Grit and feeling the need to do a bit of personal work I thought I'd do me an old cowboy. I also thought I'd show the process I went through and the various stages. So let's begin.

The sketch.
I wanted to just use my pen straight up so no pencils. It kinda frees you up if you dive right in. It's a bit like taking that first step over the cliff while abseiling: a moment of terror but then everything is beautiful. Your lines are free and interesting, there's movement.

Stage 2
Still mucking around, just putting lines down, making up a light source.

Stage 3

I've fixed up the wierd right eye (sort of).

Stage 4

He's got a coat!

Stage 5

I'm pretty happy with the image now. The right eye still stands out but not so much in the original work. Infact scanning this picture and cropping, straightening etc has given me time to look at the image objectively and I've managed to see a lot of things that have bugged me and get onto them before I decided the picture was finished and not wanted to work on it anymore. 

Now it's time to bring out the Brush!

Gerhard is Amazing!

Do any of you out there follow The Comic Journal? I go there from time to time but the link I'm about to post I found on comic tools (no this isn't the link I mean). Comic tools is a great blog written by Matt Bernier who, while not the greatest comis artist ever, writes a fantastic blog about the technical aspects of comic creation. He has techniques, trails, advice and sometimes posts up links to cool things he's found: like this one (this is the link). The interview with Gerhard, of Cerebus fame,  follows his time on Cerebus: the way he worked with Dave Sim, his techniques and lastly what he's doing now.

The guy is amazing: the effort, the technique... amazing. This has rekindled my love of Cerebus and will be in the shops buying some very soon. If Cerebus is not you're thing read it anyway: you will learn something.

The List

It was way back at the first Doujicon that I met Paul Bedford and Hpop and introduced to The List. At that time Paul had a little photocopied book of about 10 pages which he was using to get everyone into the groove. I was most impressed. Paul, Henry and I started going to the Melbourne comic meets around about the same time and soon became friends. The workload didn't fit into Henry's schedule and Paul asked me if was interested in helping bring The List to the comic stands. After a shakey start, which involved me doing backgrounds (which didn't suit because of mine and Henry's different styles), we decided that I should ink the comic.
I illustrated the cover for part one and inking started on part two. I inked part two whilst in England getting thrashings from respectable comic creators and publishers. I learned a lot in a very short amount of time and while part two was my first full inking job I had had a bit of practice on a few other small things.
I am now halfway through inking part three and while I'm no Tim Townsend I have improved. Henry's work far tighter than my own work but the control I've learnt and experience I've gained has been invaluable.
Seeing as I've been involved in this project now for five years or so, it's about time I posted up some work. I won't show much and I hope I don't give anything away.