BLOG OF BAZ

WEEKLY TAB: STAR TREK

2011-10-15T15:21:00.002+01:00

Managed to get this done too late to get on the TAB blog, but is on the facebook page instead.

Decided to finish off a rough cover layout I did about two years ago, for some STAR TREK samples I was planning to send to IDW. The version posted below isn't actually the finished version, it needs to be reworked, painting it properly rather than the hamfisted photoshop job, but that's for another weekend when I have the time free. Instead have posted the process scans and submitted TAB version.

The idea behind the cover image is pretty obvious I hope- for all the jokes made about redshirts and "He's dead, Jim" from Bones, and for all of Kirk's bravado, I'd imagine all those deaths during the Enterprise's 5 year year mission would haunt him at night. Especially of those he were close to, like Edith Keeler or Gary Mitchell. I imagine it's already been done at some point during the 50 odd years worth of Trek books and comics, but I'd like to see a story of Kirk reflecting on those lost under his command.

The image was comprised of reference taken from an excellent fanmade TOS map for the Elite Force game and specially shot photos of my Kirk model, Captain Karl.

THE LONG WALK

2011-08-24T01:03:00.001+01:00

Last sunday saw the final day of principal photography on JUDGE MINTY, the Dredd fanfilm I've been doing storyboards and concept art on. Once again the intrepid cast and crew braved harsh weather, this time relentless sunshine in a quarry in Dorset, to capture magic on film, and most of us got radburnt in the process. But we gladly bear the pain because we know that the finished film will be... well, zarjaz.

Over the next few weeks will be digging out the many pieces of unfinished and/or abandoned concept pieces that I've done since joining the Minty crew in 2008 and posting them up here.

To keep uptodate with the post production process, keep an eye on the blog.

WEEKLY TAB: I, ROBOT

2011-08-04T21:59:00.001+01:00

This weeks theme was I, ROBOT, so seized the chance to do a Cylon. Though I do like the nuBSG version, and the clunky man in suit version of the 70's show, decided to go for the retro-Cylon as seen in season four of BSG.

THE FINAL PROBLEM... DAY 3

2011-07-31T00:20:00.001+01:00

Page 6 (of 8) pencils progress... I am doing the pages out of sequence as doing the detail heavy ones helps loosen the muscles for doing the (more challenging) faces and figure work, though I have realised just how much detail I leave to inking. Trying to tighten up my pencils instead.

SKETCHBOOK: 2012 MOVIE DREDD

2011-07-30T16:23:00.000+01:00

Fancied drawing the recently revealed Judge uniform as seen in Empire Magazine. I can draw classic Dredd with my eyes closed- I have a ritual that I've had since I was about 12 where I'd draw a Dredd sketch in every new sketchbook I buy. Obsessive? Just a bit. But as I found, this more near-future urban riot gear version of Judges, almost a proto-uniform of what we know, is a lot harder to draw. Many different elements.

WEEKLY TAB: BAD GUYS AND GALS

2011-07-29T00:29:00.002+01:00

Had trouble picking a subject for this weeks theme, and asked my fellow TABBERS for some suggestions. In the end went with a quick Catwoman (roughly an hour or so). I'm a huge fan of Adam Hughes and though you'd never guess it from the below, his art is a continual inspiration. His Catwoman is iconic. I had the great fortune of meeting him at Celebration Europe a few years ago but was possessed by the spirit of some embarrassing fanboy at the time. Anyway.

THE FINAL PROBLEM... DAY 2

2011-07-29T00:09:00.001+01:00

Been busy with other stuff but back now to sit down and work away at the more detail heavy panels, like the below. As Holmes is chased through the back alleyways of London he emerges into this area. The place will be far more cluttered with people and rubbish. You may win a prize (probably not though) if you can recognise what part of London this half finished panel references...

The Final Problem: Day 1

2011-07-26T01:50:00.000+01:00

I'm doing some Sherlock Holmes sample pages by very loosely adapting the beginning of The Final Problem. It's a good sequence to show storytelling without any use of dialogue or captions and gives me a chance to reference Gustave Dore, which you don't get a chance to do that often.

So... here's a close up of a panel. The other panels aren't very impressive right now which is why I'm not showing them yet, but over the next week or so I'll post progress photos up here.

Also, my latest contribution(s) to the Weekly TAB is up, theme is STAR WARS.

RANDOM SKETCH POST 5: BATMAN

2011-07-04T13:23:00.000+01:00

Somewhat overworked sketch of Batman, but that's what happens at 4am, when you're out of whisky and you can't sleep.

RANDOM SKETCH POST 4: BLOOD AND CHROME

2011-07-03T23:01:00.001+01:00

Quick sketch of actor Luke Pasqualino as a young Bill "Husker" Adama, from the upcoming BSG: Blood and Chrome series. Need to get me a Cylon action figure, complicated things to draw.

WEEKLY TAB: BRITISH VERSUS AMERICANS COMMENTARY

2011-06-29T18:54:00.001+01:00

I was a bit stumped to begin with for this weeks theme; at first I thought of doing something purely historical from the War of Independence, but then I saw the amazing rendition of Marvelman created by Chris Weston and thought of using that character somehow. It's well known of course that Marvelman was only created after the Captain Marvel reprints dried up for reasons too complicated to go into here, so it seemed a natural 'Versus' scenario.

I was first intriduced to Marvelman (sorry, he'll never be Miracleman to me) back in the early 90's, when I found a load of random copies of Warrior in a back issue box in a comic shop on Liverpool's Slater Street. Having only a fiver to spend each weekend, a 50p box was great value so I got as many as I could find. Quite a few were waterdamaged and over the years I managed to get them replaced with better quality ones, actually direct from Dez Skinn himself if I remember rightly, through CI. As a teenager at the time, Warrior had a massive impact on me, almost as much as 2000AD, and I would try (and often fail) to emulate some of the art found inside.

Fast forward to today and although I'd never be able to match Chris Weston's stunning draughtmanship, I thought I'd have a go at drawing Mick Moran's alter ego myself.

I started off with a couple of rough thumbnail sketches, trying to think of a pose for both Marvelman and Captain Marvel, and after going through numerous reference images including finding these stock photos (NSFW btw), worked this one up to a rough pencil stage, but realised it wasn't going anywhere.

Part of the problem with the internet and image search generally is that you can come across a image that you forget about seeing, but later draw upon subconsciously, thinking it's an original thought. We're bombarded with thousands of images everyday, and it's niave to think we're immune to their influence. While there may be nothing new under the sun, sometimes you do second guess yourself to make sure you are being, to the best of your ability, as authentic in your process as you can.

As a case in point, one sketch I developed I realised I had seen before and going through my folders found this image of Superman versus Goku, which became the inspiration point for my chosen layout. Though it's uncredited I thought it important to at least link to it here.

I liked the contrast in both characters physique- Captain Marvel being quite heavy, beefy and bodybuilder-ish, whereas Marvelman has always been portrayed as lithe, athletic, and incredibly toned, almost like a professional dancer.

After doing this rough I left it for a few days before coming back to it last night to finish it off. Instead I redrew it from scratch using it as a guide, while listening to the excellent interview between Kevin Pollak and Damon Lindelof. I worked to get MM body as thin and toned as I could compared to CM big barrel chest.

I changed the position of CM head to show the force of MM's strike, though I don't think I got CM's face that well.

I then cleaned up the pencils and went in with 0.3 pen to get the outlines down.

Something which I've started to do recently, at least for sketches, is doing outlines first then going back in with a pencil to reblock the blacks. I don't know why but this seems to be either a bad habit I need to break or a welcome loosening of the process. There is always that trepidation of ruining good pencils with bad inks. At least at this stage I can see more clearly where the blacks should go, and feel more confident that I'm not loosing anything in that process.

Rather than going in heavy with the pens (not having ink and brushes at home) I decided to just use the markers to build up the shadows, again using the blues which are a current favourite. The "tinkerbell" effect for MM was added in later in photoshop by reversing black marks to white and multiplying them, far quicker and easier than drawing them individually in white ink.After committing to the dark background I realised this should have been left a lot simpler than what I ended up doing, but there you go. I think I'd like to rework this at some point in the future, just to see if I can get anywhere to same ballpark as Weston's version.

Looking forward to next weeks theme. In the meantime checkout the other entries here.

RANDOM SKETCH POST 3: JUDGE MINTY

2011-06-23T22:14:00.000+01:00

WEEKLY TAB: DOCTORS AND PROFESSORS

2011-06-20T22:07:00.002+01:00

My latest contribution to the Weekly TAB...

RANDOM SKETCH POST 2

2011-06-20T06:26:00.000+01:00

A quick Judge Anderson.

RANDOM SKETCH POST

2011-06-20T05:43:00.000+01:00

Add caption

Trying some old pens out. Sketch based on photo of model Melissa Tkautz.

WEEKLY TAB: FAIRYTALES & FOLKLORE

2011-06-04T16:58:00.000+01:00

After a few missed themes due to work, managed to get back to the TAB with Fairytales and Folklore. It was either Red Riding Hood in a very tight bodice thing or a bike chick. Went with biker chick. Promise next one won't involve bikes.

WEEKLY TAB COMMENTARY... VIDEO GAME ICONS

2011-03-27T23:13:00.000+01:00

Hello there.

I've been up to my ears with work recently so not had chance to post anything of interest. However I've recently joined a Weekly Themed Art Blog to get back in the habit of drawing on a daily basis, even if it is just using my dinner hour at the Day Job, which is also a useful exercise in drawing things I may not otherwise choose. Though I have posted two previous entries, Tron and my own suggestion Dieselpunk, last weeks theme of Video Game Icons was the first one I took progress scans of, so I could do a short commentary of what I wanted to do with the piece and what finally emerged. For the two people reading this blog, this might be mildly diverting for a couple minutes.

Though I have fond memories of old Atari games, it was Lara Croft that came to mind in terms of iconic gaming status. Many a night spent playing on the PS1 watching her fall to her death with a short scream and a thump. Tomb Raider 3 was a particular favourite back in the late 90's when I was still at uni. So I wanted to do a classic Lara, but at the same time avoid the more well used poses the character is recognised for.

I started with the above thumbnails. I had the initial idea of Lara surrounded by tigers (a situation I vaguely remember from the game) with her Desert Eagles just out of reach. After my researching, I realised this must have been inspired by an old memory of a very similar cover from the Tomb Raider comic. So I instead went with a double gun somersault/dive composition.

I played with the idea of having Lara fend off attack from some dinosaur or monster, while plummeting to certain death in an underground cavern. Relatively happy with the composition, I broke open my reference files and found my old holiday photos from 2008 when we visited Mexico. On a daytrip we went into a cenote, a deep sinkhole, where far more adventurous people than me went swimming or diving. It had the most gorgeous texture to the place, fantastic vegetation, light and water. I remember saying to the wife at that the time how Tomb Raider it looked. Though I couldn't capture the depth of colour or detail in the drawing, it was a very helpful guide.

For Lara herself I looked back over the many real life models who have played her, as well as screen captures from the game, previous comicbook versions, cosplayers and fan art, a disturbing number of which seemed to focus on the size of her breasts. While none of them were a direct reference for my Lara, they were useful in deciding what version I wanted to go for.

Knowing that the background was going to be tricky I drew the figure and cenote seperately so I could play around with the sizes in photoshop. I wanted Lara to be realistically proportioned, not overly endowed or muscled, just lean and toned. The background itself was very organic, I let the pencil take its own path when drawing the trees, roots and vegetation. I placed a couple of broken statues but didn't want to draw too much attention to them, as I wanted them to be almost indistinguishable from the vegetation that has grown around and over them. One of the things I loved about the games was the exploration of the different locations, and I was tempted to incorporate far more detail of where Lara was falling, but time and a rare moment of common sense pulled me back to what was doable.

While I intended to use my promarkers on this, they all pretty much dried up half way through doing the background, and not being able to get replacements on a sunday afternoon, had to redo the inking from scratch to allow for some photoshop colouring. I used a few custom textures to build up the light source, and added in highlights, printed it back out and went back over it with pens. Again I would have preferred using a fine brush but being without one at home limited me to just building up crosshatching for depth.

Before that though I used the initial scan of the background outline and roughly comped in a smaller version of Lara, to see if it would work. At this point I dropped the monster attack and made Lara the focus of the picture.

I fnished off the inking and colouring for Lara herself, then compiled both images together in photoshop, adding a bit more colour here and there to unify it. A bit of tweaking and done.

For more talented people than me be sure to check out the Tab, there are already new posts going up for next weeks theme. Hope you both enjoy them.

TALES... 8/12/2010

2010-12-08T21:10:00.000Z

Current soundtrack: Daft Punk; Tron Legacy OST; 08 - The Game Has Changed

Another random sketchbook post...

TALES... 6/12/2010

2010-12-06T01:10:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: TV Theme Tunes; Hulk 1981 Cartoon Main Theme

While I'm waiting for the paint to dry on another page, something from the sketchbook.

Think I'll try a Hulk tomorrow.

Finishing stuff... Day 1

2010-11-24T00:33:00.000Z

Clearing the board while I can of outstanding commitments this week.

Bag. Cat out of.

2010-10-05T04:06:00.000+01:00

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2010/10/02/41799/

http://downthetubescomics.blogspot.com/2010/09/mystery-of-multiverse.html

http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/2010/the-mystery-of-multiverse/

#JudgeMinty... 5

2010-08-31T22:28:00.001+01:00

SFX- BIKE CANNON!

#JudgeMinty... 4

2010-08-30T19:03:00.000+01:00

Earn easy geek points by naming the med-droid...

SPLINTERED PREMIERE

2010-08-29T14:29:00.001+01:00

SPLINTERED, the film I did storyboards and concept art for, finally hits cinema screens with the general theatrical release premiere at Empire Leicester Square on the evening of Friday the 3rd September. Go here for more info: http://www.splinteredthemovie.co.uk/index.html

#JudgeMinty... 3

2010-08-29T14:10:00.000+01:00

An early panning reveal of the Grand Hall of Justice. Though often maligned, the 1995 Stallone film had some great design in it, including the monolithic eagle that serves as the Grand Hall. As seen in the teaser, Steve Greens' version pays homage to that.

#JudgeMinty... 2

2010-08-28T02:18:00.000+01:00

Today's teaser...

#JudgeMinty... 1

2010-08-27T20:56:00.000+01:00

Been busy as ever with storyboarding and illo work, but thought I'd post some snippets of Judge Minty storyboards here while the fantastic teaser trailer is doing the rounds. I'll post a frame or two over the next week, while we build up to the next shooting days on location and I finish off a huge chunk of drawing.

EAGLES INITIATIVE NOW OFFICIAL

2010-05-28T13:30:00.000+01:00

Something I've been working on for a good few months was officailly launched at Bristol last weekend, and press releases are now on the way to the usual suspects. Here it is:

"PRESS RELEASE:

For immediate release: May 27, 2010

* *

*LONGRUNNING COMICBOOK AWARDS LAUNCHES WORLDWIDE TALENT SEARCH*

THE EAGLE Awards committee is to offer untried talent a chance to demonstrate their abilities before a global audience.

Unveiled at last weekend’s Bristol International Comics and Small Press Expo, the Eagle Awards Initiative provides a unique platform from which the next generation of writers and artists can promote their storytelling ability in an increasingly competitive market.

"I've always thought the Eagles could take a far more progressive and proactive role in the comics industry, especially within the UK which has such an untapped and unsupported pool of talent," explains Initiative director Barry Renshaw. "When I was asked to rebrand the Eagle Awards themselves last year, I pitched the idea of the Initiative to the committee and it soon snowballed into something far more expansive."

Eagle Awards chair Cassandra Conroy commented, "When Barry came to me with the idea I thought it was the best way to expand and relaunch the Eagles brand; considering the Eagles recieve global recognition I believed this would help the industry discover new talent not just from here and the USA, but from places we wouldn't perhaps expect."

In what is an unprecedented global talent search, entrants will be asked to submit an original self-contained illustrated story. The thousands of projected entries will be assessed by a hand-picked jury of comics readers, which will present a final dozen to the panel of judges comprising many of the comics industry's top talents. Among those who have already agreed to participate are Peter Bagge, Karen Berger, Chris Claremont, David Finch, Dave Gibbons, Geoff Johns, Gilbert Shelton, Jeff Smith, Bryan Talbot, Ethan Van Sciver, Mark Waid and Brian Wood.

The judges will select a top three from the final 12 with the winner be awarded a £1,000 cash prize. The runner up will win £500 with the third place submission being given £250. All three stories are to be included in the *Initiative Anthology*, which will be released as a print publication and in multiple languages across the digital media.

"The Initiative is the first stage in a several year plan to reform the Eagles into a tool for developing new talent, for educating young people about the potential in the medium, and to help connect the many disparate elements of the comics industry together," added Renshaw. "As an example, we have creators, editors, publishers, journalists, festival organisers, distributors and academics from across the world among our judges.”

Established as an annual event and with the emphasis very much on storytelling, the inaugural competition aspect gets underway on July 1, 2010, when the Initiative will open for submissions.

Announcing his support for the Eagle Awards Initiative, BOOM! Studios editor-in-chief Mark Waid said, “This medium is nothing without new talent, young blood, and fresh perspectives.

“It's our responsibility to nurture the next generation of creators and share what we've learned – and, in return, learn from and be energised by them. I can't wait to roll up my sleeves and get into this,” added Waid whose numerous writing credits include *Kingdom Come*, *The Flash*, *Impulse*, *Captain America*, *Fantastic Four* and *Irredeemable*.

For further details on the Initiative, a full list of judges and complete submission guidelines, go to www.eaglesinitiative.com. For press enquiries, contact director Barry Renshaw: editor@enginecomics.co.uk

ABOUT THE EAGLE AWARDS:

Introduced in 1976, the Eagles are the comics industry's longest established awards. Unique in that they reflect the people's choice, they are awarded by fans who vote for their favourite in each category of the awards. They are named after the fondly remembered 1950's British comic anthology Eagle, and were originated by two British fans, Mike Conroy and Richard Burton. The awards proved to be successful, with American publishers such as Marvel Comics announcing their victories with pride. They have relaunched in 2010 with a new look, a new mandate and a new vision for the future.

ABOUT BARRY RENSHAW:

Barry Renshaw has been an active creator in the UK independent comics industry for over a decade, as publisher of his own Engine Comics imprint, the award winning Redeye Magazine, and the popular How to Self Publish - A Rough Guide, as well as running or appearing at various workshops, seminars and panels over the years. He was asked to join the Eagle Awards committee in 2009 to help reinvent the brand, and saw an opportunity for the Awards to play a more progressive and proactive role in the comics industry. The Initiative is the first part of that expanded role.

END "

(SPOILERS) What Happened, Happened...

2010-05-28T09:16:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: LOST SEASON 4 SOUNDTRACK, MICHAEL GIACCHINO; The Constant

It's one of those times again when we have to say goodbye to our favourite fictional universes. 2010 seems to be a year of endings- the 10th Doctor, LOST, and 24, not to mention a raft of new shows recently cancelled.

On monday, both myself and a good number of other people were at the Bristol comics convention, in a hotel that didn't have SKY 1. We therefore missed out on the simulcast of the final episode of LOST, entitled The End. In a way I was glad as I wanted to watch it at home, on my 42inch flatscreen, with Julia at my side. She couldn't wait until the repeat on the tuesday however, so had the advantage over me as I sat through the final two and half hours trying to second guess the writers as to what would happen. It's an annoying habit I have, I know.

I was completely wrong of course. I didn't expect the sideways universe to be some form of limbo, a waiting room for them all to remember who they were in the lives before going into the light. What was more odd was that exact same idea had been used in ASHES TO ASHES finale, the previous friday.

I had learnt from the post BSG period, when legions of fans started turning on one another trying to put forward their intepretation of Daybreak as being the correct one, that the same would happen for LOST. After six years of build up, of mystery and questions, there was no way that the writers could satisfy everyone. Nor should they. We are, after all, just visitors in that world- we didn't help create it, we're just tourists who pay for our ticket and marvel at the local architecture. Would I have done it differently? Yes, I probably would, but that is not to dismiss or lessen the impact the finale had.

The best TV shows, the best films, the best literature, captures the reader and draws them in; it makes you care about the characters, it makes you relate to them almost as if they were real people. You become emotionally invested in the story. LOST was one of those shows, which was why it was so successful, so part of the inevitable backlash comes from the fact it's over, and we don't want it to be. We want to see Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Hurley and all the others again tonight but... we won't. It's over. We'll debate and argue the unanswered questions and remember those key moments for years to come. It will occupy several inches of shelf space in my dvd collection like BSG, LIFE ON MARS and ASHES TO ASHES, QUANTUM LEAP and B5, ANGEL and all the other shows whose universes we were able to visit, if only for such a brief time.

But still... UNANSWERED QUESTIONS!!!!

The end of LOST is bad enough, but the end of 24 as well?

DAMMIT!

SKETCHBOOK: CLONE WARS DAY 1

2010-03-17T01:20:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Nowt.

Some initial sketches of Clone Wars styled Anakin. Not saying what for.

People sometimes assume that drawing in an established animated style is easier than drawing realistically. Well, its not. Unlike drawing realistically, there is nowhere to hide bad drawing. Every line has to be exact, accurate, and clear. If you're off even slightly, it throws the whole thing off, and everyone can see it immediately.

Animated styles also have a certain rhythm to the body language, embodying the energy of the show. And within that, each character will have their own body language and rhythm. Once you have that down, the rest falls into place.

I'll be working on these all week and post the results each night here.

Fractured Visions - Comic Books in the UK & Ireland

2010-03-14T16:40:00.001Z

ome essential viewing found on youtube:

"Fractured Visions is an 'open source' documentary of the comic book scene in the UK and Ireland. It highlights some of the themes and approaches to the medium that have emerged from social and political issues. This 2 part video features sequential artist David Lloyd (co-creator of V for Vendetta), artist Decaln Shalvey, writer/artist Malachy Coney, writer/artist Bridgeen Gillespie and assorted clips from the 2d comic book festival in Derry, Northern Ireland. This film features scans and digital reproductions from the artists and other sources to illustrate certain points in the documentary. If any of these infringe upon copyright, please let me know personally and I will remove them. Above all this film hopes to illustrate the depth of content within the comic book industry, from commercial to independent, and as such is a not for profit, open source film of a medium that I believe is seriously undervalued. Best Regards, Craig Smith."

Part 1:

Part 2:

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD 13/3/10

2010-03-13T23:34:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: DISTRICT 9 OST, by Clinton Shorter

The first drawing I ever sold was of a Predator: a copy of the final page of issue 1 of Predator VOL.1 from Dark Horse, art by Chris Warner. It took over a month to do, as inbetween I broke my finger playing basketball in school (or rather some prat thought it would be funny to kick the basketball, missed and caught my right hand instead); a1 sheet, rotring pens, on the floor of my bedroom, as I wasn't allowed to use the dining table for stuff like drawing. It would mark the beginning of a lifetime of sore shoulders.

It went for 50p.

Even adjusting for nearly 18 years of inflation, that's still not a lot. But copying Chris Warner's fantastic art was a great exercise of learning how to do those lines which look so good and work so well on the page, even if I didn't have the right tools, knowledge or understanding as to WHY they worked at the time.

The excellent Dark Horse Predator, Aliens and Terminator titles were my first real introduction to the direct sales comic shops in Liverpool- Worlds Apart upstairs in the Acorn Gallery off Renshaw Street, Liverpool Comic Company downstairs in the Palace arcade on Slater Street. Saturday mornings meant knocking at my mate Neil's to jump the bus into town and spend my hard saved £5 from that weeks dinner money to get a few comics. Sometimes there'd be nothing new out that would grab me; I'd look in disappointment and awe at the huge collection of trades which were well outside my budget, so instead would ruffle through the back issue boxes, finding gems like Marvel UK's Strip, Warrior, 70's Planet of the Apes, and tons of 2000AD's. Though I soon moved from the licensed titles onto the likes of Vertigo and Dark Horse' Legend line (which of course gave us Hellboy), I would still go back and copy from those panels.

Fastforward somewhat to present day, and I still find it a useful exercise, especially when I've not drawn for more than a few days, or I get fed up with other work. A few quick warm up sketches which end up in the recycling pile, and then I'll just pull a few books from the shelf, have a bit of a read, and start idly sketching.

Which is where this came from::

Which is an homage (copy) of this:

I never actually intended the sketch to become a finished piece, but I enjoyed doing it so much, I thought I'd have a go colouring it in photoshop, if only as a distraction from the weaknesses in the drawing itself.

I went though several variations, and as much as I liked the monochromatic palette, I remembered how well Cam Kennedy used such a strong palette for his STAR WARS artwork, way back when- not strictly 'true' colours, but effective all the same. So by combining a couple of the monochrome versions, wacking the saturation up but reducing opacity, and then adding a gaussian blur effect, I ended up with two final versions.

The green version appeals to me more, but the red version hints at a harsher alien environment, for some reason.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD 9/3/2010

2010-03-09T18:30:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: MILLENNIUM GROUP SESSIONS #23

I know, its been a while. Skipped over the whole 'end of year' shenanigans. Just trying to concentrate on getting work done.

To that end...

INVESTIGATING, COLLATING, REPORTING...

2009-11-29T04:19:00.002Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Geek Syndicate #139

Its bloody early. Or bloody late, depending on how you view 4.21am. Kneedeep in research, but wondering:

Who would be interested in attending, as publishers, creators, retailers, and interested readers, a conference talk panel thing in february time, in London, about the future of comics on digital platforms? I'm talking distribution, monetizing content, storytelling possibilities, marketing, on digital platforms like iPhone, kindle, blackberry, PSP, etc?

Let us know.

JUDGE DREDD HAS BEEN CAST!

2009-11-20T16:37:00.003Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: 501st Official podcast Episode 48

For the handful of people following this blog you'll know I'm busy doing storyboards and concept artwork for a Judge Dredd Fanfilm, Judge Minty. Well, director Steven Sterlacchini has announced who will be playing Old Stoney Face himself in his latest post here:

"Renowned Artist and Judge Dredd favourite, Greg Staples has kindly offered to play the part of the man himself in our film. Although Dredd will only be making a small cameo and will only be shown in shadow, blurred or extreme close up, we are lucky that Greg has the correct look for a young Joe. It's also a nice touch for fellow fans."

A cool pic of Greg in character is up on the post and well worth checking out, and in the meantime, here's a teaser panel from a scene from Minty:

Will post more closer to release date.

TFTDB: 9/8/2009

2009-08-09T01:58:00.003+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Nowt.

Something random from the drawing board as a break from current projects:

THIS HAS ALL HAPPENED BEFORE...

2009-08-01T23:20:00.004+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: CAPRICA/BSG: THE PLAN SDCC 09 PANEL

Yes, check the temperature in hell and dodge those low flying swine. The future of comics begins with REDEYE 2.1, a pdf-only monthly magazine with all the news, reviews, features and stuff worth talking about, including:

Interviews with Leah Moore and John Reppion on The Complete Dracula and The Trial of Sherlock Holmes with artists Colton Worley and Aaron Campbell;

Cartoonist and festival organiser Oli Smith talks about throwing out the rule book for the small press and building something better;

New York born and raised illustrator Liz Baillie discusses her comics, her love for the Bouncing Souls and her Jabba the Hutt face;

Ben Dickson talks to Garen Ewing about Rainbow Orchid blossoming under a new deal with publisher Egmont;

Northern Irish illustrator Bridgeen Gillespie talks about curious rabbits, hissy fits and being open to interpretation;

And as part of his 100 Days, 100 Cartoonists series, Citizen Badham talks to creators Adam Cadwell and Jim Medway about unconventional narratives, the value of the everyday and deflated balloons.

Plus a THE SECRET HISTORY OF... IRISH COMIX, as Niall Kitson uncovers the growing Irish Comics scene ready for the international stage, and a report on the long awaited LUC@176 event... 114 pages, colour, PDF format, 82mb direct download. Just £1/$1.80!

Go to http://enginecomics.co.uk/redeye/reframeset.htm for previews.

I HAVE BEEN, AND ALWAYS SHALL BE...

2009-06-11T02:18:00.004+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Still nowt...

And continuing the TREK heavy theme, from last weekends Collectormania Milton Keynes show...

I've been mulling over my reaction to the Trek reboot film. I stil intend to see it again, at some point soon hopefully. But I think my reaction was summed up by someone else who said, they enjoyed it, but it didn't feel like a Trek film. And I think that was the point.

THESE ARE THE VOYAGES...

2009-06-11T01:50:00.003+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Nowt.

Been sitting on these really until the issue was at the printers. The CI: STAR TREK COMICS SPECIAL covers all the Trek incarnations from the 60's to the present day, interviewing creators past, present and future, including Dan Abnett, David Messina, Gordon Purcell, Diane Duane, and many more, even Walter Koenig. I really enjoyed the challenge of redesigning each section around the aesthetic of each show, whether Starfleet, Cardassian or Borg, though I regret not doing a Klingon one. That'd be fun.

TALES: 08/6/2009

2009-06-08T02:03:00.004+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: EU elections results.

Been busy with other stuff this past week, so below is a recap of the TREK strip, with temp lettering. Still some panels need polishing, and inserts are missing, to be added at colouring stage.

TALES: 30/5/2009

2009-05-30T23:06:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Pounding headache.

Todays panel:

TALES...: 29/5/2009

2009-05-29T22:16:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Chris Cornell - Billie jean (acoustic live)

Todays panel...

TALES: 28/5/2009

2009-05-28T12:25:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Bear McCreary - Caprica End Theme

The USS Giacchino command insignia.

RANDOM CUTE BABY PHOTO

2009-05-27T21:04:00.001+01:00

TALES... 27/5/2009

2009-05-27T03:23:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: The screaming of my retinas begging to look at anything else besides Photoshop.

This mornings panel...

And a colour test...

Though you won't see it at this stage, later pages will have a TOS era space battle akin to the Second Battle of Chintoka, involving the Enterprise, a fleet of Klingon ships, and an ancient enemy of Kahless...

But got other stuff to do first.

TALES: 26/5/2009

2009-05-26T01:51:00.004+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Two Steps from Hell: Legend "Down With The Enterprise Live"

This mornings panel...

The various computer displays will be added in photoshop.

TALES: 25/5/2009

2009-05-25T19:20:00.004+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Michael Giacchino, STAR TREK OST, 'Nero Fiddles, Narada Burns'

I'm trying to keep to at least a panel a day to post up, and this time ideally in sequence. So, todays...

Some background: the ill-fated Giacchino, in case you've not got the gag yet, is named after the composer of Lost and Fringe, Michael Giacchino. Ironically I had decided on the name of the ship long before I knew he would be scoring JJ's reboot. I think his work on Lost especially has some strong themes, but BSG's Bear McCreary is leader at this point. Therefore, the particularly non-canon Allegro NCC 1300's class of starship you see above cartwheeling through space are named after 21st Century composers. Just for my own amusement really.

T.F.T.D. 24/5/2009

2009-05-24T01:41:00.005+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Nowt.

The ill-fated USS Giacchino, from a panel immediately before the panel in the previous post, but still from page 3. Just to confuse you. Inks and colours.

TALES... 23/5/2009 PART TWO

2009-05-23T15:37:00.003+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Fargenbastich

Two posts in one day. Shocking. The ill fated USS Giachinno: inks and colours comparison WIP.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD 23/5/2009

2009-05-23T03:14:00.004+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: The hamster inside my PC having a tea break, apparently.

As a distraction from inking my TREK pitch, had an idea I wanted to try out in photoshop. Several hours later, and done some colour/texture tests. Aiming for a grainy feel. Not quite there yet.

Also got the first of my late birthday presents today from Amazon: Signature Killers by profiler Robert D Keppel, part of my research for the Millennium VS6 project. Cheery stuff.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD 20/5/2009

2009-05-20T18:49:00.005+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Rumbling stomach telling me to go make tea.

Day spent mostly designing tshirts for the B2FB campaign. Then returned back to my STAR TREK pitch. Feels like almost learning to walk again, its been so long since I've been sat at the board.

POST BRISTOL CRASH

2009-05-11T18:43:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: My own snoring.

Back from Bristol Comics Festival few hours ago. Continue to be plagued by post Mexico fatigue. Going to bed for few hours. But hey: just signed up to Twitter!

(SPOILERS) "THIS IS DOING MY HEAD IN!"

2009-05-07T00:15:00.003+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Annoyed fiancée.

Catching up on stuff we missed while in Mexico, and just watched the last few episodes of Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (or TSCC). After a fairly weak middle of a season 2, it finally got into gear with the final episode: Weaver revealed as a T1000 but apparently against Skynet; a miniture HK drone crashing through the office window; Cameron puts her chip into John Henry's body and timejumps to (presumably) the future; Derek gets shot in the head; John and Weaver timejump to a future where apparently, JC never became the big JC, having removed himself from the timeline; meets his dad Kyle Reese, meets Alison, meets Derek... and that haunting last line. So, question is: who is leading the resistance? Why is there a faction of Terminators rejecting Skynet? Why would John (in one timeline at least) offer an alliance with them? How can Fox kill a series just when it's getting good?

Oh, that's right. It's Fox.

There's little I hate more than unresolved cliffhangers. Millennium, Firefly, Angel, Jericho, and now TSCC, if the rumours are true and it's looking unlikely to be picked up for a 3rd season. The show had a lot of potential that we never saw enough of in season 2: Jessie's quest to divorce Cameron from John, because in the future he's considered to be too close to 'metal', putting reprogrammed Terminators into every resistance bunker and facility, and a growing disillusionment with JC's leadership; the potential of multiple alternate futures caused by so many timejumps by Terminators and resistance fighters; even the possibility of soldiers going AWOL, tired of fighting for survival and choosing coming through to the past instead just to escape.

So much potential... if the show doesn't get picked up, there's always the comic book.

"THERES A STORM COMING..."

2009-05-05T05:53:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: THE TERMINATOR, BRAD FIEDAL, 'Tunnel Chase'

It could be because I've been up all night finishing these pages in Indesign, but isn't Tahnee Cain and the Tryanglz' 'Burnin' in Third Degree' just one of best songs ever?

Still negative on the swine flu btw.

WAITING...

2009-05-03T04:43:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Time slipping away...

As is typical, my PC decides to put it's feet up when deadlines approach. Opening an Indesign file takes the better part of ten minutes. Plenty of time for tea breaks, not so good for getting work done.

Until I can post what I'm working on, heres some pics of Amy, now 12 months and 15 days old, from last week in Mexico. I really like the grain in them, thinking of getting them blown up for my studio.

THE TIME IS NOW...

2009-05-02T00:56:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Jet-lagged baby.

Back from Mexico yesterday and still recovering. Tons of work to catch up on. But glad to see my MILLENNIUM three season recap was finally posted to the backtofrankblack blog while I was away.

I'm really glad people are responding to the artwork and if it brings at least one more person to the cause to bring Frank Black back to screens big or small, then it was all worth it!

As I've mentioned many a time on TIWWA's message boards, I'd love to draw Frank in an ongoing comic book format, and doing this recap made me even more passionate to do it. Hopefully someone somewhere will see the potential and grab the rights.

And if Mr Spotnitz fancies writing it, I'd be more than happy to bring his words to life.

In the meantime I'm finishing off some other commercial work but hope to illustate Frank again, if only for my own interest, and will be posting it up here soon.

BACK IN BLIGHTY

2009-03-06T20:27:00.004Z

Current soundtrack: LASTFM.COM- Russian Red, "No Past Land"

Got back from San Francisco yesterday, so still a bit groggy from the flight and the airplane "food" my body is now rejecting. Went through the 700+ photos I took, mostly of city streets for reference, a dozen must just be of fire hydrants. Funny thing, first time in America, all the stuff you see seems familiar yet strange. After years of seeing it as part of a fiction on films and tv programs, to see it for real, and nearly getting hit by a car for reading the crossing wrong, takes a few days to get used to.

The area we stayed in was part of the financial district, so quite upmarket, but the amount of homeless and mentally ill on the streets was quite striking. A symptom of a healthcare system based on the aquistion of profit rather than supplying care for those in vulnerable states, possibly. The UK is far from perfect, but at least we have a marginally better way of caring for such people.

The hotel was quite literally round the corner from the Moscone centre, and the convention site. After checking in I got changed into my normal gear of jeans, hoodie and baseball cap to start exploring, trying to look as little as a tourist as possible. I wandered a few blocks in each direction from the hotel to get my bearings, and turned back when I started noticing a growing number of homeless and scallies hanging around shops. I found out later that a few blocks further and i would have been in a bit of a dodgy neighbourhood.

In the opposite direction lay the waterfront and famous piers.

Meeting up with Andy Coleman the following day, he took us on a tour round the city, down the piers and through Chinatown, Little Italy and North Beach districts, though annoyingly I left the hotel without my camera. We started noticing people with black marks on their foreheads and after enquiring, realised it was to mark Ash Wednesday. We ended up at the Stinking Rose, an Italian restaurant where everything is cooked with garlic, served with garlic, with extra garlic. Lovely. We also went into the famous City Lights Bookstore, a "literary landmark" for alternative culture, and the center of the beatnik movement. Apparently tour buses with passengers eager to sight "beatniks" used to pull up in front of the store, and the Beats'legacy of anti-authoritarian politics and insurgent thinking continues to be a strong influence in the store. Not knowing anything about beatniks, I bought a completely unrelated book on Piranesi, a collection of etchings based on prison architecture. It's very cool.

After meeting up with Joel Meadows we did another tour, found some great architecture and reference material, and this time went all the way up the Coit Tower, a landmark overlooking the city, with great 360 degree views. The trek up those streets could be lethal though, I genuinely thought one slip and I'd tumble back down the incline to certain death, so we enjoyed a North Beach pizza on the way down to recover. The Columbus/Broadway crossection had some great buildings and seemed to be a great snapshot of the city.

We met up with California natives Andy Grossberg and Susie Lee, partners on Tripwire magazine, and through them and Joel and Andy other friends. One American host was incredibly generous and we were treated to an Istrian Restaurant called Albona, which served great food, and also a bit ironic as I've been to the Istrian region of Croatia many times on holiday, both before and after the Balkan War. San Francisco was the last place I ever expected to see an Istrian restaurant!

Wondercon took place from the friday to the sunday and had some great panels, most of which I managed to go to though a few clashed with each other. On the friday, the DC Nation panel was great fun and was followed by the Marvel Ultimates panel. Due to the smaller, more laid back nature of Wondercon compared to San Diego, they were all easy to get front row seats in for reportage.

Saturday was the big day for the big panels. In the large theatre, the Esplanade, were the Watchmen, Astroboy, Pandorum, Alien Trespass, Star Trek, Nine, Pixars' Up, and Terminator: Salvation panels. I skipped the Watchmen panel, knowing it would be rammed to capacity, and slipped in during the Pandorum panal. Managed to get a decent seat, and eventually maneouvered my way closer to the front as the day progressed. Pandorum looks like an interesting "Saw in space" type of film starring Dennis Quaid. Alien Trespass, a homage to 50's b movies starring Will from Will and Grace looked fun. Star Trek, introduced by JJ Abrams and the new cast, looked incredible. Any doubts I had about the film were dispelled by the strangely emotional trailer. This was followed by Nine, an post apocalyptic CGI animated film by Wanted director Timur Bekmambetov, and voiced by Elijah Wood, which looked promising. That was followed by Pixars' Up, about an old man escaping eviction from his house by attaching hundreds of balloons to it and flying away. The director introduced a few clips and it was one of the most funniest things I've seen in ages. The comedy and timing was perfect and I can't wait to take my neice and nephew to watch it. After that, the big one was Terminator: Salvation. Introduced by McG and the cast (minus Bale of course), and a new trailer that even the cast hadn't seen yet. Again, it looked pretty damn cool, and was followed by an unfinished scene from the film with tempory animatics taking the place of finished cgi. This is so far removed from T3 you wouldn't believe, a grimy, gritty, desperate future. I worry though that the trailer gives away too much of the plot, and this was echoed in the second scene of a confrontation between John Connor and the pivotal character Marcus Wright. McG continued his mission of convincing the audience that he wants to make a film true to Jim Cameron's legacy and not bullshit the fans. He deserves a lot of credit for at the very least making the effort.

Sunday I made it to the Marvel: X-Men panel with Axel Alonso and Matt Fraction, then the IDW summer movie panel, focusing on GI Joe, Transformers and Trek. Pretty sure a good number of the audience were expecting trailers or something, as many left after the initial announcements. Have to admit to being a bit disappointed that at least to date there are no plans to exploit the relationship IDW has with Pocket Books and the expanded Trek universe back catalogue, or develop new series based on cancelled shows like Millennium or Jericho, which would have been fantastic.

We spent the next two days doing touristy things, visiting the Golden Gate Bridge during torrential rain, and the Palace of Fine Arts. Joel and I also managed to get to Alcatraz for souveniers. As interesting as the Rock was a lot of the complex was cordoned off for safety reasons, so the tour wasn't as exciting as it could have been, but still a worthwhile trip.

Now back home and nursing my very sore and blistered feet, hoping not to have to wear shoes for at least a week, and concentrating on finishing samples to send to IDW. Will post here when have something to show.

T.F.T.D.B.: 13/2/2009

2009-02-13T03:53:00.005Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: STAR TREK- NEMESIS OST, Jerry Goldsmith; Track 12 - Shinzon and the Senate

Some more stuff from the drawing board I'm getting to in my free hour away from CI stuff, from my Terminator pitch.

Incidently, CI 207 is on its way to shops as I type.

T.F.T.D.B.- 27/1/2009

2009-01-27T18:39:00.002Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Mark Snow, Millennium OST; CD 2 "Candy"

Clearing some commission work today off the board. Currently half way through a piece for backtofrankblack.com. Off to have tea now.

UNDERSTANDING...

2009-01-24T16:33:00.004Z

Is a three edged sword, Kosh once said. Their side, your side, and the truth. But as soon as any side takes the life of an innocent child, any proposed justification goes out the window. Because there simply isn't any justification for killing children.

So if you've cash to spare go here and help out those who are still alive.

INTERLUDE: CUTE BABY TIME

2009-01-21T02:40:00.002Z

T.F.T.D.B.- 21/1/2009

2009-01-21T02:32:00.003Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Last FM playing John Williams Revenge of the Sith OST; Anakins' Dream

Some sketchbook stuff, a character from my Terminator pitch.

T.F.T.D.B.- 20/1/2009

2009-01-20T00:13:00.001Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Bugger all.

Just back in from London so not much time to upload stuff. Already broke the pattern and missed 24. Dammit.

Some design work I'm working on.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD... 17/1/2009

2009-01-17T11:34:00.002Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: James Darren - This One's from the Heart: "The Best is Yet to Come"

A frame from the JUDGE MINTY storyboards.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD... 16/1/2009

2009-01-16T02:00:00.002Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Word Balloon Podcast: The Bendis Tapes (9/1/2009)

New Years Resolution: Post something everyday, even if its just a panel. Inspired by Sean Phillips blog. It's a good exercise.

Now, if only my bastard A3 scanner hadn't died on me again.

THE BAFFLED KING

2008-12-27T00:37:00.002Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Jeff Buckley: Grace, "Mojo Pin"

Jesus, that went fast. Another year gone etc etc. A big one full of changes at the House of Baz.

The biggest and most obviously important, the birth of little Amy Louise.

(Insert obligatory cute picture here.)

We weren't expecting to have a baby anytime soon, not on the radar at all, then BOOM! Suddenly faced with having to think beyond what to add my STAR WARS collection and when the next issue of PLANETARY would be out.

Oddest thing was, despite all the horror stories and "how-to" books and seeing most of my mates already going through what I would soon be, despite the scares and the fear of not being, for whatever reason, a good dad, it all felt incredibly natural. And its amazing that despite all my missus went through, she still even wanted to speak to me at the end. Seriously: if you've got kids, stop and think what your girlfriend/wife went through to pop your sprogs. We blokes have it so easy. Especially if you have the kind of amazing support we have had from our respective families.

Second change, taking the production editor position at Comics International, the first job that allows me to work from home and (luckily) around the baby. I don't think I could have remained sane doing the old office day job and miss out on her development these last 8 months, something I'm immensely grateful for. As it is I'm also really enjoying the work, which the world will finally see in a short few weeks as CI is relaunched, and will hopefully silence the circling vultures.

Thirdly, the distinct decision to start developing my portfolio up to date to pitch to publishers. My first storyboarding gig to actually result in a finished product, Splintered, looked amazing at the recent cast and crew screening in Manchester, and that encouraged me to pull my finger out and put extra hours in at the drawing board. One such gig I'm currently working on is JUDGE MINTY, a fan film shooting next year based on a character from JUDGE DREDD, who took the Long Walk. Steven Sterlacchini and Daniel Carey-George are already making the project look awesome, and I can't wait to see my storyboards come to life.

Fourthly in the meantime I have a number of projects to finish before crossing the Atlantic with my mate Joel to the Colonies and Wondercon 2009 at San Francisco, namely Seven Sentinels. First time in America, first US convention, first time on a deliberate mission to pitch to editors for work. You'll probably find me with the rest of the rejects in the bar drowning my sorrows.

I don't have a fifth I don't think... oh- JUDGE DREDD remake! Can't wait.

Not that anyone probably cares but...

MY TOP FIVE FAVES:

COMICS:
1. JSA
2. DMZ/LOCAL
3. HELLBOY
4. THE KILLER
5. 2000AD

FILMS CINEMA:
1. DARK KNIGHT
2. INCREDIBLE HULK
3. CLOVERFIELD
4. IRON MAN
5. HELLBOY 2

FILMS DVD:
1. CHILDREN OF MEN
2. THE MIST
3. THIRTEEN DAYS
4. CASINO ROYALE
5. BOURNE ULTIMATUM

TV:
1. BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
2. LOST
3. DOCTOR WHO
4. 24
5. SMALLVILLE

MUSIC: (I hardly bought anything new this year, but from what I remember buying...)
1. BEAR MCCREARY: BSG SOUNDTRACK SEASON 3
2. MURRAY GOLD: DOCTOR WHO SEASON 4
3. WILLIAM SHATNER: HAS BEEN
4. DIXIE CHICKS: TAKING THE LONG WAY
5. HANS ZIMMER: DARK KNIGHT SOUNDTRACK

PODCASTS:
1. RON D MOORES BSG
2. INDIESPINNERRACK
3. THE FORCE.NET
4. GEEK SYNDICATE
5. DR WHO

MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2009:
1. BSG SEASON 4
2. LOST SEASON 5
3. WATCHMEN
4. TERMINATOR: SALVATION
5. STAR TREK

For the one person who actually bothered to read this far down: I salute you sir, and wish you health and happiness in the year ahead.

THOUGHT BUBBLES

2008-11-21T07:48:00.002Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Convention flu

Just a quick post to add photos from last weekends Thought Bubble festival in Leeds. I'm holding onto the more... sensitive ones until the people concerned pay the blackmail- I mean, use of image fee... Heh.

Thanks to all those who came and chatted and bought stuff, and thanks to those who got sketches for their patience. Both Marc and I happily drew the day away for quite a few people, and the ones above are those who I managed to get snapshots of.

"IT'S IN THE FRAKKIN' SHIP!"

2008-10-27T21:29:00.004Z

Current soundtrack: The Singles Club interview mp3 with Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

Been busy doing interviews and attending signings and talks and shows and stuff inbetween work, so thought I'd post some photos up here as a break from transcribing, in a vaguely reverse chronological order:

LEFT: From last saturday at the London Expo, meeting Colonel Tigh himself, Michael Hogan. Incredibly warm and generous man, and dedicated to his craft, as anyone who watches BSG will know. I attended a press call with Joel and managed to get the interviews on video, which I'll be transferring to the PC as soon as I work out how. This photo was from the photo call, and is quite possibly the worst photo of me you'll ever see: squinting from too little sleep and as scruffy as a daggit dragged backwards through a hedge, I forgot to shave that morning. Go see far better pics taken by Joel.

Had a great day, as well as Colonel Tigh's press call I also taped the Primeval and Heroes calls. A very nice Indian in the evening, followed by a surprise at Euston station, that no trains were running from London up north past 8.30pm due to engineering works, which meant I could spend the night outside on the steps in the freezing cold, or find a hotel to crash in, which I did eventually, but for a while there it looked like it was going to be a rough night. Following morning, I had to get a coach to Birmingham International, to board an already crammed train to Manchester. Absolute nightmare. Eventually I got home about 4pm sunday.

Some other shots from the day:

Made redundant by CGI but still frakking cool, an original series Centurion.

Kev Walker, fan favourite 2000AD artist and his new book Silverfin.

SCORCH LIVES! I can never get enough of these awesome suits.

Last week there was a Dave Gibbons signing at Waterstones in Manchester, promoting his new WATCHING THE WATCHMEN book, which is highly recommended.

And just one shot from the BICS 2008, courtesy of Joel again, as I forgot my camera. This was one of many sketches I did over the weekend alongside Marc Olivent, and below is a closeup of the Joker/Harley Quinn I did for one Batfan.

Off to Thoughtbubble next on the 15th November, hopefully with some new artwork to show...

GETTING BACK ON THE HORSE

2008-09-24T17:39:00.002+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Theme tunes mixtape, Airwolf theme (long version)

I've been up to my ears again recently with baby, work and with taking the production editor position at COMICS INTERNATIONAL, so hardly time to update anything. For the handful of people who look at this blog, I'll be at the Birmingham International Comics Show next weekend with Marc Olivent. Come along and say hello.

RECONNECTING....

2008-07-26T23:26:00.003+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM OST, John Powell, "Six Weeks Ago"

More like 8 weeks ago now, I had a massive PC death. First it was just the broadband, but then it seemed like the PC itself was giving up the ghost, applications refusing to work like some failing internal organs.

Though I was able to save files onto an external hard drive, the PC itself had to be set to factory settings, with only a basic XP operating system. No Windows Office, Adobe or anything.

Now several weeks later and I'm almost back up to speed, but there have been casualties: the enginecomics.co.uk site disappeared but should be restored in the next few weeks to some working fashion; its a large site with a lot of content. Likewise, any emails sent to my editor@enginecomics.co.uk address will have not been recieved within the last two months, so until that is restored, people can contact me at enginecomics @ hotmail.com. Most frustratingly, I have lost my enture address book. So please don't think me rude if I haven't got back to you.

So at the moment I'm trying to catch up on a ton of work, while preparing for the Brum Con in October, and three new books. Not saying which ones.

But I can show you what the self respecting Engineer will be sporting at said event:

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD... 4/6/2008

2008-06-04T21:40:00.003+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: GUNS N' ROSES, Patience (Video)

Busy with baby and CI work, and film script, and day job, so things been quiet on here. Will be posting better stuff shortly.

In meantime, some sketchbook stuff:

ONE WE MADE EARLIER...

2008-04-14T23:14:00.002+01:00

Just in from the hospital and good news is that Amy Louise was born yesterday at 4.40pm, at 6lb and 10 ounces, and after a few initial scares both Julia and Amy are doing well and should be home in the next couple of days. She's already taking after her dad with sleeping all day and staying awake all night. Either that or she's auditioning for the Lost Boys sequel.

Obligatory cute baby picture:

Once they're both settled at home I'll be catching up with people and work shortly.

BY CROM

2008-02-06T17:52:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: CONAN THE BARBARIAN OST, Basil Poledouris, 'Anvil of Crom'

As you may have heard, I've been asked to join the Comics International team as Production Editor to help get the mag back on schedule (http://www.comics-international.co.uk/news.asp?ID=12). You'd be forgiven for seeing the slight irony in this considering its been over a year since the last issue of REDEYE when its supposed to be a quarterly, but there you are.

Raising finance to get RE7 done has been frankly a slow painful process, but it is still ongoing. I've been developing it along side the Rough Guide and aiming to get it out by the May Bristol convention, but nothing is definite at the moment.

Both REDEYE and the Guide are still needed I think for the UK scene. There's been a lot of new faces joining the community, from Oli Smiths http://londonundergroundcomics.com/ venture and at least three new must-bookmark sites: http://www.comicsvillage.com/ under Craig Johnson, http://www.indiereview.co.uk/ under Hassan Otsmane Elhaou and http://www.comicbitsonline.com/ under Terry Hooper. Matt Badham's Overspill series of interviews on http://tysdiorbad.blogspot.com/ are essential reading. There are new titles, companies and creators emerging every week. And REDEYE should be there covering it all.

Last night I just finished compiling a PDF version of RE6, which will be added to the site shortly as a download. When I can reconstitute the earlier issues they will be added too; but it got me thinking of the sustainable future of the magazine. Until I work out a better distribution and printing system, it may be more beneficial to offer REDEYE Vol 2 as a PDF version, keeping better uptodate with events and more importantly, attracting more international readers who find the costs of postage prohibitive. Subscribers in the meantime would get their print version with extra features not available in the PDF. When we have a better system in place, we can go back to printing non-subscriber copies.

I'd like to hear peoples ideas on this...

OWWW. OW.

2008-01-29T22:34:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: THE PIANO, Michael Nyman; The Promise

I split my tooth on a piece of chicken. Go figure.

I'm not sure how or why, but the sharp pain and subsequent flashes of colour in my eyes made sure I knew about it. So besides spitting bits of tooth out, it feels like a shard of glass in the inside of my mouth, and I have to wait three weeks for a dentist, expecting the rest of it to come out in bits in the meantime. And I have nightmares of breaking teeth. Marvelous.

In other news...

Some photos from a recent recce of a shooting location:

Custom Sketch Up model of same location:

And a storyboard sequence:

TALES FOM THE DRAWING BOARD... SKIMMER DESIGN

2008-01-06T05:04:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Garth Brooks, No Fences: 'Unanswered Prayers'

One of the many designs I'm doing for the second part of SECRET GODS. This one, a two man patrol vehicle similar to present day patrol choppers, is involved in an intricate chase scene. The general design is utilized with variations for all the emergency services in the story's timeframe.

2007-12-26T14:43:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Jamiroquai - High Times - The Singles 1992-2006 (Special 2 Disc Edition); "Corner of the Earth"

To one and all.

2007-12-17T01:44:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Akira Yamaoka - Silent Hill OST: "The Wait"

Falling behind again. Must post.

Had a go at colouring on the tablet. Getting used to it slowly. Sure there's loads I can do with it given a few months and a handbook. Instead tried colouring an old cartoon of myself.

Had an interesting weekend exploring the location for a horror film I'm doing storyboards/concept art for, the kind of place I could happily spend days taking photos of peeling paint, rusted beds and long empty corridoors. I'm a frustrated urban archaeologist (bit like my friend Mr Meadows). Looking at starting preproduction in January.

Can't beat some broken slates and tall chimneys.

POST 101

2007-12-01T13:00:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Crowded House, Live on Earth: MEN 29/11/2007: "Hole in the River"

Just realised my last post was my hundreth. Huzzah.

Things are changing in the World Of Baz it seems. And we now know what gender Baz Junior will be....

Yep its a girl. Can't you tell? ;) Cue the debate over names. Abigail Louise or Amy Louise... cast your vote now.

It's bizarre but I knew from the beginning it was a girl. I've somehow managed to predict right each time for about 11 pregnancies. Annoyingly that amazing precognition fails everytime I buy a lottery ticket.

BACK IN BLACK...

2007-11-19T23:34:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: ISR #99.5

All indications are that Frank Black will appear in the new X Files film. All is well with the world.

http://www.millennium-thisiswhoweare.net/tiwwa/index.php?showtopic=20477

In the meantime, heres another preview for REDEYE SPRING 2008 SPECIAL, this time Lorenzo's specially commissioned wrap around cover image minus text:

Sweet.

DEVILS AND PUMPKINS

2007-11-12T11:36:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: BATTLESTAR GALACTUCA SEASON 3 OST, Bear McCreary: 'A Distant Sadness'

A strange thing happened the other night. I think I finally had that 'oh Christ we're having a baby' moment. Julia's sister had brought back two cute halloween costumes from her holiday in America, two baby grows for 6-9 months, one styled as a pumpkin, the other a devil outfit complete with cape and horns. Maybe its because they're actually the first items of clothing we've got for the baby, it's the first 'real' sign (besides scans and morning sickness) that its real and actually happenning. Even more strangely, the panic hasn't set in yet. Give it time.

(BTW we are intending to get the kid other clothes. There's a very cool Yoda outfit that would be perfect for him/her.)

In the meantime besides coughing and spluttering with this touch of flu, work progresses with SEVEN SENTINELS, and the REDEYE SPRING 08 SPECIAL has received a massive boost thanks to donations. An example page of what to expect:

More previews will be added over the next few weeks as we near the revised publication date of March 08.

IT'S... ALIVE

2007-10-20T18:18:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Foo Fighters: Echoes, Silence, Patience, Grace; The Pretender

It's been a while I know but with lots going on at home with the impending arrival of Junior sometime in April, and work continuing apace on the Seven Sentinels series, I've been neglectibg my blog/facebook/myspace/comicspace et al. With recovering from BICS last weekend thought it'd be a good time to post some photos of the event.

With SS being the big push thiz year and next, we went all out on as much display material as we could, including this 5ft long poster:

Along with the newly reprinted issue 1, and special limited edition sketchbooks and tshirts, it went really well, due in no small part to new recruits Dan and Kenny, supporting creator Marc Olivent as they drew the crowds in, despite being first timers to a comic convention.

I managed to get down on saturday night ready for the future of British Comics talk on the sunday and to meet a hero of mine, Mike Mignola.

One of the main reasons I wanted to be at BICS was to meet Mike Mignola. Having followed his work for years after reading his Gotham By Gaslight and Bram Stoker's Dracula, and of course all of Hellboy, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I was amazed how easy it was to meet him expecting hundreds of fans around his table, but an orderly queue system (maintained by a security guard) ensured he wasn't mobbed, a credit to the organisers. I managed to get both my Seed of Destruction series signed, along with Baltimore and a Hellboy sketch (my only sketch of the weekend) along with a Baltimore print (and no, none of those are ending up on ebay). I was one happy Hellboarder.

The Future of British Comics panel went well, ably chaired by Leon Hewitt with David Baillie, Joel Meadows, Dan Merlin Goodbrey, Shane Chebsey and myself yapping away. Discussion started with the recently announced winner of the Observer short graphic story competition (entries for which can be seen here http://www.flickr.com/groups/551664@N23/) and whether British audiences are now more accepting of the medium. Ever present problems of distribution, marketing and general education about comics were raised, with some believing that the future of comics centres on graphic novels in bookstores, while others argued that the 'lost generation' of comic readers, those who grew up after the 90's crash, are important to reach along with the current generation still in schools.

With so much to cover we could have easily gone on for another hour, but we left I think with hope that things are slowly improving.

Later on I managed to get into the Hellboy talk with Duncan Fegredo, Mike Mignola and Pete Doherty discussing Darkness Calls. Mike compared his layouts with Duncan's fantastic finished artwork, and I left desperately wanting to get back to the drawing board and improve my own craft.

So another great, frantic but all to short festival, an improvement on last years event and hopefully enough of a success to enable the organisers to top it next year.

Back to the drawing board for me.

OWW. OWWW.

2007-08-25T21:32:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Chris Cornell, Acoustic, 'Until We Fall'
CURRENT WHISKEY: Kilbenny Irish
CURRENT CIGARS: Out
CURRENT WASP BODYCOUNT: Six

Typing through the warm detatched fuzzyness that co-codamol brings after knackering my shoulder last week. Stepping over the corpses of wasps littering the floor. Staring at the growing mountain of work I'm behind of.

Not sure what Baillie is up to, but he asked for this to be propagated around:

I'm sure it will be worth checking out. Some sketchbook stuff from a couple weeks ago:

Been playing around in my head with a 60's retro scifi thing for a while, a bit of Gerry Anderson, bit of Dan Dare. No real stories yet. But saw Phil Noto's sketches which captured the style completely, had a go at some character designs based on his artwork.

Sketch for SEVEN SENTINELS website stuff.

ENGINE COMICS: JULY UPDATES

2007-07-22T19:49:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK:

SEVEN SENTINELS #1

It took a while but the US format printing of Marc Olivent's SEVEN SENTINELS is now available in your local comic shop, online and soon through PREVIEWS. Ish 1 comes with a preview of ish 2, a competition to win original artwork from the series, and my personal favourite, hints and clues to the larger story beyond the printed page. You're probably familair with the concept of easter eggs on DVD's or more recently in shows like LOST, deliberately hidden (or not so hidden) clues, information or content. This concept will play a major part in the development of 7S, and the first fairly obvious clue is in the first issue. We'll make you work for the rest.

Issue 2 will be out with an exclusive convention only sketchbook at the Birmingham Comics Festival on October 13/14th 2007. Both Marc and I will be there to chat to fans and do sketches, so do come along and say hello.

REDEYE #7

Originally scheduled for release in May, RE7 has been hit with a number of delays, more so than usual. This has lead to a restructuring of the entire magazine, and a rethink on how best to produce a regular publication on Brit comics. So, I'm trying something new: RE7 will hereafter be called REDEYE WINTER 2007 SPECIAL. Double sized, it will serve as a bookend to the first volume. I think the contributors have done some fantastic work they can be very proud of over the last few years, but without financing to pay them, it's not fair to expect them to be working all hours to send stuff in.

Although we've had a handful of subscribers, with mounting costs of print bills, convention costs and postage charges, it is very much a drop in the ocean. A major problem facing comics in the UK is finance, a way to make it pay for itself. What I intend doing, in the 18 month long break between REDEYE Vol 1 and Vol 2, is to establish a business model that will not only serve to make REDEYE a success, but also one that can be adopted and adapted by other publishers. As a companion peice almost to the Rough Guide, I'll be looking at any grants, government or arts council funding, private investing and advertising/marketing that can be used by Brit comics. The results, positive or negative, I hope will be a shortcut to success for other people.

So, ths is what will happen for RE7: I'm asking for donations to help make the magazine to print. I'll be adding a Paypal Donate button to the website with the next update. The donations will go towards not just the printing but the running costs of distribution, conventions and postage. If it doesn't hit the required figure by October, the content will instead be published on the web in December.

Subscribers will recieve a refund at that point in October for any unpublished issues, and the subscriber button will be taken down shortly from the site.

Reviews will continue to be published (although yes I'm very very behind on them at the moment) at the Owl in Daylight blog, which will be updated again very shortly (I have a long list of stuff to update here) so you can still send review copies to the same editorial address. In addition to this, I'm planning more reviews the Indiespinnerrack podcast and a segment on youTube looking at Brit creators, so conceivably you would get even more readers and viewers this way than just the 400-500 copies of printed REDEYE.

Erm.. thats it really. The content for the REWS2007 is shaping up to be the best of the bunch, and best to go out on a high note. I hope you will think so too.

CELEBRATION EUROPE 2007

2007-07-22T17:19:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: TheForce.Net Podcast, 20/7/2007

July 14th saw the second day of Star Wars Celebration Europe at the Excel Centre London, the poorer mans version of Celebration 4 in LA. There was some disappointment at the list of events at CE compared to those at C4, though we did get Mark Hamill signing during the weekend and Ian McDiarmid introducing an open air showing of A NEW HOPE on the Friday.

I missed all that as I only made it for the saturday with my fellow Celebration Day veteran Aaron. Two talks I was determined to get to was the Force Unleashed panel on the new upcoming game, touted as Episode 3.5, which looked very cool from the trailer and promises to add a lot of depth to the saga. Lots of shots of stormtroopers getting thrown about or stabbed by lightsabers. It was also nice to see that the actor playing Darth Vader's Secret Apprentice, ex BSG actor Sam Witwer, was really into the mythos and knew what he was talking about, and was trying not to give too much away when he really wanted to. Also some good questioning from the audience, including why you can't just beat the shit out of Gungans rather than stormtroopers all the time.

The second was the talk with Rick McCallum (above), hosted by a perky Warwick 'Wicket' Davis. A few confirmations of rumours such as 400 episodes of multiple Star Wars live action series, the development of 3d film versions, and a growing impatience with the movie industries faffing about with choosing HDDVD or Blue Ray. The possibility of going beyond that straight to digital subscription downloads drew a massive cheer from the audience. Much like digital projection, if there's anything that will force a change in way films are distributed, it's Lucas. Followed shortly by piracy of course.

Other highlights included meeting artists Adam Hughes and Matt Busch, two people who at a comics convention, you'd never be able to get near. Suffering from lack of sleep and far too much Fanboy Syndrome, I got a few sketchbooks, poster and photos.

I did manage to give out a few sketchbooks I'd printed up the night before also to them, but couldn't get up the courage to ask for feedback on my artwork. Next time...

Other highlights included seeing more stormtroopers/clonetroopers and my personal favourites, Republic Commandoes, who had amazing costumes that I only unfortunately got to see the once on the day but hope to catch up with them another time. Managed to make a few contacts in fandom though agan missed a few people I was hoping to meet. One of the most satisfying highlights however was purely accidental, as we headed out of the Excel centre only to see a growing mob surround Rick McCallum, who was very graciously signing things and posing for pictures.

It soon got out of hand however and a ring of security had to be established to keep people from crushing him. I had to admit there were moments when people were seconds away from a swift elbow to the face from me, they were that annoying. Luckily I managed to get a good pic before Rick was evacuated to his car. You know, I love Star Wars as much as the next bloke, but there are some who really don't know when to step back.

All in all a good day, but wished I was there for the three days. With rumblings of C5 in 2009, I'd better start saving up now. May be even be thin enough to get into a Rep Commando suit if I stop eating now.

JAMES REDINGTON

2007-07-22T16:29:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Nelly Furtado: Loose, 'Glow'

Been a while since last update again and started getting emails from people asking of things were okay, which was nice of them. Everythings fine thanks, just been busy getting things done for Engine etc.

Since last time, unfortunately, the UK comics scene has lost of its most passionate activists. James Redington passed away a few weeks ago from sudden heart failure, aged only 28. James was a regular presence at the UK comic festivals and one of those people who once gone, you really wished you had spent more time with. Instead, I'm left with the memory of his passion for comics, our shared love of Christopher Reeve's Superman, and his positive attitude in always trying to help people out, whether upoming talents with Portent Comics and his enthusiasm and support for REDEYE. Mostly I'm left remembering a really nice bloke who went far too early, far too young.

There are perhaps better worded tributes by his peers and more on his contributions at:
http://www.downthetubes.net/news_archive/2007/07july2007.html#portent
http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/panel/

Rest easy, James. I'm sure you and Chris Reeve will have a lot to talk about.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD 27/5/2007

2007-05-27T04:03:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Sarah McLachlan, Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, 'Wait'

Some WIP, testing Sketch up utility and loving it more and more.

THIRTY

2007-05-23T22:49:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Nina Simone, Best of, 'Sinnerman'

"And the rock cried out, no hiding place...."

Then the clock turned midnight and all of a sudden, I was thirty years old. Which came somewhat as a surprise, for a number of reasons. I'm still trying to come to terms with being 18, nevermind 30. I'm surrounded by comic books and Star Wars toys; I'm not really a grownup. Yet, there it was, big as you like. And a cake as well, which kind of proved it.

Thanks to Matt, Leon, Baillie and Aaron for celebrating the day with us with a chinese and whiskey, to Julia for great prezzies (see below) and the family for coming up.

So tonight, being my last night of freedom on my fortnight before being back at work, I'm sorting out old papers to shred and getting things together to take to the studio tommorrow. Without getting too maudlin or personal, there was a long list of stuff I had wanted to achieve by this time in my life, and frighteningly little actually done. I'm not entirely sure where my twenties have gone. So, I've now set myself new targets, focusing more on my art, chasing more illo jobs before approaching an agent, heading towards New York Con in April 08. Determined to have more than two holidays in 10 years.

And here's a picture of old Prime:

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD... 15/5/2007

2007-05-15T23:47:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Tori Amos: Strange Little Girls, 'I Don't Like Mondays'

Not that I've recovered yet but since I've uploaded the photos, thought I'd actually say something about the Bristol Expo this past weekend.

Fantastic art above from D'Israeli (disraeli-demon.blogspot.com), though there were no Martian tripods nor Spiderbunnies in attendance at the venue. Maybe next year. There did seem to be a massive upsurge in visitors: the saturday in particular was incredibly busy. I didn't expect to do so well as not having anything new to sell except REDEYE 6 (which was released in March at London Webcomixthing), and my first attempt at a 30 copy limited edition sketchbook, printed literally two days before (which meant I had no sleep from wednesday to friday). The sketchbook, inspired by my friend Lorenzo's, went down well, whether sold seperately or half price with RE6. Even Jeffrey Brown picked up a copy of both which was rather satisfying.

Saturday went by in a blur, and after a number of sketches I realised it was suddenly three in the afternoon and I'd not left my table. When I did have a quick run round, it was great to see another increase in new faces, new publishers, and new fans. As the boxes emptied of RE6 they filled up quickly with review copies.

Some of the standouts though in the pile was the latest anthology from AUK, ZOMBIES, which is without a doubt the best of the run so far, strongly designed and fantastically put together. However I think Dave West and Andy Bloor's THE WOLFMEN just surpasses it, great work from both creators that just shows what quality is out there right now. Highly recommended.

Saturday night of course was the highlight of the day as I finally got to spend time with old friends who I don't get to see often enough. After a few ridicously expensive drinks at the hotel bar we headed off to an Indian resturant where binky bonkey ensued. Binky bonky is all the rage apparently. Some of my favourite photos from that night:

Matt 'Bat Madam' Badham

Mark, Lorenzo and Rob of Blink Twice with pre-Eagle Award nerves

Stephen 'Mythos' Aryan and Bridgeen 'Mr Maximo and Rabbit' Gillespie

There were only one pair of bunny ears believe it or not, though they seemed to go round everyones head that. Only Bridgeen managed the divine glow.

Though Paul 'No Time Like The Present' Rainey brought some stately poise to the look

Joel 'Tripwire' Meadows and Paul Rainey toast Binky Bonkey

Sunday is always a calmer and chilled affair as everyone nurses hangovers and emptied wallets. The energy never fades however at the Blink Twice tables as Lorenzo sketches his hand to a stump. There was also a teasing preview of the gorgeous artwork Lorenzo is doing specifically to illustrate his interview in REDEYE 7....

I go on quite a bit about just how great Lorenzo is. I don't apologise about that because it's all justified. Another person I never stop bigging up is Chris 'Rock Star' Staros, here on the sunday with Jeffrey Brown, with previews of his new book.

I managed to get a good number of new books including a handful of manga, thanks to Sean Michael Wilson's guidance and introducing us to the Umisen-Yamasen group and Misako Rocks, in preparation of an upcoming article in REDEYE on the rise of Yaoi (or boy-boy comics) so popular with teenage girls, a trend now starting to appear in small press titles.

Sean will also be talking to us in RE7 about his new book with artist Lee O'Connor, IRAQ INCORPORATED, with an extended eyecandy preview on the project.

Although by the end of Sunday many people had gone home, a small hardcore contingent headed to the Spyglass resturant for our tea, so thanks to Leon, Dave, Paul, Dan, Joel, and Declan, for helping to celebrate my upcoming thirtieth this week over ostrich steak, Dr Who conventions, Bon Jovi and chocolate fondu.

Next on the convention calender is the Birmingham International Comics Festival (BICS) in October. You never know, there maybe Spider Bunnies there.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BAORD... 9/5/2007

2007-05-10T01:58:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Two cats killing each other in the garden.

While I should be doing many other things, some stuff that won't be going in my limited edition Bristol Convention sketchbook for obvious legal reasons...

More to come hopefully.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD... 1/4/2007

2007-04-01T19:46:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: LIFE ON MARS SOUNDTRACK: Willie Lindo and The Charmers Band, 'Drum Song'

And I'm done.

Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! Not a parallel world invasion!

I actually got it finished on deadline.

Huzzah.

And now for some whiskey.

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD... 29/3/2007

2007-03-29T23:35:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: LOST IN TRANSLATION OST; Kevin Sheilds, 'City Girl'

In an attempt to keep up momentum in drawing stuff, trying to get a half page pencilled every night and ideally inking it as well shortly afterwards, then posting the results. Not promising great art, btw.

Let's see how long this lasts, eh?

TALES FROM THE DRAWING BOARD NUMBER... WHATEVER

2007-03-28T22:05:00.000+01:00

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: ROCCO DELUCA AND THE BURDEN: I TRUST YOU TO KILL ME; 'Bus Ride'

At some point I want to talk about the genius of Rocca Deluca, but not today. Instead some work in progress. I'm denying myself whiskey and cigars until its done. A man needs his rewards.

"DAMNNIT!"

2007-02-25T22:10:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: The deafening sound of silence.

Thanks to a critical failure of the digital TV, I'm writing this instead of watching the latest episodes of 24 and Lost. A sick practical joke on viewers by Sky, in an attempt to piss off NTL/Virgin Media customers in their little argument? Or just shit service? You decide.

In the meantime, some cover art from the upcoming release of SEVEN SENTINELS in the new US Format, issues 1 and 2 of which should be out at Bristol all being well:

Oh yes, the Engine site has also been updated with some REDEYE 6 extra content: http://www.enginecomics.co.uk/redeye/reframeset.htm

Enjoy.

ONE YEAR LATER...

2007-02-22T22:34:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: THUNDER ROAD: TRACKS INSPIRED BY THE BOSS; 'Nebraska', The Cash Brothers

Finally after many months of arsing around, RE6 is back from the printers this afternoon. Many trips up the stairs and borderline cardiac arrests later, the stuffing of envelopes began and will no doubt continue into the early hours of the morning for the Big Post tommorrow.

In the meantime...

Now then, back to that zombie strip...

SKETCHBOOK STUFF 4

2007-02-12T18:59:00.000Z

A sketch of a spider from the Ancient Egyptian/robot/camel aliens kids comic I'm developing. Just a bunch of scenes at the moment, rough sketches, of robots fighting giant spiders in a King Kong/T-Rex Harryhausen type of way. The spiders, which are like the hounds of the aliens, erupt from the sand from underground tunnels. Originally I thought they were going to be robotic but the idea of having 'spiders from Mars' tickles me a bit more. And letsne honest, there's no way the ugly bastards are native of this world.

It's hard not to reference the great work done by Weta on Shelob, so as time goes on hopefully make the spiders more unique and alien.

SKETCHBOOK STUFF 3

2007-02-10T23:45:00.000Z

More zombie sketching in between pencils of the actual pages. This one Tria markers on 250gsm Bristol board. Nice and smooth for the markers, minimal bleed. Feeling more confident on this than on the layout paper. Used a new black permanent marker found in Hobbycraft, chisel nib one end, fine brush the other, but stil not quite thin enough for what I want. And its a bit big and unweildy for finer details. Hard to find a pen that is thin enough to get high levels of detail in and be quite flexible at the same time. Anyone have any recommendations let us know.

SKETCHBOOK STUFF 2

2007-02-03T21:07:00.000Z

Trying some different inking techniques as I'm redoing the pages on the zombie strip. This one using markers on layout paper.

SKETCHBOOK STUFF 1

2007-01-21T00:50:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: SUPERMAN RETURNS, John Ottman, 'Rough Flight'

Now that REDEYE 6 is off to the printers, I can get back to doing some drawing. As something of a ritual, I have a big cleanup of the drawing board and surrounding area (mostly because I'm a messy bastard). This time, with moving the final boxes into the studio, I had the added task of going through old sketchbooks and old correspondance that had built up over the last several years, keeping the important or sentimental stuff and shredding the rest. Three bin bags later, I saved a few interesting (to me at least) bits of pieces I thought I'd share before getting back to the Zombie strip which I'm redrawing from scratch.

NEGATIVE PRESS:
Before Engine, there was Negative Press, what was intended to be the imprint name for the comics i had planned. This was a drawing of me and Noel, a comic shop manager I worked for. Our story is told in Deviants: Freaks, Geeks and Berserkers, printed in Fusion Zero. I think Noel still has the original art.

THINGS THAT NEVER WERE:
At the back of Fusion Zero were a number of strips that I had planned or half scripted. Some made it like Black Harvest Moon and Thunderhide, some never did, some where merged into other stories over the years; all are copyrighted. And this isn't including stuff I have ready for artists. To highlight these:

Titan City: A series inspired by the art of Hugh Ferris, originally planned to be a steampunk version of Blade Runner before quickly realising that was a bad idea. Instead it was restructured into a series of ten volumes, each one representing a decade of the 20th century, and each reflecting the sci-fi visions of the time. Book one was fully scripted by Gary Simpson based on my notes, and evolved into more of a gothic horror. The second was to be set after the War of the Worlds, just because I love to draw Martian tripods. But then Scarlet Traces came out, and I don't know if I could ever hope to match that. Status: Waiting me to get off my arse and draw it.

The Monarchy: Was a pitch a few sentences long. From what I remember, something to do with a superhuman team running the world (see Nutopians). Then came Wildstorm's The Monarchy, tying into the Authority universe. Status: Remaining dead.

Kingdom/Knights Cross: Set sometime in a future dark age after a big apocalypse, and involving a religious crusade against... something. Very vague. Heavily inspired by childhood memories of a 80's tv series called KNIGHTS OF GOD. Status: The universe of Kingdom is to be seen at some point in the future of the Deviants storyline in Fusion. And its a bit more specific than the above.

Britannia: A spin off from the Deviants character, telling a three part story looking at the various incarnations of Britannia and her hosts. Status: One for the future for when Deviants gets to the right point.

Nutopians: Taking it upon themselves, twelve superhumans, called the Monarchy (see?) have eliminated war, poverty and disease on Earth, creating a true utopia. But why is reality shifting? Why do people start to remember a different history? What happened to the thirteenth member of the Monarchy? I don't know either yet. Status: Needing a rewrite.

I.E: Was a proposal for a sci-fi series that never arrived; Hinge is a future noir told over several parallel earths, the prologue of which was printed in Fusion 1; Prey was a grim vigilante series that never arrived; the concepts behind Four Freedoms, Byzantium and Fortress Europe all escape me, but they all conjure up different ideas now...

EGYPTIAN ROBOTS:
An all ages comic I'm developing for my nephew set in an Ancient Egypt that has robots and alien camel overlords subjugating the populace, using a far simpler style than I would normally draw with. Status: Roughed out.

GETH GHOULS:
An underworld story I'm developing set in the Seven Sentinel Universe. Status: Very sketchy.

Anyway, back to the hoovering.

THE CURSE OF INSOMNIAC

2007-01-16T06:00:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: Panic at the Disco- A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, 'The Only Difference Between Matrydom and Suicide is Press Coverage'

Another year, another issue of REDEYE.

For some reason I keep waking up at 2am in the morning this last week and being unable to get back to sleep (and with a distinct lack of whiskey and cigar supply), instead pottering about and catching up on bits of correspondance. And blogging, of course.

As hard as it is to believe, REDEYE 6 is at the printers this week, clocking in at 108 pages. The nightmare is (nearly) over. I won't quite believe it until it arrives warm and glowing in my hands in a few weeks, a mere 6 months later than intended. It's such an occassion we're planning a launch party.

Some of the full page spreads (the ones in the mag will be b/w, the ones in the CBR version will be colour):

And the two covers:

Yes there's two covers: the flip (back) cover this issue features Aleksandar Zograf's REGARDS FROM SERBIA, a new Top Shelf book out in February. We preview ten pages in what will become a regular feature in the mag.

The support from subscribers and readers, from industry pros and from retailers, all eager to read the new issue, has genuinely surprised and moved me; which makes the delays all the worse to bear. I never realised just how many people look forward to each issue.

To avoid the same problem happening for next issue due in May (colourfully billed as the Spring issue), I've already got a good portion of RE7 content in the bag with others coming in as I type: great interviews with Lorenzo, artist and co-creator of Malcolm Magic will be providing the wraparound cover, ten pages of preview art from the new MOON! series, as well as joining his brother Rob in discussing the last few years of their success; we also speak with New York cartoonist Liz Baillie, creator of My Brain Hurts; the Godfather of modern British Comics, Pat Mills, in an uncut, epic face to face interview done over two days; and creator of Matter, Irish cartoonist Phill Barrett among others.

This leads into an introductory article on the Secret History of Irish Comix, where over the next few issues we'll be spotlighting certain titles and creators. Other articles include Dave Baillie's Grammar of Comics; the 2000AD art of Ron Smith; a retrospective on the much loved Transformers Marvel UK comic; and we investigate the creation of LOOK AND LEARN in our History of Brit Comics series, a highly influential 1960's comic soon to make a comeback.

Again they'll be more as they come in. Anything you think we should be covering? Let us know.

2006-12-16T22:39:00.000Z

CURRENT SOUNDTRACK: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON 2, Bear McCreary, "Baltar's Dream"

Been a while since I've updated the blog, mostly because I've been busy trying to get things finished and I've got little new to talk about; still doing work on REDEYE 6 which never seems to end; still working on SEVEN SENTINELS and related websites; still doing bits for my own illo website (which I really need to sort out for next month), while returning to a day job. Of course when things are finished I'll add them up here. In the meantime, thought I'd do a list of what was memorable for 2006, best tv, comics, films etc, because I have bought and read a ton of stuff recently.

BEST TV: Without a doubt, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. The single greatest thing on TV this century. As much as I love the LOST shenigans, as gripping as Jack Bauer having another bad 24 hours is, and as frustratingly close to greatness SMALLVILLE teters, BSG blows them all out of the water with consistantly strong writing, inventive special effects, outstanding acting, and a score that I can listen to a thousand times over without ever getting bored. Everyone I've recommended BSG to has come away a frakking convert. This is simply what sci-fi should always be, but so very rarely is: a cracking drama. Go to www.scifi.com/battlestar.

BEST COMIC: There's been a good number of comics I've really enjoyed this year.

DMZ: Brian Wood is a creator I've only recently been introduced to (thanks Haroon, I owe you on that one), and I've been eagerly reading his back catalogue, without realising I already had his seminal CHANNEL ZERO. DEMO, SUPERMARKET and LOCAL soon joined it on my shelf. DMZ draws from so many historical sources and while commenting on current Neo Conservative fundamentalism in America, it just reminds us we see the same scenario time and again replaying through history. There's echoes of Beirut, of Gaza and Baghdad, but for me (and most telling) the parallels of Manhattan under seige with Sarajevo during the Bosnian war. Its an essential read. Go to www.brianwood.com.

THE ESCAPIST is so cleverly written by Brian K Vaughan, as the narrative snakes in and out of 'reality' of the comic creators and the characters within the very comic they're creating. It's something you could only do with comics, and I just hope the team come back for more after the initial run. Go to www.darkhorse.com

HELLBOY: It's Mignola. I don't need to say anything more. Got to www.hellboy.com.

THE GREAT GAME: Ian Edginton and D'Israeli could be the next Lennon and McCartney of British comics. Time and again they have teamed up to create some of the most beautiful comics I've ever read. KINGDOM OF THE WICKED is a masterpiece; LEVIATHAN is a small sliver of genius that deserves ten times the page count it was given in 2000AD, as shown by the recently released collection. But the highlight for me has been their WAR OF THE WORLDS trilogy. Beginning with SCARLET TRACES, the sequel to Well's book, the creators established a darkening British Empire using left over Martian technology to sustain its stranglehold on Earth. Then, midway through developing the sequel to that, they were asked by Dark Horse to adapt WAR OF THE WORLDS itself for a webcomic, which has recently been collected in glorious hardcover. Once again some stunning imagery and Ian Edginton adapts the text well, but it is merely a taster of what is to come in THE GREAT GAME. Set some years after the events of SCARLET TRACES, the British Empire have invaded Mars and have been fighting a brutal and pointless war. A journalist travels there to uncover the grim truth of a government not above killing its own soldiers to win the battle and the inevitable counter invasion. Much like LEVIATHAN, THE GREAT GAME is near perfect for a Wells fan like me. The only failings of these projects though are their short length; I'm not talkinga bout decompressed storytellingbut a more satisfactory resolution to the plots and themes which are introduced. THE GREAT GAME certainly features what I believe to be some of the greatest art of D'Israeli's career. I can't wait to see their newseries in 2000AD in 2007, called STICKLEBACK. Go to www.darkhorse.com for WOTW and www.2000adonline.com for LEVIATHAN.

BEST FILM:
2006 has been a weak year for films for me; the big ones like XMEN 3, MI3, SUPERMAN RETURNS, were all disappointments. THE DA VINCI CODE and ULTRAVIOLET are two examples of how NOT to make a film. V FOR VENDETTA was quite good, nowhere near as bad as it could have been, but it could never match the source material. KING KONG was enjoyable (whats not to like about a fistfight between a giant gorilla and three T Rex?) if overlong. Others I wanted to see, but didn't get round to it in time like CHILDREN OF MEN, CLERKS 2, THE BLACK DAHLIA, and NACHO LIBRE will be on my DVD list I think. Still a few more to get in before the end of the year.

BEST ALBUM:
Again I bought a hell of a lot of cds this year, but one that was definitely worth every penny was FOO FIGHTERS: SKIN AND BONES, an acoustic live album recorded in Hollywood. I actually only bought it after seeing clips on YouTube, recorded by fans. The DVD which also features the concert at Hyde Park is just as brilliant.

BRIT COMICS OVERVIEW:
There were times these last twelve months when I've looked at the quality of stuff coming from Brit creators and felt a tingle down my spine; the feeling you get when you've just discovered something immensely cool and want to share it with everyone. There seems to be this palpable sense of being on the verge of a revolution in Brit comics after too long in the wilderness, they'll be that one breakthrough title that spark it all off. The addition of two new conventions in Lancaster and Birmingham to the yearly schedule, and the ever increasing page count of REDEYE is just another sign of that.

Paul Rainey (www.bookoflists.co.uk) is a creator who deserves far far more attention, and I guarantee he'll be snapped up by the big publishers within the next two years.

Likewise with Lorenzo from Blink Twice, whose art and enthusiasm never ceases to amaze me.

Likewise with Daley and Dave from Brodies Law, whose passion for the medium is never short of inspiring.

Likewise with Matthew Badham who is helping to introduce MEGAZINE readers to the wonders of Brit comics.

Likewise with Shane Chebsey of Smallzone, who has consistantly gone above and beyond with promoting UK comics for the last 15 years, with a significant milestone reached this year with his mounting of the successful Bristol International Comics Festival (http://www.thecomicsshow.co.uk/) along with James Hodgkins, Andy Baker and Paul Birch. It was such a successful show that next years is guaranteed with huge names coming over from the US.

Likewise when I look at Ben Dicksons' FALLING SKY, or Marc Olivents SEVEN SENTINELS, or Dave Hitchcock's SPRING HEELED JACK collection, or... this could get to be a very long list.

I have a feeling that 2007 will be a landmark year for Brit comics. I don't why. I don't know how. But in 12 months time, I'll be looking back and saying, yep. That was a year that kicked arse. And you know, I may actually get REDEYE #6 out.

Have a great Christmas and a brilliant New Year.