Category: Blog

Pull List – October 2020

03/10/20

  • GIANT SIZE X-MEN TRIBUTE WEIN COCKRUM #1 MOORE VAR (W) Len Wein (CA) Tradd Moore (L) Clayton Cowles
GIANT-SIZE X-MEN #1 (pg 1 by @KevinNowlan pg 2 by @ChrisSamnee & @COLORnMATT lettering by @ClaytonCowles)

Looks like everyone had a blast reinterpreting this classic, fantastic stuff from everyone involved!

05/10/20

  • OLYMPIA TP (W) Curt Pires (A) Alex Diotto, Dee Cunniffe (CA) Christian Ward (L) Micah Myers
OLYMPIA TP by Image Comics (@CurtPires, @alexdiottodraws, @deezoid, @micahmyers)

Loved this! The pages positively krackle with silver age Kirby energy! Read the first issue online here and be sure to check out the process by Alex Diotto in the DEC 2019 issue of PanelxPanel.

07/10/20

  • WALKING DEAD DLX #1 CVR C ADLARD (MR) (W) Robert Kirkman (A) Tony Moore, Dave McCaig (CA) Charlie Adlard (L) Rus Wooton
  • FIRE POWER BY KIRKMAN & SAMNEE #4 (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson (L) Rus Wooton
WALKING DEAD DLX #1, FIRE POWER #4

Hadn’t intended on picking up the Walking Dead deluxe… but dayum! that cover by Charlie Adlard is awesome! I originally read this series in the collected hardbacks so it was refreshing to read issue one again as a single. I always really loved the black and white aesthetic of the walking dead (especially the greyscale work by Cliff Rathburn) so I was surprised how much I also enjoyed the fantastic colours by Dave McCaig. It’s staggering to think that McCaig has been steadily working on these deluxe issues for the last FOUR years! Whatever your feelings on the recolouring of the book, that’s a gargantuan undertaking, McCaig has completed 100 issues so far! There’s also new lettering by Rus Wooton to replace the original treatment by Robert Kirkman and a fresh design by Andres Juarez. Other additions include a variant cover gallery and a fascinating script breakdown by Kirkman in the back matter.

  • AUTUMNAL #1 CVR A SHEHAN (W) Daniel Kraus (A/CA) Chris Shehan, Jason Wordie (L) Jim Campbell
AUTUMNAL #1 (Daniel Kraus, Chris Shehan, Jason Wordie, Jim Campbell)

The first title under Vault‘s 2020 NIGHTFALL imprint is a dark atmospheric folk horror that oozes with the rural pagan weirdness of cult films like The Wicker Man (1973) and The Kill List (2011). If you’re not familiar with artist Chris Shehan I’d highly recommend reading MANDIBLE an eerie 3 page horror story about a dental practice mannequin written by Dillon Gilbertson with lettering by Cristian Docolomansky, just don’t have nightmares… chok chok.

14/10/20

  • DC THE DOOMED AND THE DAMNED #1

Fantastic halloweeny special from DC including the stand-outs “Baytor vs Darkseid” (W) Garth Ennis (A) PJ Holden, John Kalisz (L) Rob Steen and “From Humble Roots” (W) Amedeo Turturro (A) Max Fiumara, Dave Stewart (L) Aditya Bidikar.

  • TRUE LIVES FABULOUS KILLJOYS NATIONAL ANTHEM #1 CVR A ROMERO (W) Gerard Way, Shaun Simon (A/CA) Leonardo Romero

Lookit that art by Leonardo Romero, soooooo good!

30/10/20

  • SLIME TUNNEL by Gavin Fullerton

Visceral, claustrophobic… deeply unsettling storytelling available on Gavin’s gumroad.

Sketchbook 2020

I’ve put together a 16 page collection of drawings and illustrations from the last two years, check it out below or download the free pdf.

download

Darren-Reynolds-2020.pdf (approx 6.2 MB)

Pull List – September 2020

I’ve largely been reading digital comics in the last few years, only really picking up the occasional small press printed book from creators at comic markets or through their websites. It’s really a space thing for me, there’s only so much stuff I can keep and I’ve even been selling things online to reduce my collection. With lockdown though and everything else that’s going on (insert internal screaming) the urge to visit comic shops again has been reignited for me in a big way. Newsagents like WHSmith and Eason have already closed in Northern Ireland and some other small newsagents have paused their magazine sales entirely. Comic publishers and local comic shops are taking a HUGE hit right now and it really feels crucial to get behind them in whatever minuscule way I can. With that in mind, I’ve now got a regular pull list with a LCS and thought I’d post some of the stuff I’ve been reading the last few months… it’s all great btw.

15/07/20

  • NEGAN LIVES #1 (Jul 01, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A) Cliff Rathburn (CA) Dave McCaig (A/CA) Charlie Adlard (L) Rus Wooton
  • OBLIVION SONG BY KIRKMAN & DE FELICI #25 CVR A DE FELICI (Jul 08, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A) Annalisa Leoni (A/CA) Lorenzo De Felici (L) Rus Wooton
Negan Lives #1, Oblivion Song #25 by Image Comics (Skybound)

When I heard Cory Walker was returning to draw Science Dog again in Oblivion Song #25 I couldn’t wait to grab a copy, check out that cover!

Science Dog is back in Oblivion Song #25 by Image Comics (Skybound)

22/08/20

  • FIRE POWER BY KIRKMAN & SAMNEE TP VOL 01 PRELUDE (Jul 01, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matt Wilson (C) Matt Wilson (L) Rus Wooton
  • FIRE POWER #1 PROMO ED FORMERLY FCBD (Jul 01, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee (C) Matt Wilson (L) Rus Wooton
  • FIRE POWER BY KIRKMAN & SAMNEE #1 (Aug 05, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matt Wilson (C) Matt Wilson (L) Rus Wooton
  • FIRE POWER BY KIRKMAN & SAMNEE #2 (Aug 05, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matt Wilson (C) Matt Wilson (L) Rus Wooton

Absolutely loving Fire Power atm, the process pages from Kirkman & Samnee in issue 1 was an unexpected bonus!

Fire Power by Robert Kirkman, Chris Samnee with Matt Wilson and Rus Wooton
  • FCBD 2020 INVINCIBLE #1 (August 5, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Cory Walker (C) Bill Crabtree

So excited for the Invincible animated show, these designs by Cory Walker are awesome.

FCBD Invincible #1 by Image Comics (Skybound)
  • OBLIVION SONG BY KIRKMAN & DE FELICI #26 (Aug 12, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A) Annalisa Leoni (A/CA) Lorenzo De Felici (L) Rus Wooton
  • BIG GIRLS #1 (Aug 12, 2020) (W) Jason Howard (A/CA/C) Jason Howard (L) Fonografiks

Lorenzo’s fight sequences in Oblivion Song #26 are something else!

Oblivion Song #26, Big Girls #1 by Image Comics

12/09/20

  • FIRE POWER BY KIRKMAN & SAMNEE #3 (Sep 02, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matt Wilson (C) Matt Wilson (L) Rus Wooton
  • OBLIVION SONG BY KIRKMAN & DE FELICI #27 (Sep 09, 2020) (W) Robert Kirkman (A) Annalisa Leoni (A/CA) Lorenzo De Felici (L) Rus Wooton

17/09/20

  • STILLWATER BY ZDARSKY & PEREZ #1 (Sep 16, 2020) (W) Chip Zdarsky (C) Mike Spicer (A/CA) Ramon K. Perez (L) Rus Wooton

23/09/20

  • X-MEN MARVELS SNAPSHOT #1 (Sep 16, 2020) (W) Jay Edidin (A) Tom Reilly (CA) Alex Ross (C) Chris O’Halloran (L) Tom Orzechowski
  • SUPERMANS PAL JIMMY OLSEN #1 (OF 12) (Jul 17, 2019) (W) Matt Fraction (A/CA) Steve Lieber (C) Nathan Fairbairn (L) Clayton Cowles
Oblivion Song #27, Fire Power #3, Stillwater #1, X-men Marvels Snapshot #1, Supermans Pal Jimmy Olsen #1

Head shapes

Some inking practice in clip studio paint using the real g-pen (one of the default brushes supplied with the app). The aim of the exercise was essentially to improve my digital drawing by limiting myself to using only one brush. I love the default brushes in CSP and the real g-pen is one of my favourites. This page was completed over a couple of weeks by adding a few heads at a time usually for about 20 to 40 mins.

I had the urge to colour some of these and tried out a few palettes and added some rendering.

May 2020

I’m pretty pleased for the most part with my work from the last few weeks, I tried some new working methods and I gotta say I’m really enjoying inking at the moment.

Started off the month with a #MonsterMayhem art challenge prompt. I began inking without really figuring out the structure of the horns but the colouring was a lot of fun and I even added a little noise to the background for some texture.

Kermit turned 65! YAAAAAAAAY!!! The perfect opportunity to try out Matty B’s big wet set in procreate.

I LOVE this set! there’s sooo much variety and the included overlay layers are just amazing, a real quick and easy way to apply subtle textures.

I’ve also been using this inking brush set by Juan Albarran available now on gumroad for clip studio paint, favourites so far include the main brush, dry brush and rake brush.

Brush set for textured comic book inking in Clip Studio Paint by Juan Albarran

Here’s some quick tests using the set:

Big F@#k off Worms fan art sketches…

Fan art sketches of X-365 created by Neill Cameron.

Legacy of Kain sketches.

Current lockdown mood…

April 2020

#AlienDay sketches drawn in CSP using mostly default inking tools to get those nice chunky inks and colours.. that xenomorph blood sure is acidic!

April sketchdump… swamp guy, mister deaaathhh, dental dude.

Finally watched Primal!

March 2020

Been a hell of a month… hope you’re all keeping well, looking after yourselves and each other.

Drawing is my refuge in times like these so I decided to do something for #NationalPencilDay to take a breather, relax a little and get lost in some hatching.

I also drew a quick Buzz Chickson for a #drawthisinyourstyle challenge by Tim McCourt.

and some rough sketches…

Bags

DCAF Christmas Market Haul (2019)

Picked up a lot of awesome books and comics at DCAF this year, the first up on the reading pile is Bags by Patrick McHale and Gavin Fullerton. Gavin discussed some of his work on bags during a talk alongside Declan Shalvey and Phil Barrett at dcaf and I couldn’t wait to grab a copy after seeing some of the preview pages.

Such a great book, I just had to do some quick fan art sketches in procreate based on one of my favourite moments. It’s been a while since I’ve inked anything traditionally so I drew the layout onto watercolour paper before inking with a platinum carbon pen and brush for greywash and black fills.

Tutorials

I followed some clip studio paint tutorials by PJ Holden earlier today:

Featured in ImagineFX Magazine Comic Artist Volume 2 (2015)

I picked this up on a weekend break to Cork in 2015 for the Cork Comic Expo (still has the Eason price tag). The tutorials by PJ provide a fundamental breakdown of the techniques required to get started with comics in MS5 and there’s also a longer article later in the mag on How to create your own comic.

Here’s my notes from pages 20-23:

Despite my terrible lettering this has been a really useful exercise, I’ve got a much better understanding of how to colour in clip studio and I just love the simplicity of using less layers and following naming conventions.

If you’re not aware, PJ also has a plethora of fantastic advice and tips on his blog and twitter and I have every intention of trying each one.

In the meantime, I’m gonna go re-read Dept of Monsterology and then drool over PJ’s bits and bobs… er… I mean PJ’s Cork Expo sketchbook.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Dept of Monsterology: Monsterology 101 & Cork Scratchings: Bits and Bobs by PJ Holden