Old life drawings

Haven't posted anything in ages, so here's some old life drawings I came across the other day while looking for something else.

More Darrow

Here's some more pieces by Geof Darrow that were drawn for prints that he's selling at conventions. Geof very kindly leaves colour decisions up to me usually but he did request the Nixon piece to have a lot of blood!!

(Shaolin Cowboy © Geof Darrow. Nixon, Big Guy & Rusty © Geof Darrow and Frank Miller)

Breathing Space

Some pages of a 2000AD story, "Breathing Space", I coloured a few years ago drawn by Laurence Campbell--great solid drawing with clean storytelling. All I had to do was make sure the atmosphere felt right.

Bad Planet

Here's a trio of pages drawn by Greg Staples, coloured by myself, from the second of Thomas Jane's "Bad Planet" series, co-wrtten by Tom and Bruce Jones. Don't know when the actual series will be out on the stands but there was a give away version released at the San Diego Comic con which comprised of the whole first issue but some of the pages were presented, blue pencilling and all, shot straight from Greg's artwork before any processing was carried out, and some pages in their finished coloured state.

Retrospective "colour scripts"!!

I was recently reading Hans Bacher's Book "Dream Worlds" again, specifically a section on colour scripts. I first came across this idea in John Culhane's book on the making of Disney's Aladdin, where there's a photo of the colour script for the entire movie which consists very tiny frames that show no detail but the dominant colours of each scene in a continuity so the feel of each scene can be assessed together with those that both precede and follow it. I don't think anyone really has time to do this in comics but I try and think that way when I'm colouring my own work and when colouring other people's.
This all made me wonder if one could do a retrospective colour script to see if there is a feel of change between scenes, so I shrunk down a couple of stories and mosaic-ed that art to see if the changes of scene would still read. Below are a couple of Judge Dredd stories the first episode of Ratfink and the one off story "The Pusher". Haven't quite decide what I think yet!

I'm currently recolouring Frank Quitely's work for the Flex Mentallo collection and these ideas are particularly appropriate as the story chops and changes between locations and I feel that one of my responsibilities is to make sure that there is a distinct feel of location and atmosphere to each scene so the reader knows that panels separated sometimes by several pages are actually part of the same scene.

Out this week

The Alan Grant written Dredd story, "The Pusher", is out this week in 2000AD, with art by me. The pages seem to have printed a little on the light side if the copies I've seen are a fair representation.
So here's the last three, hopefully looking richer in colour on your monitor than in print.
But still, go out and buy it to read!!

Legends

I saw Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham at the Boardwalk in Sheffield years ago, such a small venue for two such massively talented and influential songwriters. A wonderful evening.

This is what they sounded like:

Old self portraits

One from 1994 when I had hair but wasn't as fat as I drew myself---a foretelling maybe!
And from 98ish done in a train carriage window trying to distract myself from a blinding headache.

Old & tired

From the brief spell when I worked at Henson's Creature Shop in Camden.
Can't remember what the project was, some movie that never got made I think.

This morning

Some drawings done as I walked to my office this morning. I saw the first house martins of the year, swallows and swifts will follow soon. Although it's a warm day in prospect, the early morning air had a cool edge and was slightly misty and damp, which noticeably cleared and heated up even in the time I took over my short walk. Lots of birdsong too, and I saw a rabbit on the muddy trail that forms part of my journey, don't know how cos my attention is usually focused on avoiding treading in any of the camouflaged dog shit!!

Horses

Drawn last year in a craft paper pad.

Dredd story

I've just finished short Dredd story coming up sometime soon written by Alan Grant, called "The Pusher".
Here's a panel which gives away nothing of the story…I hope!

A few more, slightly older

Some more from an older sketchbook, including a drawing of Alison Moorer singing,  the opening act for her husband Steve Earle at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, January 2008.

Out and about

Sketchbook drawings from the last year or so.

More Old Life Drawings

Drawn using various media, the last two were coloured digitally.