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.

Zombeasts!

I've been hard at work for the last couple of weeks on a zombie comic for a new anthology from Borderline Press, coming sometime in November (I think). It's a new experience for me working for an editor, getting story and art approved and, perhaps most of all, working in colour. I've been really pleased with how it's gone so far and wanted to share a tiny preview of what it will look like.

In this scene, Mayor Just-a-Brain calmly explains the situation to our heroes.

Yeah...it's not a very conventional zombie story.