Randolph Hoyte @ 4772

Spinning Bird Kick!!

2012-02-01T14:19:00.000-08:00

Above is the colour version of my previous post of my sketch of Chun-Li of Street Fighter fame. Once again, done in my 'fake vector' style in Photoshop. I've made a fair few changes from the original sketch, particularly in her face and her outfit, a lot of which I really got wrong in the initial sketch. I had a fair amount of fun doing this one, but I'm not sure how I feel about the final image. I'll have to leave that up to the viewers.

It's been too long since the last time I posted, something I really aim to change in future. 2011 was a pretty turbulent year, so I'm hoping that things will continue on the smoother path in 2012 to facilitate more new work to post.

In the meantime, as always, enjoy!

Chun-Li Sketch

2011-12-07T15:16:00.000-08:00

Above is a quick black biro pen sketch of Chun-Li from Street Fighter I did earlier today. I'm pretty pleased with this one and think I'm going to do a colour version of it later.

As always, enjoy!

At long last... UFTR Page 9!

2011-11-09T01:15:00.000-08:00

Above is page 9 of the slowest football comic strip to come out EVER, UNTITLED:FEEL THE ROAR!!! sans lettering. You can read the page, and its earlier installments at its home here.

As LL once said, I pretty much sweat, cried and bled for this page! It took me waaaaay longer than it should have and there are so many things in it I would still change! There's some particularly bad drawing in places, but I'll work to improve on those in the next page and the next page after that and so on.

Of particular annoyance is the poor composition in panel two, where the guy in the blue tracksuit just looks "squashed" with his head being cut off by Rex Sanford's shoulder. The perspective on the stadium is not quite right either. The fans should all be falling onto the pitch, the stands are so steep! Ouch. The referee's head in panel 3 also looks a bit too big and a bit off, his neck looks strange too.

I am relatively pleased with the overall dynamics of the page, and feel that it flows reasonably well, although the sudden appearance in panel 3 of the person who I know is the referee could be jarring for anyone not familiar with the game, as I haven't made it crystal clear who he is. Another thing to work on.

However, I am quite happy with the colours, as I feel they are a distinct improvement on the earlier pages. I worked waaaaaay too hard on them in relation to the amount of time it will take for someone to actually read the page. I'm also really happy with the graphic I created for the "board" that displays the time added on by the referee for injuries, etc at the end of the allotted 90 minutes. As the story is set in the future, I wanted to explore/imagine the technology used for such a purpose and how it could be pushed forward. There will be a lot more of this as the story progresses.

I also conciously omitted the flying ORB cameras that inhabit the world of UFTR that appeared in pages 1, 2 & 5, to aid the clarity of the scenes as there are so many figures on the page, and just felt that all those ORBs might just have been too much. They will re-appear in page 10.

Somoene asked me recently why all the players have on skin-tight shirts. Initially it was because I thought that might make them look more futuristic (smoother, sleeker) and also out of laziness, as initially I did not want to deal with rendering the drapery in each shirt. However, I now have a plausible story-led reason for this that will be revealed as the story goes on.

Below are the pencils, inks and colours (before the "time added on board" graphic) for the page. Now to try and get page 10 out before Christmas!!

As always, enjoy!

The Uncanny X-Men: Old School!

2011-09-05T04:00:00.000-07:00

Above is the finished version of an X-Men work in progress I posted a while back. For some reason I had an urge to depict the X-Men, but the classic team(barring the original five), the one I grew up with. I was going to add Kitty and Lockheed, but chickened out, thinking there were going to be too many characters to draw. However, it still took a lot longer than I anticipated, with it being an ensemble piece, as well as the laborious technique I employed to get the effect I wanted.

I began with this small, rough sketch, just to get an idea of where I wanted to place all of the characters and their actions/gestures. I always had the idea in my mind of Colossus holding a Sentinels's head (although it's not obvious from the sketch) above him with Wolverine on top of it, and made that the focal point of the composition.

I then went into Sketchbook Pro to pencil the figures. I enjoy using SBP as it feels more intuitive, closer to real drawing than when I use Photoshop. I drew each character on separate layers so that I could play around with the arrangement of the characters, as well as their scale/proportions in relation to one another.

Originally, I had no intention of putting in a background as I wanted to concentrate on making the characters look good, but it just felt a bit bare and I decided to play around a bit. I didn't want the background to overpower the characters, so I went for a simple silhoutted city ruins effect, with the X-Men standing on a cracked, rocky surface.

I then took the pencils into Photoshop to begin colouring. I started by putting down the basic colour scheme as flat colours, then using the lasso tool to start sculpting the figures, trying to add depth.

I used gradients mainly on the Sentinel's head to give it a shiny, metallic feel. I then added elements to the head that weren't there in the pencils. No real rhyme or reason to it, just making it up as I went along. I was just trying to have fun with it! I really should have had a shadow from the Sentinel falling on Colossus, with reflections from it in his metal skin, but I decided that I wanted people to recognize the character and see him clearly, so I decided against it. Incidentally, I think rendering Colossus' skin was the hardest part, but the most rewarding as it came out a lot better than expected. If you look at the pencils you can see that I changed things a fair bit where his body/skin was concerned.

Once I was happy, I then cropped the image, as I was still paranioid about the background dominating the characters. I then worked up a logo, obviously a version of the classic X-Men logo. Above is a version of the image with the logo behind the Sentinel's head rather than in front of it.

So there you have it! Overall, I'm generally pleased with the piece, and I'm glad I've scratched my X-Men itch. There are things that I would improve, maybe make it more dynamic, more in-your-face, with more extreme foreshortening in the figures. Storm's rain effect is pretty lame, so I would change that too, although I'm feeling her more buff look here a lot! Anyway, on to the next, possibly with something less time-consuming....

As always, enjoy!

The Uncanny... Pt 2

2011-07-28T07:19:00.001-07:00

Recently I posted some early digital pencils for an old school X-Men piece I'm doing just for fun. Above are the finished pencils for this piece. I've just added things like the cracked earth and city ruins behind them as I've gone along, trying to add a sense of danger/drama to the drawing.

Now I'll take it into Photoshop and start the colours to complete the piece. There are things I'm not happy with in the drawing, but I'll fix them as I go along in the colouring stages.

As always, enjoy!

UFTR The Return - Process

2011-07-27T05:42:00.001-07:00

After nearly two years I post a new PAGE (!) of my football strip UNTITLED: FEEL THE ROAR!!!™, which you can view here. Yeesh. There are a multitude of reasons as to why I haven't been able to produce this stuff more consistently, but it doesn't really matter now, it's here, and that's the main thing isn't it? Anyway, no promises but I will endeavour to get the following pages out at a more consistent pace in future.

The following images show my process for creating this page:

First, the pencils, done on A3 paper. Here I'm concentrating on making sure all of the composition, gestures and action work as well as possible. As I will be inking and colouring I try not to put in too much detail at this stage.

Next, the inking stage, done on bristol board with Staedtler pigment liners and brush pens. Here I add in the direction/speed lines, crowds (with correction pen) and beef up the details on the characters, trying to vary line weights to make elements advance and recede. Again, I'm not putting in too many shadows/blacks as I want the colours to do some of the heavy lifting.

I then scan the finished artwork and apply colours in Photoshop. I'm trying not too over-render the page as I want it to be clear and bright, rather than dark, plastic-looking and muddy. For some reason, I actually WANT it to look like a comic, which is why there are all the exaggerations of the figures etc. I'm not trying to do a realistic interpretation of the game, I want it to be fantastical(how successful I've been is open to question!).

With that in mind, I want to treat the ball like a force of nature, very much inspired by the way Yoichi Takahashi does so in his long-running football manga Captain Tsubasa. (I wish I could channel that strip's energy and dynamism!) I employed colour holds on the ball trail in the first two panels to make it seem more like a beam of energy, to help the dynamics of the action. I also did the same thing to the white markings on the pitch, just to make things cleaner. I then added some noise to the pitch to give it a bit of texture, as to be honest, I could not come up with a convincing grass texture (yet) that did not jar with the line art.

Once I stopped playing with the colours, I carried the page into Illustrator to letter the strip. I use a free font (where from I can't remember now!) called Digital Strip and various rectangular shapes to create the caption boxes. I'm not a letterer by any stretch, just trying to do the best I can with what I've got.

Once I'm (if ever!) happy with it I merge all the layers, save it as a jpeg and post the page!

Now to get on with pages 9, 10, 11 and so on.....

As always, enjoy!

The Uncanny...

2011-07-13T23:22:00.000-07:00

... X-Men that is! The above image is a work in progress of an X-Men piece I'm working up just for kicks. These are unfinished pencils, with possible backgrounds still to be added, then coloured in my fake vector, no-holding-lines style. I chose the roster of my childhood, when there was only ONE X-Men book and things were much more simple. Despite their continued popularity, I don't think they've ever touched that golden era of Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne etc.

Some of the later stuff was really good too, like Paul Smith's run, Romita Jr, the Barry Windsor-Smith Issues, Arthur Adams annuals and so on. Once X-Factor and all of the other books came along, it watered down the unique nature of the X-Men. I still feel that having Wolverine in his own book (and everywhere else) has stretched him waaaaaaay too thin, reducing his 'cool' factor a fair bit. However, I'm sure many of the people who have gobbled up those books, plus Marvel editorial, would tell me otherwise!

The real truth is, I was 12/13/14 a looooooong time ago now, and the adventures of men with adamantium claws who say "bub" a lot is probably somewhat less "cool" now than it was back then.

These "pencils" are all digital, done in SketchBook Pro, a program I'm really in love with for this kind of thing. It feels very intuitive and responds well to different types of pen pressure. I now prefer to start any digital pencil work in SBP rather than in Photoshop, as it just feels better. Also cmd+z on the mac is a LOT more forgiving than an eraser on paper.

Anyway, I'll post the colour version as soon as it is done. As always, Enjoy!

Strontium Dog Illustration

2011-06-29T01:50:00.000-07:00

Above are pencils for a Strontium Dog illustration I have been meaning to finish for about six months now! I don't know when (if ever) I will get around to inking/colouring it, so thought I'd just post it as it is. It might give me the incentive to squeeze some more time out to get it done. This is the early version, there is a later one with some add-ons, so I'll update this post with that image once I find the file/scan again!

Strontium Dog was always my favourite strip in 2000ADafter Judge Dredd, as the stories were action-oriented and fun, and the art by Carlos Ezquerra was great! It's funny that I really disliked his Dredd, but on SD he could do no wrong. I think Johnny Alpha is one of the more complex characters from the 2000AD stable, and I was mortified when they killed him off. However, no-one stays dead in comics and they have brought him back! I don't know how they've done it or how good the stories are as I haven't read 2000AD in years now, but it's good to see the old boy back, with Ezquerra drawing him too to boot!

As always, enjoy!

UPDATED: The above image is a later version of the pencils, with added wolf and skulls. Looking at this again, I think I will get on it and finish the damn thing.

Enjoy!

UNTITLED WIPs

2011-06-22T02:01:00.001-07:00

It's been a looooooooong time coming, but I'm almost ready to start posting pages for my football comic strip UNTITLED:FEEL THE ROAR!!! after almost TWO YEARS!! A ridiculously long time to get to page 8 of an ongoing story, but life has not exactly worked with me to facilitate regular delivery of the strip. I'm not aiming to change the face of comics or for world domination, I just wanting to tell this story and have fun with

it, and maybe some others will enjoy it too.

Above are some unfinished panels from that long-awaited (not!) eighth page. I actually drew these pages at Christmas, and have only got around to colouring them recently. Once this particular sequence has concluded I will post some pencils/inks from the pages.

As always, enjoy!

Thick Bats Sketch

2011-06-21T05:02:00.000-07:00

A quick pen sketch of Batman with an impossibly thick neck I knocked off in a few minutes while on my lunch break at the day job. Picture taken with my phone. Lots of things I'm in the process of finishing, but they are time consuming and right now I have very little time! Therefore I think I'll be posting quick things like this for a little while.

Enjoy!

Dredd Returns...

2011-06-12T15:35:00.001-07:00

.... to my drawing board that is. Above is a little pieced that I've been playing about with for fun. I had done a Judge Dredd drawing in an earlier post that I was never really happy with. Although this one is not perfect and is not even as finished as I'dlike, I'm definitely happier with this depiction of Dredd.

I'm in a reminiscent mood at the moment regarding Dredd and all things 2000AD, although I stopped reading them in the mid to late 90s. Maybe seeing Karl Urban as the film version rekindled my love for the old boy.
The image started from the above quick digital sketch done in SketchBook Pro. I then took it into Photoshop to apply colour to the character and the background. Hope to be posting much more stuff from this point on.

As always, if possible, enjoy!

GIFTED Character Sketches

2011-05-03T15:18:00.001-07:00

As usual, it's been another long gap between posts, and I'll make the same promise to correct that in future. In the meantime, above is a sketch dump of character sketches for a story I am working on at present called GIFTED. The sketches were all done with pencil, biro and digital pencil in Sketchbook Pro.

As always, enjoy!

Barbarian Sketch

2011-02-19T04:08:00.001-08:00

Once again, a long time since the last post, but times are busy and I will hopefully be posting regularly again soon. In the meantime here's a sketch of a Conan/Slaine-type barbarian character I did in about five minutes while watching someone else draw pretty girls. I like some aspects of the sketch so I thought I'd post it.

As always, enjoy!

At Last... Volpuptopia

2011-01-01T16:05:00.000-08:00

Firstly Happy New Year! I hope that everyone has had a good time and are ready to have a great 2011!

My first post of the year is a piece that I've been working at on and off for a while in between other stuff. "Voluptopia" is my vehicle for producing my own brand of pin-up art featuring the kind of ladies I like to draw and paint. I've been experimenting with different levels of digital painting in various projects and after being inspired by artists such as Serge Birault and LoopyDave (far superior artists to myself) I decided to throw my hat into the ring!

My earlier "Chocolate Thunda" post image is also part of this project and my aim is to do some more faux covers/interiors for this "magazine" using a variety of female characters over the next few months or so. The purpose of this particular image was to really practice painting digitally with as much detail as I could muster, using existing reference before doing so with my own characters. I got a picture of model Renee Ross for reference and was on my way!

This image was created entirely in Photoshop, so I started by making a sketch of the figure on one layer, then for some reason I decided to lay a blue base colour down before I started painting. As you can see from the above image, I did not really do this in the classic manner of blocking in all of the basic colours roughly. I pretty much just started from the head and worked my way down the figure, correcting things as I went along! Luckily enough, cmd+z is always there to bail me out in times of trouble!

I got to a point with the figure where I just had to let it go, as I could have kept amending things forever! I then decided that the background was a bit plain, so I tried to put a little bit more tone/shade behind the figure to make it "pop" a little bit more - can't decide if I was successful or not to be honest! Once that was taken care of, I then went into Illustrator to do the type treatment for the cover, wanting to do something simple that did not detract too much from the figure. Voila! Voluptopia cover one! Below is the figure with the original flat blue background both with and without the cover typography.

As always, Enjoy!

Work In Progress..

2010-12-07T14:52:00.000-08:00

I wish I was less busy and faster too, so that I could post more often! My one and only New Year resolution will be to be more prolific in 2011. The above pic is a portion of a larger piece I have been working at on and off for a while now. This is for the same personal project as my earlier "Chocolate Thunda" post. I will unveil the full image as soon as possible.

In the meantime, as always, enjoy!

Science Ninja Team Gatchaman

2010-10-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Once again, it's been a loooong time since my last post. I would like to have been more productive and posted more often, but life has a habit of pulling you in different directions sometimes, whether you like it or not.

Anyway, I finally got five minutes to myself and produced the above image of my favourite anime characters ever, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman! Again, this is one of my "fake vector" images, with a little bit of design thrown in for good measure. No real reason for creating this image other than fun times with the best-designed anime/superhero characters ever, in my humble opinion of course. Detailed below is the creative process:

The above pencils were produced while at a loose end at the day job. There was no pressure, or real game plan for the image, I just felt like drawing the characters again. Also, in my previous Gatchaman sketches, I had tackled Ken, Joe and Jun, but not Jinpei and Ryu, so I wanted to take a crack at them also.

Once I got home I scanned it in, but could not decide how to finish it. I was (and will do at some point) going to ink it and render it in my comic book colouring style, but just went the lazy route with the flat colours. However, the truth is that this style does not guarantee that the image is completed any quicker! In fact it can be a very laborious process, but I like the look/results, and these are fun characters to do in this style. I do this very simply in Photoshop by putting a layer on top of the scan and applying the colours using the lasso and fill tools.

Once all of the basic colours were laid down, I then used the pen tool to create the arcs in Ken and Joe's helmets. Lastly, I used a soft brush to create the highlights on all the characters' visors.

Once I was relatively happy, I then decided that I wanted to flex some of my old graphic design muscles, so I created the above logo in Illustrator. I wanted to do something very quickly that got across the bird motif of the team, while still being legible. Once this was done I then did a small symbol for each of the team members. I then took these into Photoshop, where I separated out the characters a bit more, added a background gradient, some small effects, a bit of cropping and that was that!

This was an awful lot of fun to do, as I love the look of these characters and have done since I was a kid! As always, Enjoy!

Champions Of Hope Pg 7 Process - Updated

2010-09-01T15:29:00.000-07:00

As I said I would in my earlier post, here is some process stuff from the Advent Comics Champions Of Hope pages. I have chosen the third page as it is the one out of the three that went through the most revisions.

This page called for a pause between the action of the previous two pages, followed by the dramatic introduction of the black ops/military-type team into the story. As with all of the pages, I tried to keep the pencils as loose as I possibly could, so that I didn't get too bogged down in details, and that the inking stage didn't just feel like tracing.

I tried to vary the initial layout so that there weren't too many close-up/mid range shots, which is why panel 2 in the layout is so different from the finished page. However, I looked at it again, and decided that although I liked the idea of the full figures and some of the poses, they were not rendered that well and were not imposing enough. Therefore I decided to close in a bit more so we could actually see the characters, get some indication of their various personality cues/traits and (hopefully) give the panel some more "oomph!".

Incidentally, I used to have a real problem with correcting or just plain rubbing out a drawing I had just spent a fair amount of time on, even if I knew it looked wrong. Now I just start erasing before I get a chance to change my mind. Erasers are important!

Panel 3 required an impassioned reaction from the unwinged character in panel 1. For my first pass at it, I pulled the camera out a bit, but ended up with quite a limp, awkward pose and a really badly drawn hand in the foreground! I wrestled with it a bit and decided to go with a straight ahead close-up so we could (IMO) really gauge his reaction to the team's appearance in the previous panel.

Once these decisions had been made it was just a case of blocking in backgrounds and inking. I really enjoyed inking the "money shot" team panel, but totally underestimated the time it would take me to colour the page in its entirety. However, that is a story for another day.

As always, enjoy!

Champions Of Hope

2010-09-01T02:49:00.001-07:00

Above are a few pages from a short story I recently completed for a soon to be published anthology called "Champions Of Hope" from the fine folks at Advent comics. This will be a 100 page book of stories introducing the company's characters before the release of their individual regular titles. You may not have heard of them yet, but I think they'll be making a fair amount of noise in 2010!

It's been a bit of a departure from the kind of stuff I've been doing of late, but it was fun (as well as bloody hard work!) to stretch different muscles and (hopefully) grow as an artist. It was a bit of a slog, as I pencilled, inked and coloured the whole thing entirely, but I'm relatively happy with the results. As always, coming away from the work there's a number of things I would fix, re-draw entirely (I did a fair bit of that throughout!) re-colour etc, but I've let it go now, and will use the lessons learnt for the next project.

I went through some interesting (I think) diversions on the way to the final images and will post some of the process stuff soon.

In the meantime, as always, enjoy!

Guess Who's Back?

2010-08-29T11:53:00.001-07:00

Once again, it's been a looooooong time between posts of late. I have just finished a strip that has taken me a lot longer than I ever thought it would. I really underestimated how long it would take to me pencil, colour and ink these pages, alongside the day job and other personal/domestic issues that occur daily.

Completing this has left me in a rather reflective mood, making me think about how I need to go about things from this point onwards. The commitment to improving your art is a time-consuming one, that needs realistic prioritising if you are going to make any headway. I'm going to cover these thoughts in more detail in a later post when I have more time.

Anyway, above is a colour image of a panel from said strip. The pencil and ink versions are in a previous post. I will post a couple of the full pages once I get permission to do so.

As always, enjoy!

Rough Stuff

2010-07-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

Still incredibly busy at the moment, in life as well as work! Been working on a strip for waaaay too long, but now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Above are pencils from a panel on one of the pages and an inked one below that. Cannot share the finished pages until they are published, but this should give you some idea of what I've been doing without giving any story details away. This is a super-hero story, so I've taken a slight departure from my usual style, which has been a lot of fun. How good the experiments have been will be determined by its readers. Some colour stuff to follow shortly.

As always, enjoy!

Another One Down

2010-07-11T04:06:00.000-07:00

It's been another busy week around these parts on all fronts, but there is light at the end of the tunnel! In the meantime, here's another sneaky panel from the latest thing I'm working on, finished inks on the left, pencils on the right.

As always, enjoy!

Too Busy

2010-07-07T11:14:00.000-07:00

... to post regularly at the moment, just trying to get things done! Anyway, just thought I would embarrass myself by sharing my latest doodles, bits and pieces I've done while at the day job, sitting around, ruminating, trying to get the juices flowing. I've also naughtily included the layout/initial pencils of a panel from the strip I'm currently working on.

As always, if possible, enjoy!

New Things

2010-06-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

Once again it's been a while since I last posted, just been too busy actually doing some work! Above is a panel from something I'm working on at present that I'm not sure I can show in full yet, but I just felt like posting something. More soon.

Now For A Break...

2010-05-26T12:05:00.000-07:00

...from the norm that is. Haven't had the opportunity to post much recently because I'm trying to finish a number of things all at the same time. Probably not the best way to work, but it's where I find myself at the moment.

So... while I still can't share anything new art wise for a little bit, just thought I would share pics from some training/inset I had to do for the day job. Below you can see a mug and a place mat that I "designed" (veeeeery quickly in photoshop - google/copy/paste/erase/layer/blend/type/distort

/blur/cutout/merge visible - bang!) and produced using dye sublimation. I felt like a 12-year old again as I watched the process and felt really proud and could not wait to take them home and show them to my mum!

Nods to Cristopher Reeve, Esther Baxter, 50 Cent, Andre 3000 and Dodge Viper for the inspiration.

As always, enjoy!!

Chocolate Thunda

2010-03-17T15:38:00.001-07:00

Above is an almost finished image for a personal project I'm putting together. I've been mucking around with a fake vector style for a lot of these quickies I've been doing, but this is a real vector drawing, done entirely in Illustrator CS3. I've always enjoyed drawing the female figure, and it was fun trying to replicate Ms Thunda's ample curves using the pen tool and fills! Below is my original pencil sketch, so you can see where things have been changed/amended from the initial vision.

As always, enjoy!

Hip Hop Karaoke

2010-03-01T12:04:00.000-08:00

Two posts in one day! Will wonders never cease? Anyway, the above image is the finished e-flyer using the illustration I posted up last night. It's for one of my closest friends' 40th Birthday celebrations, a night I'm looking forward to, for sure. Haven't done much real graphic design for a long time, and this is not my finest typographical moment. However it's okay, it's got something about it I like. Done entirely in Illustrator. As always, enjoy!

Wedding Caricature

2010-03-01T09:46:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting to post the above image for a little while now, but due to nature of its purpose that was not possible . This was done for the front of the invite for my partner's brother's impending nuptials. (which I also designed but won't post here) The couple asked me if I could do a caricature of them for it, and I told them I could, (despite the fact that caricature is really not my bag) and as usual I took it on a journey much longer than originally intended.

As I'm not a master of caricature/cartooning, I think I subconsciously decided to over compensate by doing things that I hoped would divert from this o bvious flaw. I looked at a few other caricatures and concluded that I could maybe get away with just making the heads big in proportion to the figures and render the hell out of their faces and wedding outfits, beautifying them as much as possible on the way.

The first image that came into my head was them on a flying carpet in the sky, so I stuck with that and went straight into collecting references. They are both Mauritian Hindus, so I wanted to reflect that in their attire. This meant trawling through previous wedding photos, as well as Asian Bride and Google images! After that it was a simple case of warming up Photoshop, and getting straight into it.

As I have done on a few things lately, I sketched directly in Photoshop, put another layer on top and started painting the figures using a default airbrush. This was the longest part of the process, having to ensure that their features were "correct", as well as figuring out how to "suggest" all the detail in their outfits, without drawing every stitch/gem! Once this was completed, I then used Illustrator to design the flying carpet, taking it back to Photoshop to apply colour and texture.

It was then a quick matter of rendering the clouds and cleaning up any small details. Now I had to see if they liked what I'd done............. luckily, for me, they loved it! So, not only have I created a nice new image, I've also contributed to someone's happy day. Aaaaawwww.......

Anyway, the image below shows the various stages of its completion, so you can see my haphazard process in all its glory. As always, enjoy!

Young Bam

2010-02-28T16:20:00.001-08:00

Above is an in-progress vector illustration for an e-flyer I'm currently working on that I knocked out tonight. My first time using Illustrator since I got my new Mac and I'm loving it! However, I've got so much to do at the moment and I don't know how I'm going to do any of it!

Anyway, will be posting the final image asap as well as something else I recently finished. As always, enjoy!

Sketchbook Female

2010-02-20T10:57:00.000-08:00

Wow. This is my first post for what seems like aaaaaages. It's been a bit of a topsy-turvy time creatively for me. I've been working on a few things (that I will post as soon as possible) that have been taking up all of my time, and have just set up a few others that will take up even more! This has meant that production on UFTR has slowed right down and I haven't been able to post as much as before.

However, I can see some light and will be working towards getting some new UFTR pages done as well as posting here with more regularity again. In the meantime, I've been keeping a sketchbook again and felt like drawing some ladies, so here's one of the drawings I produced recently.

Hopefully it's not too naughty for blogger, or anyone else for that matter!

As always, enjoy!

Beware The Spider Woman

2010-01-08T18:22:00.000-08:00

Beware indeed! I finally goot around to colouring this sketch that I did of Spider Woman quite a while ago now. Again, I went for the flat colour vector imitation look that I've been enjoying so much of late. Did this in one sitting, the least interesting part of that process being the creation of the webbing in Illustrator, tooooooooooo long! That aside, I enjoyed bringing one of my childhood faves to life. This will be the last of these for a little while as I shift gears to pump out more football madness in UFTR while also producing something very different from my usual stuff. Below is an image of the Spider Woman process from pencils to colour. As always, enjoy! Spider Woman ™ & © 2010 Marvel Entertaniment Inc.

Batman & Robin In Colour

2010-01-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

Last night, as the elements kicked major ass and my plans for the evening were torn asunder, I dusted off the Batman and Robin sketch I posted up a few weeks ago and put some colour on it! I've quite enjoyed working in this no holding lines style I've used for the last few sketches and thought I'd continue to do so. I'm not the first or best person to use/apply it, but I've always loved the work of masters of this style such as Rian Hughes, (arguably responsible for the popularity and subsequent mass imitation of this style) and cool young turks (I think!) such as Sean Galloway.

Anyway, as I said in the previous post, I was going for a Frank Miller type Batman, with him being extra bulky, but after going colour and channeling some Bruce Timm, it arguably looks a bit retro! The top image is my very quick attempt at trying to show them in the spotlight, with Batman's shadow being used symbolically rather than realistically. You'll also notice that I didn't put any shadows coming off of the characters on the ground either, again going for what looked right (to me!) rather than what was "right". The second image just puts more emphasis on the characters, with no background design.

Again, this was an absolute blast to do, and I've got one more to post before moving onto something completely different. The image below shows the process from pencils to colour. As always, enjoy! Batman & Robin ™ & © 2010 DC Comics.

Princess...

2009-12-30T19:22:00.000-08:00

..... was/is hot. She was my next favourite character behind Mark/Jason as a kid, and now as a man I truly understand why! I do wonder now why they spent so much time arguing over whether to fire Bird Missiles when they could have been arguing over her! I also think that Princess is a much cooler name than Jun The Swan (her name in the original Gatchaman show) but what do I know eh?

Anyway, I had so much fun doing the previous Gatchaman piece that I decided to do the above piece featuring the gorgeous G-3. I tried to keep it as bouncy/cartoony (as I get) as the previous sketch, but I got a bit tight I think. This is probably the quickest thing I've done all year, done in one sitting in a few hours. I sketched it out in pencil then coloured it in Photoshop cheating with the lasso tool to imitate that vector look. Didn't really get the pink in her uniform right and I'm not too sure about the background colour, but I had fun doing it and that's all that counts! Below is an image of the process from sketch to figure colours. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman ™ & © 2009 Tatsunoko Productions.

As this will be my last post for 2009, I'd like to say Happy New Year to anyone who's read this blog or commented on my works (Thanks Don!) over the past year or so. I hope that great and wonderful things come to you all in 2010.

See you next year!

Randolph

Happy Holidays!

2009-12-24T12:06:00.001-08:00

Happy Christmas, Kwanzaa or whatever you choose to celebrate at this time of year! All the best for the holiday season and most importantly: ENJOY!!!

Real Cool Cats

2009-12-21T18:04:00.000-08:00

One of my childhood Friday weeklies was a comic called Buddy, where I first discovered Billy The Cat, whom I imitated often using a tissue box and string as my back pack. I also collected Buster, where I met The Leopard Of Lime Street, the only reaon I bought it! There was something really edgy about that strip, and I loved Mike Western's art on it.

I was sitting down at the day job and just thought I'd have a stab at TLOLS for fun. As I started sketching that figure, Billy popped into my head, and I thought it would be fun to jam these two "cats" together.

I pencilled both characters quite quickly and experimented with using TLOLS's grappling hook as a design element but decided against it. I didn't like Billys placement in relation to TLOLS, so I moved him up a bit. I then decided to ink the figures using a pentel brush pen, for the first time in aaaaaages. Problem is I was inking on normal printer paper, which bleeds like hell! However, I didn't want to be too precious about the piece, and decided to run with whatever "mistakes" occured as a result.

I then scanned in the inked image and coloured the two figures. To make them pop more I wanted to create a background, so I quickly got some pictures of a leopard and London at night. I played around with some filters and layering and put it all together. Below is an image of the process from pencils to inks.

There are few things in the drawing I'd fix, but it's not really the point, this is just for fun! I'm relatively happy with it, especially seeing as it was the fastest thing I've done in some time. As always, enjoy! Billy the Cat ™ & © 2009 D.C. Thomson. The Leopard From Lime Street ™ & © Fleetway Egmont Magazines.

I Am...

2009-12-17T16:38:00.000-08:00

..... IRON MAN. Ever since I started this little series of sketches/short pieces I'm quite astonished at the choices I've made. Iron Man was a favourite of mine as a kid, not because I particularly liked his comics that much, but because of the basic idea of a man in a suit of armour. I thought jet boots and repulsor rays were pretty cool back then and remember reading two issues in particular over and over again. The first was an issue where he fought the Hulk and was stuck in the armour and Ant-Man had to go in and sort it all out. The other was when he wore this black "Stealth Armour" for an issue, which I was transfixed by at the time. I can't really say I'm that fussed on the character nowadays, although I did see the film and thought it was a pretty good romp. With all the fuss now about the forthcoming sequel I thought I'd have a go.

I wanted to do my version of the classic Iron Man armour, and had a lot of ideas for making it a bit more "out there", but it just seemed to get more conservative as I went along! I liked the look of the previous Gatchaman post, just using colour without any holding lines, and decided to try that again for this piece. I did a really quick standard pose in pencil and then coloured it in Photoshop. I had some circuit transparencies lying about and scanned them in to create a simple background that denoted the technological nature of the character. I could have carried on noodling it for a lot longer but that's not really the point. Not sure how successful it's been, but I had fun doing it! Below is an image of the process from pencil sketch to colour. Enjoy! Iron Man ™ & © 2009 Marvel Entertainment Inc.

Always five, acting as one......

2009-12-02T16:05:00.000-08:00

.... dedicated, inseparable, invincible!! These were the final stirring words from the title sequence voiceover to Battle Of The Planets, the home of G-Force, a team of youngsters taking on the forces of Spectra! I loved popular toons of the time such as Scooby-Doo, The Space Sentinels and Godzilla, (with that fantastic theme song!) but as soon as I saw BOTP I knew I was seeing something completely different.

The characters were so sleek and cool-looking, with even cooler names, the drawings were significantly better than all of the adventure toons I had seen up to that point. BOTP was faster, better harder and stronger to my young eyes. However, I always knew that 7-Zark-7 just didn't fit. Even as a kid I could see the jarring difference in the animation when 7-Zark-7 popped up, especially if the team members appeared in Centre Neptune, because they suddenly looked really wrong.

BOTP had a profound effect on me, leading me to seek it out in all sorts of ways over the years. When I first got the internet, I searched it and found out it was actually a dubbed, horrifically edited version of a Japanese cartoon called Science Ninja Team Gatchaman! I've subsequently bought (and later sold) the Rhino Video collections and watched a lot of those episodes in their purest form. I even love the original theme, which is nowhere near as dramatic as the BOTP one, but it has its own charms. When I have some more dough, I will purchase all 102 episodes and bask in the glory that is Gatchaman!

Anyway, the above drawing features my two favourite characters, Ken The Eagle (Mark) and Joe The Condor (Jason). This started off as a reaaaally quick pencil sketch that then took on a life of its own, taking a lot longer than it should have. What the heck though, it was an awful lot of fun to to do! Below you can see the early process from pencils to flat colour. Enjoy! Gatchaman ™ & © 2009 Tatsunoko Productions.

The Law Of Dredd

2009-12-01T15:59:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, my favourite day was Friday. That was when my weekly comics order would arrive at the newsagent. At one point that consisted of Eagle, (the 1982 version with photo-stories) Roy Of The Rovers, Tiger, Buster (solely for The Leopard Of Lime Street) and of course, 2000AD. My first prog was 335, which I always remember for the fantastic Ron Smith art on the 2nd(I think) episode of "The Graveyard Shift". (Years later I bought the original art for that opening splash. A few years after that I sold it. Boo!)

I immediately fell for Dredd's fascist charms and was a sucker for that uniform! When I first started reading and catching up with the older stories I was always attracted to the smoother and more "realistic" stylings of Brian Bolland and Ron Smith. Like my chilhood relationship with Jack Kirby, I hated Mike McMahon's work, because it looked "ugly" and "messy", only to later realise what creative geniuses both of these gentlemen were! McMahon's slimmer Dredd, with the ridiculous outsize pads and boots is a thing of beauty. I also love Brendan McCarthy's Dredd, with that really angular pointy helmet. I remember having a special where McCarthy did a centrefold poster of the global judges, and just thinking that was the coolest depiction of judges I had ever seen! (Still do incidentally)

I initially approched this sketch aiming for a combo of McCarthy/McMahon, but just ended up with me! As much as I would like to emulate these artists, their creativity and genius is quite unique, so I'm going to have to continue to be the best me I can be! I decided to ink this sketch because I can't think of Dredd/2000AD without envisioning all of the dynamic, energetic and sometimes anarchic work of Smith, Bolland, McMahon, Gibson, O'Neill, Ezquerra, McCarthy, Gibbons, Bisley, Fabry and so many others in glorious black and white. Judge Dredd ™ & © 2009 Rebellion Developments Ltd.

To Know Her Is To Fear Her...

2009-11-27T13:30:00.001-08:00

After yesterday's Batman sketch I felt compelled to have a go at some other favourite characters from my childhood, and found myself drawing Spider-Woman! For some reason I was quite fascinated with her and just loved (and still do) her costume design. It's so far away from Spider-Man's, but so simple and sleek and just plain yummy! I bought her comics on sight if they appeared (sporadically) in the newsagent. One issue in particular stood out, entitled "Sins Of The Flesh", where Jessica Drew (Spider-Woman's alter-ego) dates a guy who turns out to be a creep whose skin melts! This comic creeped me out and gave me nightmares, but I read that damn thing over and over again. She seems to be having something of a renaissance via Brian Michael Bendis' New Avengers and her new ongoing series/motion comic. However, none of these comics have that weird, eerie feel those early (pretty bad) issues in the late 70s/early 80's had that fascinated me so. If I get time I'll clean the image up and add some colour later. Spider-Woman ™ & © 2009 Marvel Entertainment Inc.

Batz & Robbo

2009-11-26T14:23:00.001-08:00

A change of pace! Was sitting around at a loose end and came up with this quick doodle of Batman & Robin. Don't generally draw super hero stuff, but I've always loved Batman and Robin, particularly the BTAS/Justice League animated Bats and the 80's New Teen Titans Wolfman/Perez version of Robin. I tried to do my version of the Frank Miller extra-thick Batman in contrast to a much smaller and leaner Robin. Not sure how successful I've been, as Bats look like he needs the toilet! I may do something with this in colour later. Batman & Robin ™ & © 2009 DC Comics.

JF7 Process

2009-11-22T13:51:00.000-08:00

Below are images of the JF7 promo process, from pencils to inks to colour and design. I had fun doing this, although I think I went a bit too dark on the colouring. Anyway, as always, enjoy!

UFTR Update - JF7 Interlude

2009-11-22T06:44:00.000-08:00

UFTR has just been updated with this poster/promo interlude as I try to catch up with the next few pages. Page 8 should be up next weekend. In the meantime, enjoy!

Johnny Faith 1

2009-11-19T15:39:00.000-08:00

Above is an inked line drawing of the HUFC No 7 Johnny Faith that will be coloured and used for a UFTR promo piece. Will post the finished version shortly.

UFTR HUFC Trading Card Art

2009-11-18T15:35:00.001-08:00

Just a quick one, showing the faux Hackney United trading cards used on the UNTITLED: FEEL THE ROAR!! site, from pencils to inks to colour and design. Still a few more to go, HUFC have got a large squad!

Thompsons Comic Cover Process

2009-11-16T03:36:00.000-08:00

This birthday present was done using both traditional and digital tools, but the way that I normally use them changed during the process, producing some unexpected results. Firstly I had to get the concept set in my mind, which after some consultation became an "Incredibles"-type riff. Secondly, because I had to turn it around in a few days I just did one very rough sketch, just to suggest where all the various elements could go.

Next I went about getting some references for young Charlie and his folks, and decided on this photo as my main reference. He's a really cute boy, isn't he?

I had decided that I was going to complete it all digitally (like the earlier Lady Tizelle piece), but due to my lack of confidence in drawing cute babies, I chickened out and elected to sketch the portrait image out and scan it in to paint/colour.

That resulted in the above monstrosity, which looks nothing like him and makes him look as though he has mumps! I look at this drawing and just wonder what I was doing. Yeesh. I said to hell with it and just opened a new file in photoshop and pressed on with the pen and tablet.

A more satisfactory image emerged, that bore some resemblance to the young man in question, with enough information to guide me in the colouring process. A new layer was added and I started to lay down the basic skin tones, rendering with the soft airbrush tool, reducing/increasing the opacity of the brush to blend colours. This part of the process went surprisingly quickly, and was a lot of fun to do, ending up with the following image:

I wanted it to have an old-school advertising feel, so I played around with the hue/saturation (which inadvertently brought the colour of his eyes nearer to their actual colour) and added a stroke to the outline.

With this done, I switched gears to go the family shot. I got a sheet of copy paper and pencilled the main figures quickly. Some parts didn't work so I lightboxed those elements and moved them around until I was happy with the composition. Inking followed, concentrated mainly on the contours of the figures, leaving them open for colour.

I then scanned the image in and applied the colours quickly and simply.

I wanted to have a simple background, with the suggestion of a city or built-up environment behind them. I got a picture of some buildings in New York, posterized and coloured them a dark red.

A warm, orange/yellow, flame-like background was added to create the sensation of heat, with a yellow "bomb blast" created using some artistic brushes and some blurring.

Next, the characters were put on top of the backround. I then created and put a rendered circular shape behind Charlie's head to make it "pop" more from the background. The title was created using the distort tool in photoshop and added to the top of the image roughly.

Having already done a comic book cover style image, I employed my lazy gene and imported the top banner and other graphic elements from there and changed the content to reflect the subject and theme.

Lastly, lettering was added to celebrate the occasion as well as emphasise the focus of the design. The "Now Introducing... Charlie!!" lettering was done in Illustrator for ease, then imported back into photoshop and added to the design. A little bit more jigging around of elements and the image was done! A few days later I gave a print of it to the parents, who fortunately were really pleased with it. My work was over! Now onto the next.....

UFTR Page 7 Update

2009-11-15T16:41:00.001-08:00

The 7th page of UFTR is finally up here! It's been a real slog trying to get these out alongside all of the other work and things that life throws at you, but I'm determined to do it and get back to a weekly update schedule. In the meantime, enjoy!

UFTR Delay & Update

2009-11-11T15:04:00.000-08:00

It's been a little while now since the last UNTITLED:FEEL THE ROAR!! page update. There have just been so many things that have conspired against me getting more done on the strip. However, I am now hard at work on the next few pages and will hopefully get back to the desired weekly frequency. Above is an unfinished panel from page 7, showing Hackney United™ winger Johnny Faith™ going through the gears against Moss Side FC™!! This page in its entirety should be posted up by the weekend.

Charlie/The Thompsons Comic Cover

2009-11-11T07:36:00.001-08:00

Keep meaning to post more, but just can't seem to get the time! Anyway, here is the final image using the Baby Chaz image from the previous post. I played around with the hue/saturation on his portrait before adding it to the overall design. I will be posting up the process for this image shortly.

Baby Chaz

2009-11-05T02:14:00.000-08:00

Been another little while since I last posted, life and work's been keeping me busy! Just thought I would share a little something I've been working on for a private commmision for this cute little chap's birthday. This illo will be part of composite image that I will post once it's all been done and dusted. This is another purely digital illustration, which I think I'm becoming a lot more comfortable with. The image is one of the quickest things I've done of late and has had an interesting (for me) process that I'll post at a later date.

UFTR Merchandise Now Available

2009-10-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

UNTITLED: FEEL THE ROAR!! Merchandise is now available to buy here. There are currently three t-shirts designs and a custom team scarf on sale now. Badges, prints and original art may go on sale later depending on enough people liking the strip and demanding such things!

UFTR Page 6 Update

2009-10-04T12:44:00.001-07:00

Page six of UNTITLED:FEEL THE ROAR!! is now available to view online here. This page makes use of the dragon sketch I posted previously in the first panel. As I've said before, when I get a moment I will post on the process involved in creating these pages and the whole story in general. In the meantime, enjoy!

Drag-On: The Return

2009-10-01T16:06:00.001-07:00

Another quickie tonight! Just thought that I would share the inked version of the dragon I posted yesterday. Did this on a lightbox with some bog standard pilot pens. While I like this version too it lacks the energy of the pencil version, a common complaint. Oh well, it's not to be a masterpiece in and of itself. The results of its use should be available to view on Saturday.

Drag-On

2009-09-30T10:41:00.000-07:00

Just a quick one today as life is reaaaaally busy at the moment and I'm working hard on the next couple of UFTR pages. Page 6 should be up the latest Saturday evening(I'm getting closer to my regular Friday promise). Just thought I would share this little Ryu Dragon sketch I did today rather quickly. It's kinda wonky but I like it. Going to refine it and add it to the latest page I'm working on.

New UFTR Page Update

2009-09-23T23:01:00.001-07:00

The latest page of UNTITLED:FEEL THE ROAR!! is available to view here. I will be detailing the process involved in creating these pages in futures posts. Go look!

Lady Tizelle

2009-09-11T02:17:00.000-07:00

Recently I was asked to do a private commission, a birthday present for a previous client's partner. His only request was that she be presented as a comic book character, with the execution of the concept/final image being left in my hands.

The common problem with this type of job is that people say "Just do me something like blah blah", then when you give them an image they realise that they actually wanted something else. this is why I generally like to give people a choice of roughs so they can quickly discard the things they don't want and we can work towards what they truly envision for their project. In this case, time was also against me, so I had to just go ahead and pray that what I produced would be good enough.

Because it had to be done quickly, I decided to discard my usual pencil/ink process and work directly on the computer. I knew that I wanted to have a composition combining a full-figure and head shot of the character, intially intending to have a comic page as the background using different pictures of her as the individual panels, adding appropriate captions and/or dialogue balloons.

Once I got the references needed, I then started sketching digitally on my Wacom tablet, doing the figure and the headshot separately.This was tricky at first, but it was quite a fun experience!

I decided to show do her as a "Nick Fury/SHIELD"-type character, with a black jumpsuit and lots of straps, holsters etc. in white. At this stage I also decided to have the front figure "inked" while the head shot would be "painted". I then took the pencils of the figure and attempted to ink them as best I could.

Once this was done I put the face, outfit and holsters/belt on separate layers, and then started rendering, firstly the face, then the outfit and lastly the holsters. I then drew and added in the guns on a separate layer.

I then went back to my head shot pencils and started to digitally paint the subject's face in profile. I had decided not to go too overboard with certain details on the face as I knew they would be covered by the other figure and other page elements. My digital painting process is nothing revolutionary, I just use a soft airbrush and blend the colours by increasing and reducing the opacity of the brush.

I then put both the figure and face together and then started to compose the final image. I tried putting comic panels in the background (not shown here due to them being pics of the couple that they may not appreciate being shown here) but it just did not work. I was looking at some old Marvel comics and decided to create a faux 70/80's-era comic book cover. After designing the logo and putting in all of the other graphics I then added the figures and a background.

I kind of liked this version but it just felt a bit too busy! I removed the background, and suddenly everything just clicked for me. I felt that the figure, face and graphics all stood out a lot more against the stark white background, and it all held together better.

After some clean up I saved the file, acquired an A3 print, and got it framed. (as requested by the client) Fortunately the client loved it! It does feel strange that there is no physical artwork, but it was a lot of fun to do and I think I will work this way more often in future.

Back On The Block

2009-09-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I last posted on my own blog! Things have been really busy and haven't left me much time to post and/or muse on things, share my processes etc. However, things are levelling out and I will be updating more often in future. One bit of news I will share right now is that my new football (soccer to you americans) comic strip UNTITLED:FEEL THE ROAR!!! is now online at www.untitledfeeltheroar.blogspot.com. I will be trying my level best to post 1-2 new pages every Friday. Anyway, enough chat, more art and rumbling tomorrow.

The Magnificent Order Of Bears Part 3

2008-10-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

For the second poster, the client wanted the three principal characters standing in a dirty alley with some grafitti. He wanted the innocent bear to be on his ipod, the nerdy bear to be reading Noam Chomsky, and the mean bear to be spraying an anarchic symbol on the alley wall.

This was my first pass at the image composition. I tried to have the characters overlap a bit to create a sense of depth and distance. I also went a bit nuts with the detail in this sketch, which I wouldn't usually do at this stage, but I was just enjoying myself! The client was happy with the basic composition, but wanted the nerdy bear to be leaning aginst the wall, with the mean bear more crouched and suspicious looking, accessorised with a skateboard.

Above are the pencils for the image, with the client amandments. Unlike the previous poster, I decided that I would ink this image before scanning, as I wanted it to have a bolder, more defined look.
I taped the pencils to a lightbox and placed a clean sheet of bristol board over them, then inked the piece using some throwaway pigment liners. After some clean up I then scanned it into the computer.

The colours were firstly laid flat to see how the overall image would look, then I used square brushes for the walls of the alley, purposely not blending smoothly all the time to give them a rougher feel. The characters were rendered using softer brushes, reflecting their softer, more organic nature.

The final image! Colours are deepened further, with all small details put in now such as the spray can, the lettering on the Chomsky book, the i-pod details etc. The skateboard has now also been fully rendered as well as the graffiti and the anarchist spray symbol. The image is finalised with some rim lighting on the characters to make them "pop" a bit more. I was a lot happier with this piece than the first and the client was very happy with it also. Now I can rest comfortably without bears interrupting my dreams......

The Magnificent Order Of Bears Part 2

2008-10-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

For the first poster, the client wanted an action scene where the mean bear was nearest to the viewer, extending a hand out to help, while chaos ensues around him. One bear was to be oblivious to the action, trying to get a hot dog, while the other tried to help people in a panic. We are to have no idea of what's causing the panic, just a definite indication that something is troubling this crowd of people! It was to be set in the centre of Manhattan, so I had to go and get some reference then start drawing!

This was my first rough sketch, very straight-on with the skyscrapers in the background etc. The crowd and and other bears are loosely suggested. The client was not happy with this one because it did not have the angle he imagined, so it was back to the drawing board.....

With this next composition, I brought the camera lower and had the bears be more prominent. I had been asked to have a hot dog vendor running away with the bear getting his dog looking at him strangely. Again, the client was not happy with this composition.After a few conversations and a new location chosen in Columbus Circle, I came up with this composition, which included the client's suggestion that the bear nearest to the viewer be on the gound extending a hand out to us. Now that we were happy work on the final image could begin.

These are the pencils for the image, with all of the crowds and the background fully realised. Time was pressing, so I didn't ink the pencils and just scanned them into the computer to start applying colour.

I began by laying down flat areas of colour so that I could see the overall colour distribution throughout the image. I then began to given some depth to the image by painting using a soft brush, changing the opacity levels to blend colours smoothly.And above, the final image! Once all the modelling/painting had been done on the characters and backgrounds, I then gave the bears some highlights in order for them to stand out from the crowd.I was relatively happy with the image, but knew that there were a few things that I wanted to improve upon in the second poster image.

The Magnificent Order Of Bears Part 1

2008-10-30T15:07:00.000-07:00

I've just finished a couple of illustrations for a prospective comedy comic series called MOB, (refer to the blog title) starring three crimefighting........... bears. Teddy bears at that. Seeing as I had never drawn bears before in my life, I knew that this would be a challenge. The client wanted two promo images done, but before that I had to design the characters' to their specification.

These were my first attempts at the bears. One was supposed to be a bit innocent-looking, one mean-looking and one a bit nerdy-looking. They were interesting but the client felt they were too anthropomorphic as opposed to looking like teddies. He also felt that they looked too action orientated and needed to be simpler. I also felt that they looked more like mice than bears!

We went through a number of amendments until we were happy with the basic look of the bears in the last image. There were still some tweaks to be applied, but they would happen in the execution of the posters. Now that the characters were approved, it was time to start planning out the compositions for the posters.

Football Transfer Madness

2008-09-01T17:09:00.000-07:00

So, the craziness of the final day of the transfer window is finally over. Manchester City have been taken over by an increbibly rich Arab company, so rich that they bagged Robinho from Real Madrid for £32.5 million pounds! Chelsea must be feeling sick right now, all that work to be nobbled by Man City, who would've thought it possible yesterday?

However, we finally got Berbatov, even if we had to pay £30 million plus for a 28 year old striker. I can only hope that he makes the impact everyone else seems to think that he will. I was actually quite worried that there would be repercussions over the fact that Berbatov was at Old Trafford all evening without permission from Spurs, especially with all of the fuss made about Ronaldo/Real Madrid in the summer. I've heard all sorts of doubts about Sir Alex's judgement this summer, even I doubted him for a second, but he really knows what he's doing.

I hadn't really been that excited about the new season with all of the footie and olympics we had over summer. Now that these deals have gone through I'm really looking forward to what this season will bring. Rooney, Ronaldo, Tevez, Anderson, Nani, Park, Scholes and now Berbatov, with that attack it could be the best season yet!

Tomorrow, Bears!

Neuro Linguistic Programming

2008-08-31T14:15:00.000-07:00

The above relates to the concept behind a recent project. The brief was to design a poster and flyer to promote a training course for a company that uses the concepts of NLP. The basic idea revolved around "flexing your mental muscles", and with that I set about thumbnailing and came up with the basic idea pretty quickly.

I could see in my mind's eye a person looking downwards with all of the things that the company offer as part of their services in their head. I could also see a grid superimposed on the head, containing the information, organising it almost. The company's colour is purple and it was mandated that this should be the dominant colour, leading to the monochromatic scheme. The above shows the image in its early stages, once I had drawn the head and constructed the grid.

After that stage, I put a radial gradient behind the head to give it a sort of halo and to help it "pop" from the background. In the grid I decided to put some silhouettes of people flexing their considerable muscles in various poses in order to get across this idea of the mind "flexing". I then added in key words regarding what the company were offering an insight into with the course.

White beams of light were added in order to add some sense of perspective to the background, and to evoke a feeling of these ideas in the mind being projected outwards towards the viewer. Not sure it was that successful in that respect, but that was the idea! I sent this to the client and they liked it, so I could now move on with the design for the poster/flyer.

This was my first stab at the poster. I put the title of the course and a supporting quote to get it to "pop" from the mass of purple on display. I was asked to leave the white space at the bottom so that the client could put changing dates for the course in that area. It was decided that the orange should go as it was not a company colour, and that the "FLEX" at the top should be incorporated into the top sentence so that the white space could be made larger.

This is the version that was finalised and printed. The orange has been replaced with white and a deep purple drop shadow to make sure that the text stayed readable. The "FLEX" is now part of the top sentence, making for a neater composition.

This is the front of the A5 flyer. Some of the white light beams were removed to aid legibilty, mainly because it would be harder to read text at a smaller size. There were some additional amendments made before it went to print, but this is pretty much the final version.

Club Captain

2008-08-31T10:04:00.000-07:00

I've just recently finished a job for an online football forum called Club Captain. The brief was to create a top banner for the site that had comic book style illustrations of professional footballers, as well as a navigation bar and simple logo. I started by sitting down and doing a number of thumbnails which I then sent to the client with some notes.

A design was decided upon and I worked up a rough pencil image to send to the client before the real work began.

The client determined the players that were to be used, a mix of EPL and SPL players. This meant finding appropriate references so that I could get as close to their likenesses as possible. I had been asked to illustrate each player individually so that they could be used for other purposes on the site. They approved the composition and then I started pencilling each player individually.

At this stage I'm just concerned with getting the basic drawing right regarding anatomy, perspective/foreshortening etc rather than getting bogged down in the details.

Once I'm happy with the pencils, I then put them onto a lightbox and place a fresh piece of paper over them to do the inks. For these images I wanted to let the colour do a lot of the work, so I left the linework very open.

After the inks I then scanned them into the computer and applied the colour and details in photoshop. This was the most time-consuming part of the job. Once I did all of the clean-up I then set about the job of putting the composite image together.

These three images are just a sample of the various compositions that were produced before the final design was decided on. In the first one, I put in a second logo as well as the top one, but it was decided that it should go. The stadium went also because it was deemed to be too realistic. The client suggested a sky blue background, which I feel worked! For some reason though, the centred composition wasn't quite working, so a previous composition from my thumbnails was suggested as a possible alternative.

The above player composition was agreed upon but the client asked me to leave out the logo so that their team could work something out later. I was also asked to expand the navigation bar and brighten the green used. I had been asked earlier in the process to leave the navigation bar space empty so that they could change and adapt things as they please.

The above image is the final composition that was decided on and used on the site sans logo and navigation bar information. The client decided to use their own logo and added the ball from my original logo. The colour was brightened in the nav bar and a black line added to it also. The banner can be viewed in use at www.clubcaptain.co.uk.

Ain't No Hero Pt 2

2008-07-03T04:47:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that the drawings underneath the main painted image in the last post are of my preliminary pencils and the concept sketch that the client gave me to work from(in orange). Just thought that it was interesting to view the process from initial idea to final image.

More later. R.

Ain't No Hero

2008-07-03T03:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I posted here, life's been extremely busy and challenging and in that time so much has happened! Manchester United won the EPL and the Champions League(Yay!), DC comics seem to have something of a "Crisis" on their hands, the Euros was an exceptionally good tournament without having England it, and gun/knife crime is still causing us all sleepless nights.

Anyway, above is the latest piece of work to leave the drawing board. The image is for the cover of a CD by a talented up and coming rapper. It was done in acrylics and is the first painting I've done in a while, so it feels a bit rough around the edges, but I'm relatively pleased with the results. I could pick it to pieces, but there comes a point with each piece of work that you do where you just have to let it go.

More fun stuff later. R.

Miss Candy

2008-04-03T02:10:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since I posted my first blog here, but things have been busy, busy, busy!

The 4772 website is now up and running, with most of the galleries completed. New pieces of work will be added as they are completed, and new features added in the upcoming months.

The accompanying image is a sketchbook page featuring character designs for a new character who will be appearing in later episodes of UNTITLED: FEEL THE ROAR!!! Most of the character work for the first phase of the strip were done on the hoof as I went along. However, with the newer episodes, I'm doing design sheets for all characters to make them more consisistent and on model throughout the strip.

Anyway, back to the grind, more later!

Jude

2008-03-20T12:35:00.000-07:00

First post! This was a private commission for a birthday gift. Done from a very blurry photo, I pencilled it out and then went over it in pen and ink. More stuff later.