There’s a dark and mysterious shadow across this world that calls itself Sandy Bouttell.  You should check it out.

Sandy is responsible for 2 of Kreepy Kat’s most disturbing adventures (and that’s saying something…), the unsettling abortion strip and the infamous Frederick incident.

His blog is the Hairy Jam Bear, which may cause paralysis of the soul.

He also makes bloody good animations, like the ones below.  Gaze upon them and despair.

Did this yesterday as another experiment with the new brush pen.

The whole idea of this was to draw, ink and colour it as quickly as possible to try and loosen up my art style a little.  I’m not sure it really worked - it’s still nowhere near as sketchy as I wanted it to be - but I’m still pretty happy with the final pic anyway.

The inspiration for this was pretty much halfway between Jim Mahfood’s sketchy graf girls and Guy Burwell’s disgustingly awesome band action-shots.

Here’s the original inked drawing and a couple of Photoshop process pics.

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…

Finally… FINALLY finished my MPhil animation project.  After a whole year dedicated to this I’m not sure what to do with my time.

It’s inspired by 1930’s American movie serials and features robots punching dinosaurs.  What else do you need to know?

Now… can anyone out there give me a job…?

Getting near the end of my uni course… soon to be in desperate need of cash.  So, naturally, I thought I’d apply to work for Tharg at the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic.

Which means, in case you’re not a geek, 2000AD - British sci-fi anthology comic, home to Judge Dredd, repository of some of the best comic writing and artwork ever and, along with my parents and Star Wars, one of things most responsible for warping my childhood brain into the sorry state it is today.

Here’s some previews of the pages I’m planning to submit.  I’m not particularly expecting anything to come from it - I suspect cold submission without meeting people face-to-face at conventions and the like is always going to be extremely difficult, but if you don’t ask, you don’t get.  Plus, just drawing something outside of my usual subject matter has been a really steep learning curve.

More heavy Mignola influence in the shadows and inking style here.

A wee Kreepy Kat animation to celebrate his 200th strip.  Check out his website at kreepykat.com

Why, yes, I have been watching the Life and Times of Tim recently.  Why do you ask?

Anyone who knows me, or has met me, or sat next to me on the bus, knows that I worship at the altar of Hewll.  Jamie Hewlett has been my #1 artistic inspiration since I saw his illustrations in computer mags as a wee guy.  Which, of course, makes it frustrating that he is now a global illustration superstar thanks to the Gorillaz, and everyone else is copying him as well. Especially when they do it better than me.

Anyway, Jim Mahfood is a comic illustrator I first saw drawing Clerks comics about 10 years ago, and I have to admit I didn’t really like his style that much.  Since then, however, it seems that he has alternated his time between staring at Hewlett drawings and getting really, really f*cking good at drawing.

Samples of his stuff below: check out more work at his website here and his blog here.