Exhibition, Saturday April 20th.

Will be having a small exhibition with my brother at The Green Frog Cafe at Honey Street in Bodmin on the 20th. featuring some of my latest pieces as stretched canvases and my brother's panoramic and landscape photography, we'll be having a licensed evening preview at 7pm on Saturday evening, with the prints all being on show at the Cafe until the 4th May.

It would be great to see anyone who is able to make it on the Staurday evening, and many thanks to John and Jane Lynch of The Green Frog for being such marvellous and welcoming hosts.

Click on the flier for a larger view...

The Young Alchemysts...inked & coloured

Click for a larger view...

The Young Alchemyst's

Time for something original! I've been so keen to get to grips with Manga Studio and the Bamboo stylus since New Year that I've just been reworking some old pieces from the original pencils while I've been learning the basics; too much of a hurry to work up something new. But it's time to start mailing out new work again to prospective clients and the agent, and I think I'm up to speed enough to start using this package for my commercial work. So here's the pencils for the first piece in an occassional series I'm calling The Young Alchemysts, a new portfolio vehicle for drawing contemporary young adult characters and situations in a semi-real vein...

(Click for the larger view...)

Getting to grips...

I'm discovering a lot to enjoy about working with MSex4, but apart from the pen sets and extensive range of rulers and curves, the fact that it allows me to spin my 'canvas' whilst inking and painting is a real delight. For the last ten years I've worked on an animator's drawing board where the drawing surface is a sheet of round perspex inset that allows me to spin the artwork so I can get the brush angles that I'm most comfortable with (as well as acting as an all in one lightbox). It's this facility in MSex4 (previously NOT available in some other proprietary brands of art software) that's finally allowing me to crack inking /colouring etc with a stylus and tablet.

This is a panel I've reworked today from the original pencil art from one of my Rude Mechanicals strips...(click for a larger view).

I will have that box...

"What you doing Abner Brown?"

Abner Brown (Robert Stevens)
"The Box of Delights"

Character building stuff...

Three model sheets for some of the characters on the comic book pitch I've been working on recently for Matthew Illsley.

Currently on the launchpad...

An update to the page of pencils posted a few days back. This is a page commissioned by  author Matthew R. Illsley for a pitch being made to a popular children's title. Thought I'd include the journey of rough layout, to pencils to inks...

Latest project latest...

A little bit more on the comic book project I mentioned earlier... a sample page of pencils after getting my hands on a bit of script.

Latest project...

This is a sheet of character costume and colour suggestions for a comic book project I'm currently doing some development work on. It's a private commission so I can't say much about it at the moment, save that it's a comic book project, and being for younger readers it's a real breath of fresh air to be working on.

Jack and the Giant Jellynauts...

This is the latest portfolio piece I've just finished colouring up after posting the pencil to ink comparisons yesterday here. Jack Lantern takes on more of a life of his own each time I work with him, but I could really do with discovering the name of his sidekick...

(Click the image for a larger view)

Jack's back...

Now I've got some 'down' time after finishing the latest commission it's time to get some more portfolio work done, so I'm returning to the Jack Lantern character I've been developing over the last couple of years specifically for that purpose. There are tales and back stories I've loosely attached to him, and though he has a lot of steampunk (for want of a better term) sensibilities about him I think he owes more to the DC Thomson 'Hotspur' character Red Star Robinson and his robot butler sidekick Syrius Thrice who were big favourites of mine as a kid.

Here are the pencil and ink comparisons; the colured artwork will follow in a couple of days...
(Click the images for a larger view)

New children's illustration...

Some samples of children's illustration work I've just finished for a client in the States...a fun tale of a hapless superhero busted down the ranks to the level of a lowly gumshoe.

New work...

Not posted for a while...it's been a busy couple of months with private and agency commissions keeping me tied to the board and the machine, burning candles at both ends. Somewhere along the way though I managed to fit in a weeks camping holiday (first 'official' holiday in over ten years!!) which was much needed. Thought I'd share some of the latest textbook illustrations I've been working on just to show I'm still here; these are from an English language textbook project I've been working on...

Bowling along nicely...

A sample of sketches for a reading book that I'm working on for an American publisher at the moment...a kind of Columbo-esque-apade set in a US bowling alley...

Bologna Children's Book Fair

This is a selection of pieces that the Advocate Art Agency were representing my work with at last week's Bologna Children's Book Fair, which will hopefully secure me some exciting new commissions and opportunities for the next twelve months. It's made a massive impact having Advocate represent me over the last couple of years in both the quality and breadth of exposure they've enabled me to access. A real foot in doors that I never managed to enter through personal approaches in the past, as well as clients and territories previously unconsidered; they've made a huge difference to the amount and quality of commissions coming my way recently and have been well worth getting on board with.

From a small back room in Cornwall I've found myself working for clients in New Zealand, Belgium, America and the UK, such as Penguin, OUP, Heinemann, MacMillan, McGraw Hill and others. The internet has made it a very small planet all of a sudden and it's been quite a buzz to find myself working for publishers whose stuff I grew up reading as a kid and later found myself using in my work in schools here in the UK in my previous career.

(Click for larger slideshow view)

New work: children's illustration

A few samples from some of the children's and educational books I've been working on recently. I'm still trying to settle in to whether I'm happier inking with brushes or pens (or a combination), but as with most things at the moment it's time and deadlines that dictate.I also reckon I have so much more to learn and understand about colouring digitally, but the more I do the better I get at speed....although I still feel  there's a flatness to the rendering of a lot of my current work that I'd love to break out of. However, I'm being asked for more by name on certain jobs, and getting recommended by one editorial team to another, so I know I must be making some people happy some where.

Bottom line though, I'm really enjoying what I do for a living, enjoy striving to get better at it, and love that I'm actually starting to make a living at this...especially when I hear that whole teams of people I've worked alongside of in education and the public sector have all been made redundant in the last 18 months!

(Click images for larger slideshow view. Copyright: Oxford University Press and Clean Slate Publishing)