For various reasons I took nearly a month off of drawing anything recently, and getting used to the pencil again has been weirdly awkward.

No new finished stuff to show you, but here’s some of my practice sketches, trying to get back into the swing of things.  The first page was particularly horrible to draw.  Which is why some of it is shite.

Recently bought a Pentel brush pen in the hope of easing myself into proper brush inking - instead of pen inking - since that’s what professionals and grownups are supposed to do.

Here’s some early attempts at using it (not my first attempts, which were, of course, shit).

Learning the technical skill of managing the flow and thickness of the lines will take me a wee while but actually seems easier than I thought it would be.  The real problem is going to be changing my whole mental approach to inking - I think I’m far too anal and precious about getting it exactly right, and I’m hoping that the brush will help me free things up and get a little more sketchy.

Then again, the reason I’m so particular is that I don’t think I’m the kind of naturally talented artist who can just whack out sketches that look great.  I really have to work hard to make things… not shit.  So we’ll see.

Also here is a sketch that will probably be a new Lusi pinup in the next couple of weeks.  Still trying to create my own set of esoteric symbolism…

Here’s some of my preproduction artwork for my final year animation project (see the final thing here)

Specifically here’s some preliminary character concept sketches and some storyboard pages.  I wouldn’t try to follow the story though - the panels aren’t in order…

Being kept busy with my animation and a new house just now, but here’s a couple of sketches just to keep the ball rolling.

First, Jack Dragon, my Indy knock-off. I’d love to do a comic of this guy at some point, he’s fun to draw.

And next, a couple of sketches from my next Lusi Sulfura comic. I’m trying something new with this, drawing all the images I need on various scraps of paper and putting them all together in photoshop rather than laying everything out on the page at once. I’m hoping it’ll keep the drawings fresher and hopefully stop me being too precious about reworking stuff that’s not up to scratch. The only problem is that I need photos of a glorious sunny day for the backgrounds, but it looks like summer in Glasgow is long gone…

More and more and more sketches… actual finished pics coming soon, I promise. Unfortunately my animation project is sucking every last scrap of my free time into itself like a big bastard black hole.

In the meantime, enjoy.

Too busy with my MPhil animation to be doing much artwork just now, but here’s some more rough sketches just to keep the blog ticking…

This week, I’m obsessing over the disgustingly talented McBess.  His music’s good, his illustrations are great and his animations are phenomenal. God damn him.

A couple more geek-out fan sketches, both from the sci-fi comic anthology 2000ad, which had a huge impact on me as a kid.

First up, Nemesis the Warlock, a morally ambivalent Alien anti-hero.  Second, Rogue Trooper, a genetically engineered future soldier.  This version of the character is taken from the brilliant War Machine reimagining of the character in the 90’s by Dave (Watchmen) Gibbons and Will Simpson, which revamped the character from adolescent boys-own adventure stories into a more adult, bleak and ultraviolent future war story, and is one of the most criminally underread and underrated comics I’ve ever seen.  Quick word of warning though, only read the original War Machine story - every subsequent story (all by different creative teams) was pretty weak.

I was originally hoping to finish off the Rogue Trooper sketch into something complete but I don’t know if I’ll find the time any time soon.  I’ll hopefully be posting more finished pics and fewer sketches over the next couple of weeks.

Just another set of random sketches from over the weekend, which might turn into something later on… but probably not.

Two bits of uber-geeky fan art for you here.  I did the Spock sketch after the I saw the new Star Trek movie this weekend, which is superb - pretty much a perfect reboot.  I always loved the daft pop nonsense of the original series and hated the lumbering po-faced morality of all the later spinoffs.

The Buffy sketch is because Buffy kicks ass.  I was always under the impression that it was a shallow teenage geekfest until my good lady made me actually watch it, and now I’m one of those annoying pr*cks who won’t stop trying to tell everyone how amazing the writing is.

Just a couple of sketch pages I did over the weekend before I caught a dirty cold.  Oink oink.

I like the sketch of the Frankensteins - I’m hoping I can find the time to clean it up and colour it into a finished picture.

I’m binging on The Wire just now, which is just ridiculously good.  This scene is so good it felt like a religious experience.

All part of the Game, no doubt.

Another experimental pic that started as a doodle this weekend, trying out some new techniques - in particular the cartoon-style vector block shading, which I’ve been meaning to try for years.  I’m really pleased with how it turned out but I think the vector stuff would have been a hell of a lot easier with a graphics tablet instead of a mouse.  Anyone want to buy me this? Or THIS?

Sam Mckenzie is still inspiring me a lot; you can see it here in my colouring.  Check out this great pic for a quick comparison.

Also, here’s the sketch page where this gal came from: