athene & conrad

athene & conrad, originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

Two problems with using friends as the basis of a character. The first is you get protective and don't want to do the things the story dictates, don't adhere to the natural place for that character. The second is last time I put my friends in a book (a sort of Stoppit and Tidy Up style children's book called 'Ichabod gets it Wrong') I ended up falling out with half of them, and the book kinda went in the bin. That's more a jinx worry, than a storycraft one.

Sort of forgot how to draw with this one. There's no pencil version, because it was more or less a painting that I put black outlines on. The sea was an experiment, which I'm very happy with. Think the layers of dark in the bottom right-hand corner give a half-decent illusion of depth. The rest sort of fell together after that. The likeness isn't so great, and I feel Athene lacks detail. Although it serves the character to put her in functional blacks, it's not very compelling as an image. There's not as much going on as there was for Katya or Catcher (which now I've said them both in my head are too phonetically similar to work.) I haven't found a way to do detail on a girl's face without making them look old or like men. Moo.

Athene counts as a grown-up character in the Boy and Dog Universe. She's one of the few people whose name carries in the wilderness world. I'm not going to say if she's good or bad. She is feared, and she has an agenda. Conrad is one of her many owls. He's a barn owl. He's a mouser and a look out.

Athene would appear in book two, I guess. (It's a trilogy, this saga I'm not writing.) I don't want to over-populate this universe. It's supposed to be dangerous and empty.

Drew this listening to Michael Kamen's score for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Which is so ace.

katya of the blue forest, and merlin.

katya of the blue forest, and merlin., originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

I reckon the weird formatting on Black Dog Vs. Ice Cream is going to cut half the detail off this one...but hey.

This is Katya. She's part of this Dog and Boy post-apocalyptic universe that has intruded on my imagination of late. (no name, as yet, for Boy, or his Dog.)

I'm not going to tell a story with Boy and Dog in it.

But for what it's worth, Katya is part of one of the last few Pony Tribes of the East. She lives in the Blue Forest, with her dad, Perun.

She has a pony, which I haven't named, because I'm not very good at naming ponies and horses. She also has a fox called Merlin, who is quite useful for finding things, but better yet at letting Katya know when danger is nearby. Katya has raised Merlin since he was very young.

It's traditional for this sort of character to be aggressive. The supporting girl in magic orphan stuff, feral and untamed. Thing is, I couldn't master drawing her scowling. I had to settle for smiling. She has a pony, after all, so I imagine she's quite happy.

She's got a gold sword. I guess she's handy with it, and she probably can fight and cover some of the bases of the strong girl stereotype, without being insufferable and angry all the time.

I didn't do any tracing on this one. Had a few photo references. Katya is undeniably modelled on a friend of mine, and I had to use photos for foxes, ponies, gold and for frost on trees. I also borrowed colour from a few sources, but I also made some stuff up. Foxes seem to be a lot more brown in truth, but it didn't translate as well so I lightened mine.

This is all done on Art Rage, which now I've learned a few tricks, lets me play with drawings in a way I can't manage in Photoshop. That said, I'll probably keep on doing Skullcopica in Photoshop, just for the precision.

I used the felt-tip pen tool for the most part, tidying up, and colouring in pencil tool free-hands. There's some chalk and paint in there, but not much. It gets all blended up. the tools are quite fun in that they pick up other colours and get mixed and streaky and you get unexpected results.

Listened to Pinkerton, "Heroes" and Strange Cousins from the West on this one.

Earlier versions are on my Flickr page.

catcher. final version.

catcher. final version., originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

So this is Catcher. I'm fairly sure he used to fly a helicopter. It got shot down in the last big battle of whatever catastrophe ruined the world. That's how he lost his arm.

His real name isn't Catcher. That's just what the Boy and his Dog call him (need to get them names. Keep saying that. Will have the Boy and the Dog named soon, promise.)

Catcher has a ferret; Svarožič, that he uses to find and bait other animals for him to trap. Svarožič knows his survival depends on tricking other animals.

I absolutely am not working on a story about a Boy and a Dog in a frozen wilderness. I have too much to do to get distracted by this.

I promise that Skullcopica is my absolute priority.

After Hollyoaks, of course. Worked until 00.20 on Thursday, issuing stories. By rights I should have rested this weekend. Here I am on Sunday night, 00.35, and I'm drawing.

I was going to watch The Rocketeer and eat chocolate. Maybe I'll get a chance on Tuesday.

Skullcopica is my absolute number one, don't-get-paid-to-do-it priority. Promise.

There's a couple of other versions of this on my Flickr, if you want to take a look.

catcher. Colour Test.

catcher. Colour Test., originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

Seeing what colours suit Catcher best. He's got a bit of a Doctor Doom thing going on with that green cloak.

Does he look like a baddie? The blood and machete oversells it and I probably won't keep either in the finished version. Grey skin doesn't work, either.

I think Catcher is a Russian. Or comes from what used to be Russia. He might not be a baddie. Maybe the boy and dog just think he is.

Need to get names for the boy and dog.

I haven't given up Skullcopica. It's just it's kinda work, and this is play. I didn't get in until about 21.00, and I'll be writing Hollyoaks for about ten hours tomorrow.

Bed time.

catcher. Rough.

catcher. Rough., originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

I did this guy without music. I get that wrong sometimes. I come home and I have an idea and I start work on it, and I tell myself to put music on. But then I tell myself I'll do it just as soon as I've done this bit, or that bit, and I just carry on.

This is how I forget to eat, as well.

This guy is Catcher. I think he is a villain of sorts in this wilderness world story I'm not writing, that has a boy and a dog in it. That I'm not writing.

He's only got one arm. I think.

This is not the finished version. It's just me working out a few things. He needs better trousers.

don't understand the evil eye, or how one becomes two.

don't understand the evil eye, or how one becomes two., originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

Less happy with this one than I am about yesterday's. Maybe because more planning went into this one. I knew I wanted to draw a man and a dog, wanderers, up on a hill. The sky I kinda made up. The sky is the bit I hate.

Was listening to No Quarter while I worked on it. That might account for why it feels New Age, but not why it feels a bit sucky. It makes me think of those t-shirts of wolves howling at the moon. I switched over to The Desert Sessions, but the damage had been done. I could throw a dragon on there and stick this on a weed tin, it's that big a cliche.

I think I did too many streaks. One would have looked like a shooting star and that would have been dorky. This meteor storm still doesn't say anything worthwhile, however. Also I needed more light by the wanderer's head. I do have a version that's just man, dog and hill against white. I might do another sky if I ever want to work backwards.

I guess it was theraputic to draw. You have no idea how much writing I have to do this week. If storylining built muscles, I'd look like Chuck Liddell by now.

A box to open up with light and sound.

A box to open up with light and sound., originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

I'm in danger of self-parody here.

An evening doodle. I had a Japanese thing in mind, but I was listening to Fever Ray as I drew and I think that stole from the east and set things in the north.

I used Art Rage for the drawing itself. The watercolour tool for the trees, the chalk tool for the sky and snow and the pencil tool for the shadows. Then I dumped it in Photoshop and threw a canvas effect over the top. Tried out a few colour variations, but I think the grey I drew it in works best.

Maybe one day I will draw a man and a dog to walk the woods.

"And with strange aeons even death may die."

doompegg, originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

I'm killing time because I'm expecting a phone call.

What I really want to be doing is watching Conan the Barbarian. Absolutely want to be watching that right now. But if I get the phone call I'm expecting, then I'll have to pause it and it'll not be the viewing of Conan the Barbarian I want/need.

I bet I just get a text, after all that.

Anyway. Not sure what I'm channeling with this one. H.P. Lovecraft, me & my usual sunny climate.

It's been a long week at work.

Ssspeakss fluent Ninja.

Cobra Commander (Time Waster), originally uploaded by Monsterwork.

Hallo.

I'm quicksanded in a script at present. To put a bit of distance between my brain and armageddon I did this quick Cobra Commander. It's not meant to be that polished, but I took more care with it than I wanted to.

Feels like I'm channeling Dave Johnson here. Maybe I'll give the guy an Ice Cream write-up in the next few days as my way of saying Thank you. So don't go Googling him or anything.

Really want to say "This, I command!" but that was Serpentor's catchphrase.

Co---braaaaaaa.

Hurlant.

Just riffs, really.

Taking a few minutes out from drawing the comic book to just noodle in another direction.

Distraction 1 from the crafting, strict handiwork was to do a looser, much more organic sketch of an idea for later on. I'm at a Hitchcock stage of drawing something step-by-step that I've had in my head in one form or another at least half my life. And it's fun to realise each page at a time (I don't plan past the present page, in terms of layout and defined action. I know the rough direction, but to keep things from going stagnant or me rushing to get ahead, I don't advance until a page is completed.), but my head will wander and get eager for the moments I know are to come.

So I just played with an idea for something that is still pages away. And in less than five minutes I reminded myself I can be a bit of a badass.

Sure. It's not much. If that was a convention sketch you'd be well 'Shit, I could have queued up for Tony Daniel instead of this.' But I'm pleased with myself that I could crank that out without photo references and without any tools past a photoshop brush at 48 pixels.

What's informing my imagination right now?

Michael Moorcock. He's long been an influence of mine. I'm currently reading Corum, which is another Eternal Champion story, joining the likes of Elric, Erekose and the awesome Hawkmoon on my bookshelves. Moorcock is one of those authors with a fantastic output; something like 200 books to his name. It's all the more interesting for me now while I write to formula every day, whether I agree with an idea or not, on Hollyoaks. But in addition to that facet, I enjoy the stories he tells, which by way of a simple (and I mean that in the way some of the best ideas are graceful by the ease with which you can explain them) device are all connected. The Eternal Champion stories overlap in such a way that they can be sequels, prequels and even re-makes of each other, the premise being that one hero is repeated over a myriad of lifetimes and planes, doomed to serve a purpose in the battle between law and chaos. The Eternal Champion will encounter villains and companions that are present in other books and sometimes even call upon the other incarnations of himself for help.

In some ways it reminds me of the Mad Max trilogy. In the sense that they are not strict sequels to one another. They have the same character at the heart, who is tested by similar situations, and is even given a companion of sorts (or at least a figure of dubious allegience who presents Max with opportunities to prove his morality) in the Gyrocaptain/Jedediah the Pilot. But Max the man/name is the only constant across three films. (The other similarity is to the Dollars trilogy, where the Man with No Name (or is it? Because I'm sure he's Joe in one and Blondie in another...) is the fixed point, but doesn't carry anything from one story to the next beyond his ruthless function. (El Mariachi does this a bit more deliberately, I think. A purposeful homage to Leone's loose trilogy.)) If Fury Road was indeed to be set some 4,000 years from now, you could still have Max in it, because he is a mythic, eternal champion. (Although I think the journey is complete. He loses and then regains his humanity in three films. There's nothing we need past that silhouette at the end of Thunderdome.)

The Secret Tower of the North owes something to Moebius/Jean Giraud. The crystal architecture. I used to have a portfolio of his, that I think is lost to time and loft of home. I've not seen it that last few times I've visited mum and dad, it may well have gone with some old magazines to be pulped. All the more tragic because I'll never know. His comics are ridiculously overpriced on Amazon. Of note - Michael Moorcock created a character called Jerry Cornelius that was supposed to be a kind of open source creation - a creator was free to write him and do what they want. M. John Harrison (who wrote Viriconium and other notable sci fi.) wrote a Jerry Cornelius book and Moebius wrote and drew Airtight Garage which feature Jerry Cornelius too. Moorcock later revoked the scheme and later prints of Airtight Garage call him by another name (Jerry Cornelius, and similar aliases turns up in one guise or another in the Eternal Champions saga). Moebius is easily within my top five comic book artists of all time. And he is a concept designer, which is something I always go giddy for.

Dune Stuff

Official Site

The effortless way he draws without having to do endless bubbles for proportions etc...I'm moved by it. I suppose in the same way an amateur athlete can watch sport with a respect that goes beyond aspiration. It might be like that. There's a definite emotion that comes with watching a master at work, when it is something you consider to be your shared field.



Not quite sure what this is, but it frightens me. In a good way.

What I admire right now in artists is the shorthand for visual information. Two others on my top five - Mike Mignola and Bryan Lee O'Malley - can do this thing that I can't. Confidently draw in less detail, and still translate all they need to. Be it something in the distant, or moving fast, or just for dramatic effect. As simple as my art looks, I can't really simplify it further and get across what I want to. My faces can't get any less sophisticated (for want of a better word. Can't get any less basic...) and even then, the proportions seem to get fucked up from panel to panel. Envy. Envy. Envy. I could go in the other direction and go all Geoff Darrow (Not in my top five, but much respected all the same. Google him) but a. I'd never finish the first panel. b. I'm shit at drawing.

Jean Giraud worked on Blueberry. The Western comic book. It's pretty damn sweet. You should look into it.


Moebius also worked on concept design for Les Maitres Du Temps, and I'm going to leave you with the elegant, if somewhat repetetive Jean-Pierre Bourtayre theme music, as I float up to my sky desert on a mechanical bird.



Oh, and these are nice too. There's a Moebius in there somewhere.

http://conceptships.blogspot.com/