Yet Another Hammerstein

More Hammerstein coz I love the guy.

A bit of process also. I think I'm going to have to get a copy stand or set something up for photographing images because the ol scanner doesn't seem to cut it for paintings.

My First Comic

The pages bellow are an unashamed copy of The Melting Pot By Eastman, Talbot and Bisley. Mostly Bisley. It is also the first comic I ever finished. I'd had such great plans before I did this (200 page epics that never got further than 3 pages) so at the end of 1996, after having completed my HSC, I locked myself in my room for 2 weeks and finished my first comic. A terribly teenage comic.

This was painted in oil. I'd tried acrylic but I couldn't get the luminosity that my heros seemed to get. At the end I thought bugger luminosity and went back to acrylic.

The image below is in acrylic and another unmasked Bisley copy but 2 years later. I've got better at form and using paint just not at being original.

JD - just doodling

Just mucking around before I get the job dun!

Red Test

In preparation for the page below I did a painting of a first order stormtrooper under red light from som red lit reference. I wasn't quite happy with the tone on the lefthand side of the helmet so I changed it... still not sure if I'm happy... I like the shoulder, though.

Job Dunn: Rode

Some more Job Dunn work going on. Some process on display here.

I thought I'd try a different approach to the way I work and use a more involved process to see what happened. Since I've also decided to take a different approach to the final product I don't know how much I'll learn about how this process will affect my normal work. The difference in the final product is that I'm fulling painting this comic, which isn't something I've done in about 20 years. When I did my first comics at school Simon Bisley was god and painting comics was the only way to go. I soon found out that this was impossible for me and I reverted to plain old ink.

As for the process, I've spent more time on getting the thumbs right (perspective, proportion, etc) so that I could scale them up and trace them. More drawing was necessary but not much. Getting everything right on a small scale was fairly quick and then tracing just made getting all those great proprotions that you get in the thumbs could easily be replicated.

The thumbs are on an A5 sheet with some plain printing paper for all my perspective workings - horizons, right and left VPs, etc

 The traced and elaborated pencils underneath.

A third of the way through the painted page. As can be seen more detail and a few changes here and there.

Normally I would have gone to ink but I went to paint (gouache) so I reckon I'll have to give this process another go (with ink) to see if I really like it. I'm not a fan of too much preparation - I like to get stuck right into the page - but maybe it's what I'm lacking.

PAD

Long time no post. I've been finishing off the illustration course I started last year called PAD. A pretty intense and rather fantastic course - all the things that I didn't learn at art school such as perspective and colour theory.
I'm working on my final projects now but here's a piece I did a few weeks ago.

Clucka

Another day, another Job Dun.

Here are a couple of panels from the latest comic I've worked on.

Mark Hobby's Job Dun has my first ever attempt at colouring a full story. With quite a bit of inspiration from Carlos Ezquerra and Cam Kennedy I made it through unscathed.

Rhode Island Red

My entry for the May monthly art comp over at the 2000AD forum.

Exquisite Corpse

The new Dicks story is finally under way. Here is a panel from page 2.

The List part 2

The List part 2 is finally on it's way. Paul Bedford has onpened up his dark mind again is unleashing it on the world. H Pop is once again penciling his eyes out and I am inking.

In the mean time a new version of the original is comin out in hard cover with an all new cover by the talented Vincent Sammy. There is a kickstarter campaign happening right here so check it out.

Here's the cover.

Splitter Beast

Here's a painting I did for my kids christmas present last year. It is of Stormer and Breez being supprised by The Splitter Beast. These characters are from Lego's 'Invasion from Below' series.

Here's a scan of the original painting. I realised too late that the monster's left arm wasn't propperly attatched to its body and was far too long so...

...as an exercise I changed it in photoshop. I then decided Stormer and breez were compositionally not in the right place so I moved them a bit to the left.

2000AD Forum Monthly Challenge

Biro seems to be one of my favourite mediums at the moment

2000AD doodles + others...

An old sheet of paper from the kitchen table with a few biro sketches on it instead of doing the washing up. Bottom left corner is a copy of a Mike McMahon drawing. Bottom Dredd is me trying to copy his style 

Sketchy things 2

Here are a couple of pieces to get myself in the mood for some up coming projects.

This guy lost threst of his sword somewhere...

An assassin?

Samurai Mask 2

When I originally did the first (green) mask back in 2012 I wanted to do a series using a very simple pallet of primary and secondry colours. It's taken me more than 2 years but I've finally got onto the second one. Maybe in 2 more years I'll get onto the 3rd.

Here are the inks for starters.

(The design sketch for this mask can be found in the previous post)

And the first peice.

Sketchy things 1

Some sketch book pages (some edited some not) mucking around with brushes, felt tips, washes and a red pencil.

And of course the compulsory Dredd...

James Taylor: You and I

I recently worked with pictureDRIFT  on an animation for James Taylor's current 2014 US tour. The visuals are for the live performance of his recent single "You and I". Reflecting the lyrics of the song, the animation tells the a story of a man and woman separated from each other by time and space and their journey to be with each other. 

I copied actors in charcoal which were then animated with background.

Peter Pumkinhead

Here's the process I went through to do this little 3 pager for White Cat Press.  The web comic follows the misadventures of Peter Pumkinhead, who has just recently barfed up a skull.

Here are the pencils.

The inks.

The colour - water colour (and a bit of white gouache) over the original inks.

And the finished product - inks and colour merged in PS with a bit of touch up.

Scott Robertson Planes

So I've just watched Scott Robertson's Gnomon video on how to draw planes and I had a go at my own. I didn't deviate to much from what was on the video so my designs aren't really my own. I hope to get onto that at a later date though.

The first one is a pretty boring one as I get my  hand in.

I'm starting to get a bit more confident but still having trouble with how the wings intersect the fuselage.

These are freehand and as can be seen the perspective is a bit off.

Back to ball point.

This one I decided to follow Scott Robertson as he drew his. I simplified the detail elements he put in and put in a few of my own.

This one I decided to go it solo and draw a sort of sub.

Hammer Time

Many years ago (2003) I painted this image of Hammerstein from 2000AD.

I was very pleased at the time but very quickly started to see problems with it - too many to go into. I liked the pallet (the black/green background doesn't show up) and the lighting I had set up but I knew that I hadn't propperly acheived what I had set out to do.

This year I started a concept art class at St Leonards TAFE in Sydney called Production Art Department (which I sadly had to defer semester 2 of) where I was learning the necessary skills to make the painting I'd always intended. And so, here it is with some progress shots also.

First the ink drawing which i did in my sketch book, scanned and...

 printed out on some better paper. A base coat an some base colours:

Getting there:

Finished:

As my first gouache/acrylic painting in almost 10 years I'm quite pleased with it but I'm sure that very soon I'll see all the things wrong with it.