Alas, poor Yorick!

Inspired by PJ Holden’s thumbprint brush for CSP I created a very simple spiral brush to play with some shading. Gotta say it’s a really nice effect that instantly improved the solid blacks on this.

Corona colour

Just a wee colouring practice page cobbled together from old head sketches in CSP. I inked and coloured the heads individually spending about 20 to 40 mins on each until I filled the page.

Rusty cage

A wee 2021 sketchdump… sadly, not much time for drawing this year.

Quite a few months between these but I had fun with the Audrey II sketches… Feeeeeed me Seymour!!!

Been feeling a little aimless with my inking this last year, a little bored with the lines I’m putting down. This page was an attempt to concentrate on pencilling again, to shake the rust off.

One Love

PJ Holden kindly offered up some more inks for colouring on his blog and I couldn’t resist. Give it a go too why don’t cha, I’d love to see some more approaches to this sublime wee one pager.

We’re jammin’

The latest Colorist Jam is Captain America by Brent Schoonover.

I really enjoyed colouring PJ Holden’s work last month and I’ve been looking for similar sketches to practice on. Colorist Jam is always popping up in my timeline so thought I’d give this month’s Cap a go. Spent about 30 mins on it altogether (including flatting for Clip Studio) using a conventional palette with a texture overlay.

Is it Alien day yet?

PJ Holden posted an awesome Alien on Friday and kindly offered up the inks for colouring.

Would’ve been just swell if he also offered up the flats too (just kidding PJ). I really enjoyed this, it’s prob the first time I’ve tried colouring someone else’s work and I spent just under 30 mins on it altogether. I produced the flats in CSP using the workflow from PJ’s Imagine FX tutorial and briefly considered exporting the file for use in Procreate to just go crazy with texture and brushes. I quickly changed my mind though and imported an overlay texture layer after I worked out my palette and added shading, etc.

Pull List – February 2021

02/02/21

  • Origins #3 (of 6) (W) Clay Chapman (A/CA) Jakub Rebelka, Patricio Delpeche (L) Jim Campbell
  • Fire Power #7 (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson (L) Rus Wooton
  • Grit #2 (W) Brian Wickman (CA) Mark Laszlo (A) Kevin Castaniero, Simon Gough (L) Micah Myers
  • Barbalien Red Planet #3 (W) Tate Brombal (A/CA) Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Jordie Bellaire (L) Aditya Bidikar

05/02/21

PanelxPanel #43 (February) Year in Review

07/02/21

  • Modern Masters Vol. 04 Kevin Nowlan (W) Eric Nolen-Weathington (A/CA) Kevin Nowlan

Kevin Nowlan celebrated his 63rd birthday and I finally grabbed a copy of Modern Masters Vol 4 from Twomorrows Publishing. I’ve been after this in print for a while now but it’s damn near impossible to track down at a reasonable price. Thankfully the digital edition is great and available here for purchase now.

13/02/21

  • Hellboy Complete Short Stories TP Vol. 02 (W) Mike Mignola, Joshua Dysart (A) Richard Corben, Scott Hampton, P. Craig Russell, Kevin Nowlan (A/CA) Mike Mignola

14/02/21

  • The Walking Dead – The Alien HC (W) Brian K. Vaughan (A/CA) Marcos Martin (C) Cliff Rathburn (L) Rus Wooton

This is superb, an absolute joy for fans of TWD or Panel Syndicate, highly recommended!

01/03/21

Declan Shalvey included the process and thumbnails for Immortal Hulk: Flatline in this months PanelxPanel craft corner. The moment below put a massive smile on my face and I laughed like an idiot when I saw it again in print.

February 2021

Very quick fan art of Matt Garvey from back in October, drawn in procreate.

Some other stuff from the sketchbook…

Pull List – January 2021

13/01/21

  • Sentient (W) Jeff Lemire (A/CA) Gabriel Walta (L) Steve Wands

15/01/21

  • Redfork (W) Alex Paknadel (A/CA) Nil Vendrell, Giulia Brusco (L) Ryan Ferrier

20/01/21

  • Hicotea HC (W) Lorena Alvarez (A/CA) Lorena Alvarez

Couldn’t resist picking up some titles from the recent TKO STUDIOS sale on comixology.

Hicotea, the follow up to Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez was a lovely surprise gift from my wife, highly recommended.

Pull List – December 2020

17/12/20

  • Solid Blood #17 (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Ryan Ottley, Cliff Rathburn (L) Rus Wooton
  • Barbalien Red Planet #2 (W) Tate Brombal (A/CA) Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Jordie Bellaire (L) Aditya Bidikar
  • Fire power #6 (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Chris Samnee, Matthew Wilson (L) Rus Wooton
  • The Plot #7 (W) Michael Moreci, Tim Daniel (A/CA) Josh Hixson (C) Kurt Michael Russell (L) Jim Campbell
  • The Autumnal #3 (W) Daniel Kraus (A/CA) Chris Shehan, Jason Wordie (L) Jim Campbell
  • I Walk with Monsters #1 (W) Paul Cornell (A) Sally Cantirino, Dearbhla Kelly (L) Andworld Design (CA) Nathan Gooden, Tim Daniel
  • Origins #2 (of 6) (W) Clay Chapman (A/CA) Jakub Rebelka, Patricio Delpeche (L) Jim Campbell
  • Crossover #2 (W) Donny Cates (A/CA) Geoff Shaw, Dee Cunniffe (L) John J. Hill
  • Stealth TP (W) Mike Costa (A) Nate Bellegarde, Tamra Bonvillain (L) Sal Cipriano (CA) Jason Howard

Fire Power #6 was EPIC! such a great end to the second arc, the choreography by Samnee continues to blow my mind with each issue.

Finally got my hands on a print copy of Stealth by Mike Costa, Nate Bellegarde, Tamra Bonvillain, Sal Cipriano & Jason Howard. I’m a HUGE fan of Nate’s work so I was ecstatic to learn about this series and his return to drawing comics at Image again after his outstanding run on Nowhere Men. If, like me you missed out on Stealth due to lockdown/speculators I’d highly recommend picking up this trade.

Solid Blood #17 was a MASSIVE surprise this month, an awesome homage by Kirkman, Ottley & Rathburn to all the early 90’s Image books that defined the period. It’s clear Ryan Ottley had a blast here with overly elaborate character designs, splash pages and his signature spatter practically featuring on every page. The inks by Cliff Rathburn are equally impressive, his colouring perfectly evokes the retro style of books like WildC.A.T.S, Stormwatch, Prophet, etc… and THAT paper, oh boy… just glorious… so great to read a book printed on newsprint again!

  • Batman Black and White #1 (of 6) (W) Various (A) Various

I love collections like this, different interpretations of a well known character by various creative teams/creators. I’ve read the previous volumes and couldn’t resist grabbing this latest issue as I’d already seen some previews of Greg Smallwood’s art for “Metamorphosis” written by G. Willow Wilson with letters by Clem Robbins (above).

  • Wonder Woman Dead Earth #4 (W) Daniel Warren Johnson (A/CA) Daniel Warren Johnson, Mike Spicer
  • Hedra (W) Jesse Lonergan (A/CA) Jesse Lonergan
  • INVINCIBLE #1 (LCSD 2020 GOLD FOIL LOGO) (W) Robert Kirkman (A/CA) Cory Walker

29/12/20

  • 2000 AD #2212 XMAS 2020 SPECIAL (W) Various (A) Various
  • Katsuhiro Otomo (Seisei) (French) Paperback (W/A/CA) Katsuhiro Otomo
  • Nightlights Vol 1 (W) Lorena Alvarez (A/CA) Lorena Alvarez
  • Marvel Greatest Comics: 100 Comics that built a universe (W) Melanie Scott, Stephen Wiacek

Got some great gifts this Christmas, hope you all had a good one!