Ghost Foetus Christmas Special

Happy Christmas everyone from Amy and me!

Click for a bigger version

Paper Dr Science

Almost certainly the last one of these now. This time it's mad genius and Idea haver, Dr Science.

Blah blah Adam blah blah Darkmook...

That's probably it from me before the New Year so Happy Christmas to everyone and thanks for looking at my comics in 2013!

Paper Buck Trenchfoot

Another papery creation, this time space faring bounty hunter and single dad, Buck Trenchfoot.

Again (again) the template came from Adam at Darkmook miniatures.

I think I may have reached the limit with these as most of my other characters seem to be oddly shaped or have massive beaks or whatever. You never know though...

Paper Ghost Foetus (and Me)

Making paper Seth was fun so I made this:

Amy doesn't quite look right but what's she going to do about it? Haunt me for the rest of my natural life? Wait...

I may do more of these (Buck Trenchfoot is particularly tempting), it's a nice distraction from the arduous and mildly terrifying job of inking 'Crow's Milk'.

Again, thanks to Adam at Darkmook for the template. If you like games, zombies, or games involving zombies, you should check out his site. He's a talented chap and he has a moustache, so you know you can trust him.

Paper Seth

A while ago I got a template for a little paper model from my friend Adam at Darkmook Miniatures. He used it for some cool zombie figures and I'd planned to do my own version at some point. Today I got bored though and made Seth.
(Apologies for the poor standard of photography)

I may talk to Adam and see about getting a printable one of these available somehow or put it in the back of some future Seth and Ghost project.

Pob

I just finished pencilling the next Seth and Ghost story for Borderline's forthcoming 'Beasts' anthology (buy Zombre to read the first one). It's called Seth and Ghost vs Crow's Milk and when it's done I'll show you a preview.

For now though, here's a picture of bug eyed 1980's spitting enthusiast Pob recreating the cover of David Bowie's 'Heroes' album for some reason.

If you don't know who Pob is you're probably under thirty and your youth disgusts me. Here's an example of his antics.

Yeah, the eighties were great...

Pints and Pencils 5/12/13: Ghost Foetus Special

Yet another Pints and Pencils...

This time we had to draw ourselves transforming into a shit animal. I decided to include Amy and came up with this:

I came second to a professional illustrator who did a watercolour painting of herself transforming into an angler fish.

I also got my first piece of fan art from the surreal genius Sam Ridler.

Sam is writing a story about robots for me to draw when I have some time. It will likely be odd and will almost certainly contain giraffes.

Full Colour Foetus

Ghost Foetus Chapter 1 and 2 are now in full colour! Click here to see them in all their horrific glory.

Chapter 3 coming soon-ish.

Ghost Foetus colour experiment.

Thought I'd have a go at colouring a Ghost Foetus page. Think it turned out pretty well. I'll probably colour the rest at some point when I have some time.

Star Trek TNG

I drew this for my friend Beth a few months ago as a moving to Bristol present. Unfortunately I drew it the day after her leaving party and then didn't see her again until this weekend. I didn't want to post the picture until she'd seen it but now I can.

I particularly like Worf and Geordie.

Thought Bubble

It was Thought Bubble this weekend, the amazing comics convention/festival that my friend Lisa Wood is the director of. I have volunteered at each and every one of them so far and this year was no exception. As usual the weekend was fun and exhausting, I met some great creators that I admire and respect and picked up some exciting new reading material and art for my house.

But this year it was a little more special than usual.

This year I had my first two stories published by other people!

Here's photographic evidence:

I really couldn't be happier about seeing my work printed in two such fine publications (Zombre from Borderline Press and The Irregulars from Water Closet Press) or could I?

Well...maybe I could and maybe I am. Maybe I had some great news after talking to the Borderline folks. Maybe...

Also, just because it makes me laugh, here's a photo of me meeting Nicholas Gurewitch of the incomparable Perry Bible Fellowship.

Pints and Pencils 21/11/13

I'm not proud of this...

The bowls of chaos gave me 'Sexy David Tennant making a hearty winter broth with a smexy(?) invisible man in Burnley, Lancashire.'

Burnley is the grimmest place on Earth. I had no idea what smexy meant but I assume it's a combination of sexy and mexican. Probably...

Anyway... Behold the monstrosity...

clicking for a bigger version may not be advisable

Pikachu..?

So one time Ash got stuck in the dark cave for about a month. Forced to battle for his life against a seemingly endless parade of bat pokemon it was inevitable that his ball dwelling companions would eventually die.

The death of Pikachu hit the hardest. Ash spent a week cradling his broken body, occasionally using it to bludgeon a passing Zubat to provide a quick meal, until his mind cracked.

No one knows exactly what happened in that cave but when Ash finally emerged he was changed. Gone were his pokedex and collection of balls. Gone were his baseball cap and denim jacket. In their place was a ragged suit of Pikachu skin, a wild look in his eyes and a constant grimace as he desperately attempted to use Thundershock.

Ash was never the same again...

Ghost Foetus: Birthday Special

It was my birthday today (or yesterday I suppose, it's nearly 4am). This is a pretty accurate representation of how my day went (except for the party hat, I never wear those).

(click for a bigger version)

Actually I lied, cake has no soul so Amy had to do without. She was not best pleased.

Casey Jones

I got my first ever comission! The Thought Bubble convention is coming up soon and my friend Shaun told me he was going to be getting TMNT sketches from as many artists as he could. He asked me to draw him Casey Jones so I did this:

I'm really pleased with how it came out and hopefully he will be too. I'm also thinking maybe I should watch some TMNT. I've heard the new series is pretty good.

Pints and Pencils 07/11/13

Regular Pints and Pencils update. We were back to the 'bowls of chaos' this time. I got dancing 66 Batman and 'your mum' taking a lizard to court for GBH on the set of a porn film. I didn't really want to put my mum in the story so I made her the exact opposite of her real character. I have heard my mum swear precisely once in my whole life and it was pretty mild (and I'd been a total shit at the time). Anyway...here it is...

I drew some other stuff but none of it made it out of the pub. It was kind of crap though anyway.

Zombre

For those of you that are interested, a book featuring one of my stories is now available for pre-order from Borderline Press. It would mean a lot to me if you ordered one (or bought one from the Borderline Press stall at Thought Bubble).

The anthology looks like this:

and my story in it looks like this:

Sketchy

A few random sketches I did a couple of nights ago:

There's a good chance that some or all of these will end up in a comic at some point. I prefer writing stories around a few character designs and then fitting other characters in around them. Pretty much everything I've ever written has been based around a random doodle or sketch.

Old Man Future and the Clock with the top hat will definitely be showing up in a Seth and Ghost story somewhere down the line.

It's Steve the Brick

Steve the Brick was supposed to be in the Seth and Ghost story I did for the Zombre anthology (available later this month from Borderline Press) but because of space reasons I ended up using Pyramid Cat for his part instead. I liked the idea of the character though (Is he alive? Did someone just draw a face on a brick?) so I drew this and have made plans for him to play a part in the next Seth and Ghost story.

Steve the Brick will return!

Ghost Foetus: Chapter 2

It's finally done! For your delight (or disgust) the second chapter of Ghost Foetus is here.

Warning: contains kittens in peril.

Pints and Pencils 4/10/13

Time for your monthly dose of Pints and Pencils weirdness.

This time the challenge was to draw inappropriate pets for fictional characters. I wanted to do a sort of evil version of the legion of super pets so I came up with this.

I'm particularly happy with Bizarro Dog and the idea that a Panda is a suitable pet for a villain powered by fear.

Later Mairi asked me to draw her as a virus for reasons that are complicated and stupid. Here she is complete with the necklace she always wears:

As is usually the case we ended up doing some blind, left-handed drawing. This time though each of us drw a Star Wars character and then passed them to the next person to turn into a proper drawing. This is what Mairi did with my Darth Vader:

Will drew the basic shape of this which he assured me was Obi-Wan. It looked more like a tortoise to me though. I gave him a lightsaber as a compromise.

Strange messages from the past

I've been looking through some old sketchbooks from around 5 years ago and was surprised that some of the stuff in them wasn't completely awful. In fact there were a couple of ideas that I might actually revisit at some point. Whilst I'm working on Ghost Foetus (and a special 'story' starring the amazing Steve the Brick) I thought I'd share some of them.

First up is the Barn-owl, Countryside Avenger. Elsewhere in the sketchbook (next to a really crappy drawing of him), it says that his powers include milking and dry stone walling. I particularly like his leather elbow pads and gardening shears.

Next is a character design for a character that I described as 'The Head of High Society', because 'high society' is a place you can go if you have enough money (of course). It also says that after a terrible accident his brain had to be placed inside a carriage clock. I don't know why that would be the case. There are some other pictures where his hands emerge from an eyeball, which I like better really.

Next: Ghost Dog is a great film (that I need to watch again). Obviously if there was a sequel it would go down a much more literal route.

More character designs. These are two of the most ridiculous ideas for superheroes I think I could come up with. I don't know what else to say about them other than that finding this picture made me really happy and 'I have someone that feeds me!' is a great battle cry.

Finally, a couple of sketches for Justice Badger. The first one is proof that I really should have shaded the comic with pencil rather than biro. The second is an unused character, the Cyborg-Pirate-Hedgehog, who probably would have turned up if the comic had got past one issue.

Zombeasts

My submission for the Borderline Press 'Zombre' anthology is finally finished and has been approved! I am incredibly excited about this as it will be my first 'professional' work and will be appearing alongside a host of other talented folks. Obviously I can't reveal too much of the story but I will show you the first panel.

The anthology will be available in November and Borderline will have a table at the Thought Bubble festival in Leeds (the other anthology featuring my work, 'Ladies and Gentlemen', will also be launching there).

Now to get to work on my pitch for the were-creature anthology and finish chapter 2 of Ghost Foetus.

The Ballad of Faceless Jim

I drew this a couple of years ago as the intended beginning of a longer story. The likelihood of ever returning to finish it is pretty slim but I thought I'd share it as I quite like it. Jim made a small appearance in the second part of Hamilton Rook and may appear as part of The Idea when I eventually get back to it.

I hadn't really figured out how to draw people at this point, hence the awful, constantly changing face of 'cake shop girl'.

Pints and Pencils 5/9/13

First Thursday of the month means more Pints and Pencils. This month we drew a cover for 2 concepts that don't work together as a comic. I chose Robot Wars and Master Chef.

The now obligatory blind, left handed drawing followed. 

This time we had Nosferatu:

Spider-man:

and a triceratops:

It's a little known fact that real Triceratops had massive monobrows.