MOAR PAGEZ!

Well, technically that should be 'MOAR PAGE' as there is only one today. But don't fret- there will be another on Thursday, which should keep the Dens of this world happy at least.

This is page 2 of DECONSTRUCTED. Below are the rough pencils, and the final version, which you will see have hardly changed at all.

So those are the originals roughs, obviously...

And these are the finals. Let me know what you think, more to come on Thursday.

P.s. Those who follow me on Twitter may recall I recently found my old school yearbooks. You'll be glad to know I fully intend to humiliate myself (and possibly a few others)

Time Is The Fire In Which We Burn

Considering my dayjob title is 'Sales Consultant' (Admin Sales now) I tend to spend a disproportionate amount of time on the phone on hold or just sitting around waiting for customers to actually take the leap and decide the best way to buy a phone is to actually come into the store.

Most of the other staff spend this kind of downtime messing around on their iPhones or pestering friends on facebook.

I get creative. Now I'd love to be able to say I have a mature attitude to doodling but the fact is, when I'm bored, its girls, guns and robots that tend to come to mind. Ive already shown you a few robots , so here's a couple of the girls.

Now because these are just work place doodles and done in biro no less, they are obviously not as polished or well posed as normally my pics would be. Also because they're drawn on a flat desk they tend to have a stretched look to them. I prefer working on an inclined board or in my lap.

In short, these aren't my best work, but I thought you might like to see what drifts through my head on a slow work day.

This one in particular irks me. I managed to make a sniper rifle weightless. Annoying, but in biro, what's done can't be undone.

Blast from the Past, Yes?

I got promoted at work the other day.

Wheeeeee, great.

Of course while the kick up the arse of my stagnant salary is welcome it does mean that things have been a little stressy of late, what with me running around like a panicked chicken trying desperately to upskill for the position I have to assume in two weeks (not easy when you consider that one of those weeks will be spent on holiday).

This has lead to a lot of late nights and early mornings, hardly condusive to the production of 'MOAR PAGEZ' as my DECONSTRUCTED editor Den (channeling the spirt of a pimply internet- spreaking teenager) constantly badgers.

Possessed by a need to draw but having neither the time nor the energy to crank out the latest DECONSTRUCTED page, I scrawled out the above doodle during the mindshattering drama of South Africa vs. Uraguay.

Now anyone who grew up in the nineties will recognise the fellow above as Death's Head II and his trusty sidekick, Tuck. For anyone not in the know DH2 was a creation of Marvel UK during the early nineties who bounced around time fighting various well known (and plenty of not so well known) baddies from around various Marvel franchises.

Many despise DH2 for replacing the original wise cracking smartly written DH but I always had a soft spot for Big Blue for a number of important reasons. Firstly, he was the figurehead of the Marvel UK pantheon during the formative years of my teens. Secondly he looked totally badass and thirdly, and perhaps most importantly; whilst the original DH was a quipping, one- lining sociopath and DH2 tended to be a little less complicated he scored over the older, smarter incarnation when it came to sidekicks.

The original DH had Spratt- an ironically bumbling street kid who DH claimed to openly despise but secretly harboured a soft spot for.

DH2 had Tuck- a bio- engineered love slave turned amazon with a taste for skimpy clothing and heavy artillary.

I was 14. Do the maths.

The Internet Told Me To.

So, totally out of order; here's page one! First the roughs:

And then the finals:

You'll notice very little difference in the composition between the two, although the Donkey has undergone some cosmetic polishing. The main difference is that the finished pencils are drawn using three point perspective, which required the use of so many construction lines that halfway done the piece looked like the work of a demented but very spatially aware spider. I also got rid of the Donkey's snowplough, mostly because although it had a kinda cool retro cow-catcher look to it, in practical terms it served no purpose- in fact it was positioned in such a way as to move snow into the path of the tracks.
More to come soon. Den has found me on Twitter so now there's no escape from his 'encouragements'.

I, Robot(s)

Fuck Blogger. Fuck it in it's stupid ass.

As soon as I work out a practical replacement I'm moving this blog to a different host. The Java powered editor I use to write this is a ghastly fuck of a git. Using it is like a punishment. Wrote a full entry this morning before work, in the hours that I think are some of the most important of the day, the ones that set your mood for the next eight hours or so and was very happy with it. Then I tried to upload my work and the stupid bastardfuck decided to instead irradicate my hard work and put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. Pity. It was looking so good until then.

Here's some bloody robots. First two black ballpoint doodles from work. Second two out of sketchbook. Want more description?

Tough.

Blame Blogger. Dumb piece of shit.

Canvas

What? A post? Here? From Me?

That's right peeps, I'm back and no amount of work related worries, finacial woes or Xbox releases are going to stop me this time!

Met up with the awesome Den last week and had a good old chinwag about numerous things, like two friends who haven't seen each other in nearly a decade might be expected to do. Most important and exciting of which was obviously our treasured project, DECONSTRUCTED.

Its been nearly three months since I posted my rough pencils for the first half of issue one and I'm please to give you the first page of final pencils that I've produced. Below is the rough for page 9 for reference so you can see the changes I made to the final version.

Now its probably handy to give you a couple of bits of information about me. 1.) I work almost exclusively in A4. 2.) I almost never produced finished work. 3.) I very rarely place my characters in an environment.
Now knowing Den was going to need some exciting pages to show to potential publishers I decided to throw myself in at the deep end by drawing the most action packed page out of my section of the book; page 9.
More of a challenge than I imagined. turns out my roughs were a little basic in composition so I made a couple of cinematic changes- switching in a few close ups to pull the reader into the scene and breaking up the linier setting with some more exciting angles. Took much longer than I expected and a couple of high profile Xbox releases ended up battling for my attention. In the end I ended up making a new playlist for my iPod entitled 'Youthful Dreams of Success' containing all the music I used to listen to back in the mid 90's when I first invisioned being a comic book artist. These tracks were the same ones I used to listen to while hunched over my parents dining table creating some of the characters you may have already seen on this blog and it was amazing to see the psychological effect those tunes had. I found myself enthused as I haven't been in months with that same naive energy I had in my teens.

The energy it turns out is still there, just buried under tonnes of adult concerns which mostly amount to issues about what I am, not who I am.
Turns out that even if my adult life gets mired in mediocrity on a day to day basis I still have the power, as do we all, to escape into imagination and what is even better; I can put it on a page. Never realised until now how grateful I am for that.
Still wish I could play the guitar though. Stupid little hands.

Down a Hole.

Ha! At long last the much anticipated, much delayed second part of DECONSTRUCTED issue 1 is here! Featuring much more action than the first part as well as a whole number of perspective related problems; seriously- setting an action scene in a ribbed corridor? That's just mean!

Page 8

Page 9

Page 10

Page 11

Page 12

Think I need to do some proper design work on those cryo pods before commiting to the final pencils- sometimes I wish I had any skill at all with 3d modelling; it would make many elements a heck of a lot easier to cope with!