Talent

For years I've been trying to improve myself as an artist. With every sketch/painting/comic page with the next being better than the last. You learn that there is never a "I've done it, I've reach end!!' kind of moment. Very much like when you finish school, you think that's you done with learning, only to find out it's actually the start of your learning experiences.
So going back to talent it's self. I do think some people have a natural talent for picking things up quicker than others, those that want to succeed at it try harder, even if its natural talent or acquired talent.
I am a member of a handful of sites dedicated to art in most of its forms, mostly to do with drawing/painting/design and so on. (you get the picture ;) ha) Any way, on one site, in particular such as deviantart, I'm not knocking the site for starters. My thing is it's such a shame to go on a site like deviantart where there are such amazing and talented people, to only get lost amongst the most absolute shit you have ever seen in your life. I was on there recently and it took at least 5 pages before I found anything remotely good. Again everyone has different skill levels, but you can see good work or loved work done by someone and enjoy it no matter the level.
I just think it's a shame to get a honey pot and have to lick layers of shit before you hit the honey it's self.

Heres a few things on there worth looking at at least.

http://www.deviantart.com/art/A-Kiss-438041324

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Fear-the-Bear-438041356

http://www.deviantart.com/art/Bats-425687379

http://alvinlee.deviantart.com/art/X-23-Tutorial-for-ImagineFX-404704887

copy and paste these, if you like it take some time and look through, unfortunately you'll have to look at total bollocks first (literally too)

ok thats my 'rant' over with

Coma patient

Does anyone else feel like their in a living coma? I know it can't just be me that thinks this. Most days I feel as if I'm just living and not truly alive. Following the herd on a daily bases.
I've grown up, to an extent, like I've reached adult hood and just stopped. There are people out there who are leading big lives. To put it in perspective, they are the leading role in a movie and I feel like an extra. How sad is that? To not only just be alive, just existing is all I seem to do.
Leave school, go college/university, get a job, start a family, die. Ok that's us in it simplest form, it's sad. I can't help but feel angry and frustrated about this fact. What pisses me off just as much is that I watch other people just getting on with it, like it should always be this way. WHO FUCKING SAID IT SHOULD!!!!
We all are living coma patients, we aren't just told what to do or think or even say, we're fucking lead there, just like cattle to be slaughtered. You want to know the worst thing? We let it happen, the only choice we seem to want to make is that we want to be lead about.
I'm not trying to put words in anyone's mouth, and I couldn't care what people say about this. I'm under no illusion that anyone reads this. But for those who found this buy mistake, I hope to piss you off or have you agree or disagree, it shows me there are other people out there who have at least one free thought.
What are we really? In the grand design of this thing we call life?
What are we really going to leave behind? We don't even know what we are doing.

One thing people do tell you is "life is hard" eh ok, why is it hard? What am I struggling to archive by this labour? Then watch their eyes glaze over, as the relisation that they have no fucking clue.
If you believe you really make your own choices, think about this. Why do you think that someone coined the phrase "step in line" I don't want to be in any line and dragged through a life I'm not really living.

Just look around you, really look. Take it all in, every last bit of it. You will one day wake up and think "what the fuck" With all the money or fame even family around you. Knowing your life has meant shit, is what gets to me the most.

What do we really have at the end of it all, where was we meant to end up?

I'm still here

Hello boys and girls.

It has been a while since I posted ANYTHING!!! I have no excuse, just been very lazy and putting things off.

So I thought I'd post a quick digital sketch up here today. This is my character Monkey. I'm currently writing his story (on/off) right now. This isn't his final look (close enough though). So enjoy comment and share (but don't steal)

have a good day or night where ever you are, until next time.

Pages

Here are just a couple of pages to the graphic I'm working on called Methazone. Pages 18 & 22 enjoy and let me know what you guys think.

Tonights Sketches

A couple of 5 minutes sketches done tonight before I do some real work.

5 Minute Sketches

A few warm up sketches.

Feeling it

For the last couple of months I've been viewing my work as hinderance rather than enjoying it, this didn't make sense to me as I have a deadline fast approaching (31 March) But yesterday something clicked and I was overloaded with an abundance of energy for my work.
So I got home after the day job and finished the layouts of the last 5 pages of the story. After I felt a great sense of accomplishment, yeah I know only lay outs but I felt jacked for it. I have about 10 pages to Ink, then the last 5 to pencil and ink.
On to pod that I started working on issue 2 of my own comic and a 6 page story both I will end up illustrating.

The 6 pager I want to post on here for all to enjoy, the other story I'm working on will hopefully be a pitch but fully formed, so all a publisher will have to do is print it. Any way thats way off so it's the here and now I need to work on. Tomorrow will consist of inking and writing.

Take care guys and gals

Awesomeness from Accent UK

ZOMBIES !!!!

ZOMBIES 2, aka 2OMBIES, is listed in the March Edition of PREVIEWS, so be sure to ask your local comic store to order a copy or two.

The advert itself can be found on Page 232 ...

Not sure why the advert has a 2 at the front and at the end of the title .. maybe it's so good that they wanted to mention it twice :o) ... great that it was awarded that little 'ZOMBIE - RIFFIC' tag though.

In related news, the sold out first edition, cleverly named ZOMBIES, is now available in digital form to be downloaded onto your iPADs etc through LUSH Comics. You can access them on the top right of this blog page.

Following a Theme

Another Sketch, fancied another female vampire.

Whole thing done in photoshop

Tonight's Sketch

I Finished my page for tonight, so I thought I'd do this.

New ultimate spider-man

The last few months I've been reading the New Ultimate Spidey, I have to say, AMAZING!!!! When I first heard about it I couldn't wait to read it. I'm not going to give an in-depth review on it, mostly just my own thoughts on it. Firstly he's mixed race, that alone as was a huge attraction, being from a mixed family myself. I guess alot of people weren't happy about killing off Parker, but in the 616 universe Parker is alive and well and he's the first and original. In my understanding what was the point of have two Univeres and two Parkers?? Why not in a new universe have a diffrent guy be Spider-man, nothing in the comic rule book to say this wasn't possible. Back to the book. The story it's self is solid, involving and pretty gripping. The art is well put together and enjoyable to just look at. Miles as a character had me off the bat, I knew from the first issue this was a book for me. As far as surporrtimg characters go we have his best friend who seems very in tense about Miles being Spider-man. As far as villains go, will Miles have his own rouges gallery? Or will he just go up against the same old Villians? Before Parker died I stopped reading ultimate Spidey, I found it stale and uninteresting. With the new one there's so much potential I'm always looking forward to the next issue. Well that's enough rambling from me, if any of you people out haven't been reading this book, you should be. What a great excuse for another Spidey movie ;) Take care

Light & Shadow part 1

This is very very basic, we first take a look at the eye socket and cheek area. This is going to just look at the human face in planes, such as flat and raised surfaces.
If you look at image 4, as you can see I've made my 'socket' using flat lines rather than how it should look with curves. This is how I go through sorting out the shadows in my images. With out the eye ball imagine the inside of the socket are two separate areas. So depending on how little 'light' there will be will depend on how much of the eye area you cover. The lined area is where the light would be hitting the area.
I know my explanation sucks, I really hope the illustrations help even a little. I will be adding the whole face front and profile view. If it doesn't make sense in any way (I'm sure it doesn't) just let me know.

Hey

Since my last post I've not really done anything, wish I could say I had. I've been really lazy with me comic illustrations for the last two weeks, though that is changing now. Ok right now I'm writing this and not drawing I get that.
I'm working on a story called 'Methazone' written by Andrew Harrison. I started this in September (I think), right now I can't tell you much, as I have only a few pages done. I will be doing pencils, inks and even some colour. I'm one of those guys that if I ask when it has to be done by then I'm told 'it's ok do it when you can' yeah you won't see it for a while. I stressed this to Andrew a little and we have an agreed deadline now, for me this is good as I have something to push me.

I have been toying with the idea if putting up a little light/shadow guide on the face, just to help people out there who have a hard time with lighting the face. So if anyone actually reads this let me know if thats something you'd like or if it's just a thumbs up idea.

laters.

Arc page 15

Blacksad

This was a gift for a friends birthday.

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Accent UK gets advert in Kick Ass 2 no. 4

Well, it's been quite the week for us at AccentUK.

Due to a favour done by Andy Bloor for Mark Millar, Mark has given us a page advert in Issue 4 of Kick Ass Vol 2.It's great exposure for us and we're really grateful to both Andy and Mark. We're lucky that Andy is such a talented designer type person ... as well as damn fine artist.In other news, Owen Johnson (writer up My Maker & I, which is a fabulous full colour one shot that is in production, with artwork by none other than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'Dan Duncan and colours by Matt Soffe) has been interviewed in Issue 1681 of Comic Buyer's Guide. It's always a challenge to fit everything into these interviews and mention everything but Owen does a great job. You can see more over on Owen's blog.


PREDATORS has hit the shelves of UK Comic shops, I've seen it with my own eyes, so if it's not in yours and you want to pick up a copy then have a go at the store manager. Sales were a little down on the books that have come before it, due I think to it clashing with DC's relaunch of all of its titles, so chances are you might not find it very easily. We will have copies for sale at the Leed's Thought Bubble event but it would help us out a lot if you'd get your comic retailer to get some copies through Diamond Distribution.

Some Warm up Sketches

From the Accent UK blog this month

PREDATORS have made it ...

Great news ... PREDATORS has finally made it into PREVIEWS.
Following a few months of problems at Diamond, with new staff etc, our latest anthology,PREDATORS is in issue 275 of PREVIEWS (August cover date) on page 224.

A great cover image from Kev Mullins with overall design by Andy Bloor accompanies the blurb by Colin, and it all looks very nice indeed.

We'll be going to print over the next week, and will be launching the book at the Birmingham Comics event at the end of August.

Daken

This sketch was done a couple of days ago, a warm up sketch all done using Manga Studio Debut 4, enjoy.

Not even a couch potato

For the last couple of years I've been working on a web comic titled 'Arc'. Sadly though the six issues that I'm illustrating are not finished, hell I've not even finished the 2nd issue yet. I could throw at you excuse after excuse, and to be fair this year had started with a major fuck up in my life, but I wont get into it here. But realistically It's out of pure laziness that I haven't finished, I keep putting it off "I'll do it tomorrow" or "I have to do this first". Not only do I do this with my art work, I seem to do this with everything, and it pisses me off. I need to focus, put my life back on track and get Arc finished, not just for me but for the people that might actually read it all 3 of them (ha ha ha, I so hope it's more).

So I'll leave this here and get on with it, hopefully I'll have better news on my progress.