PROCESS

"I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process."

-Vincent van Gogh

Right then. Here's the process I used to create Plate 2 of Page 26 of "Who Killed Round Robin?"

Starting with the concept - I wanted to elaborate more on what happens to people who witness the birth of an Outer God without the proper protective eye wear and seized my chance when I noticed that because of Woodrow Phoenix's perception of what I'd drawn earlier he'd drawn a previously faceless character with a face again ... and from that I got my idea. How we perceive one another's contributions is obviously just one part of what shapes the story, with people interpreting what has gone before in ways that a contributor might not have imagined in the first place. So I figured I'd find a way to cement the original intention a bit more concretely (excuse the pun).

Also I wanted to reintroduce a concept contributed by Colin Fawcett all the way back on page Page 15 (plate 3). We'll likely catch up with Cockrell and Stone's progress at some point (one would certainly hope), but I quite liked the notion that people could be used like trained circus fleas. So I started sketching. And as with most of my WKRR? contributions I just have time for one shot at it, so pretty much what you see is more or less what you get. Straight out of the tin, as 'they*' say.

Once I got the general idea down I then inked it thus ...

.... using Manga studio for the nice big brush lines. Manga Studio is all levels of awesomeness. Try it out. Took me about fifteen minutes to ink fully then on to the crosshatching.

Basically, creating a new layer I went Robert Crumb Crazy. Manga Studio organizes your work into layers... much like photoshop, which is handy as I'll explain in a minute. I then worked into the cross hatching with an erase tool and erased small ember like dots. more on that cross hatched layer in a mo...

I then exported the file into photoshop (you can export your work, layers intact, straight out of Manga Studio... did I mention how marvelous Manga Studio is?) and did a quick color rough which, when I'm doing round robin work is finished colors... but I do probably take a little while longer coloring than I do inking. It's the bulk of the work in fact. I basically color the whole thing quite baddly, with only a rough idea in my head of the contrast I want. So the colors will be quite primary to begin with. Then I isolate areas of the color and tweak them using 'photo filter' in photoshop. Which washes colors through with either a uniform warm or coldness etc. Cyan photofilter is great for deadening flesh tones if you're doing a zombie comic etc. I then pass the whole thing through a photo filter tonal wash to ensure the color is equally distributed. So the over all image feels either warm or cold or dead even. I enjoy this process way to much. It's my favorite part out of the entire coloring process. No idea why but its totally my bag. In the previous panel Penney has set the alien on fire so we loose the usual colors for this environment.

And then I take my cross hatched layer, remember that? Hopefully I haven't lost you by now with all my talk about photo filters... anyway, I switch that to an overlay channel and it burns over the image quite nicely. Then, on a layer over the original inks I drop the oppacity and work glow into the eyes of the damned and the lighting.

I add two additional layers, one with a texture over it which I put on a soft light with high contrast... it's basically a mottled texture that actually makes any overlap in the color seemingly bleed, so it gives everything a marker effect or water color effect giving the color a pinch more depth. I also have like an old newspaper texture which I drop over the whole thing on a multiply channel, which means that anything white is now creamy colored, like aged paper, and pulls the image together a bit more in terms of tone and depth and all those bells and whistles.

And lastly I add lettering, returning once more to the log entry of the previous page, describing in some detail what happens to the skin of a 'witness' who is unfortunate enough to see an Outer God being born (or to even meet one at all). I also use words of Yiddish origin for sound effects, quite specifically choosing schmaltz (which you may know as being used for 'excessive sentimentality' but is also the word for melted chicken fat, which I thought quite appropriate for the sound of someone's face falling off) and schlub (which is a clumsy, stupid, or unattractive person ... not very nice, I know).

For the finished thing, click here.

*more about 'them' later.

TELLING NOT SHOWING

Much of this post won't make sense unless you're reading the critically acclaimed (it's had some criticism and some acclaim, so technically speaking it's critically acclaimed*) "Who Killed Round Robin?" so either get yourself over there and start reading, or nod knowingly and pretend you know what I'm talking about.

Here's the inks for my new WKRR? plate (click here to see the full color version).

Riffing off of Woodrow Phoenix's opening plate for that page I decided not to stray too far from the designs Woods had laid down of the Lickey End House guests. After all, if it ain't broke...

I decided here not to show the Outer God - we've had glimpses of it so far, nothing too detailed, and I thought it more horrid at this point in the page to show the effects of looking at it rather than showing it. And of course the introduction of journal notes... although who's journal notes remains to be seen.

I named the burgeoning regenerating aliens "Dren". As in 'children', because they've always looked quite eerily childlike.

Also I was rather curious as to why Penney wore tinted specs. Well now we know.

(*next week I'll be calling it The New York Times Best Seller, and the week after that we're going for the Pulitzer)

THE ANGEL OF MONS AND ALL ...

With this week's Who Killed Round Robin? I snatched up the opportunity to follow myself again after poor Dave Taylor had to bow out at the last minute. Got to play around with the legend of the Angel of Mons, in which angels supposedly protected the British army during the Battle of Mons at the start of The Great War. Arthur Machen (an interesting chap - member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn) had a hand in creating the legend when he wrote The Bowmen (published in the Evening News a month after the battle), inspired by accounts he'd heard from the front line. In the story phantom bowmen from the Battle of Agincourt are summoned by a British soldier calling on the spirit of St. George.

The Battle of Agincourt again is of notable significance. It's incorrectly associated with 'flipping the bird', that most popular of obscene hand gestures. Apparently the French wanted to cut off the middle fingers of English bowmen so they could not use their bows (a cunning plan!). When the English won they displayed their middle fingers to show they still had them. Nonsense of course, but then so was the Angel of Mons. I thought it interesting though that bodkin point's (the arrows used by longbowmen at the Battle of Agincourt), were fired in sun blotting volleys at the French and yet St. George in Machen's story sent the very same bowmen to be allied with the French in order to defeat the Germans.

ALLONS-Y!!!

Who Killed Round Robin? has been going for six months now as we round the corner at 23 pages with no end in sight just yet. It's something that allows me to try something new - or rather hone a direction for my work. Of late I've been cross hatching like crazy which you may notice if you look very closely (click on the image above for a closer look). WKRR? also allows me to practice my use of color. Odd to also think that at Page 1, Plate 1, which I'd drawn last new years eve, I'd only drawn 5 pages of Dorian. I've contributed a total of 14 'plates' to WKRR?, over which time I've completed a 119 page graphic novel and have tentatively started work on another. These last 6 months have proved the most educational, I've learned a tremendous amount and am absolutely ravenous for more. Over the next couple of days or so I'm preparing my pitch for Zuda, something I've been talking about doing for ages (and not exactly been putting off either) where I'll hopefully be able to put some of those lessons to good use.

MUSIC NIGHT ON STRANGE PLANET

Sigur Rós – Inní mér syngur vitleysingur

Sigur Rós – Gobbledigook

DON'T MAKE ME ANGRY ...

I cannot wait to see the new Incredible Hulk film out later this month. I missed Iron Man when it screened, but I'm setting a date with the big green guy. I LOVE the Hulk and I cannot recommend enough Peter David's run on the The Incredible Hulk from Marvel comics back in the nineties. Truly amazing series. I was more than a little disappointed by Ang Lee's effort, so I'm hoping this new version doesn't Mister MgGee me. Speaking of Mister MgGee, I love the inclusion of the theme tune from the glorious Bixby tv series at the end of the trailer. Awesome.

OH MY GOLLY GOSH!

CLOSING TIME

I love my Pulp and Noir.

A fictional cover for a fictional book. A work of fiction in every sense of the word. Frank Solomon's my chosen pen name if ever I become a 10,000 word a day pulp novelist. Jack Tallahasse's someone I'm going to have to work with some day. Just playing around here with textures and light really as my work seems to be increasingly moving in this direction as can be seen in my latest Round Robin contribution (I got pretty obsessed with the number 3 while I was working on it, see how many references to three you can spot and what they all mean).

It's funny. The way I work just leads and I follow. I've no idea where it will end up but that's all part of the fun. Walt Simonson gave a talk at the Bristol comics expo this year about the X and Y axis of creativity and how your work changes over time and you're in constant pursuit of getting it right. There's certainly an importance in never attaining that goal. It's all about the journey. As I was working on Dorian, I learned a heck of a lot about myself as an artist over the course of 119 pages. I'm sure anyone would. And the next project Edginton and I are hopefully doing with SelfMadeHero will certainly reflect all that.

Got a lot of work to do over the coming week or so. Pitches galore.

PLAY THAT MUSIC!

The Bristol Comic Expo was a great way to wind down after Dorian Gray. Finally met with Dorian's publishers for the first time. Working remotely as I do, I don't always get to meet the people I work for. So it was nice to meet the good people at SelfMadeHero at long last. Conversation has already started moving on to the next big project and I'm currently doing some preparatory work for that along with Ian Edginton. Hopefully work on that will start proper soon.

Meanwhile I'm putting work together for another five projects, two I'm doing on my todd, one with Jay Eales of Factor Fiction, another with Ian Edginton again, but that'll come after the prep work for the next SelfMadeHero outing, and one of which is with Round Robin collaborator Colin Fawcett. More on that too as it comes in, all I can say right now is it's a corker.

11th HOUR PROMOTIONS!

I'll be attending Bristol International Comic Expo where I'll be handing these flyers out for Who Killed Round Robin? like a mad ... octopus ... handing out .... er ... flyers. Only occurred to me this morning that we should perhaps promote the round robin while we're there, so it is all hasty-hasty-cut-and-pasty (did I just say that? Way too much 'Chorlton and the Wheelies' and 'Rentaghost' when I was a child, waaay too much.)

RETRO ROCKETS GO!

"Great googly-moogly, gear-heads! This' been a race an' a half an' no mistake!"

Retro Rockets Go! is up and running over at the Dark Horse Presents MySpace page. Written by Ian Edginton and drawn by me in a manic four days. A race an' half an' no mistake!

Go Rockets go!

WALKING WOUNDED

Didn't sleep last night. Extreme agony in my left shoulder. Pain killers weren't working - electric blankets weren't working. Really son-of-a-bitch painful. So I went to see the doc this morning and found out I have tendinitis. So I'm on anti-inflammatories for the next ten days and grateful it isn't my right shoulder. If it doesn't calm down by the time I run out of anti-inflammatories then they (the them) are going to inject steroids into my shoulder. Nice.

Ya boo sucks.

STICK A FORK IN ME, I'M DONE

The Picture of Dorian Gray is done! Finished it today!!!

I also bagged an 8 page story for Dark Horse which I did last weekend, with Ian Edginton at the typewriter and me at the drawing board. A short tale of daring do, action and adventure. Should be appearing on Dark Horse Presents (their MySpace page) in a week or so). I had precious little time to do it in, given my Dorian schedule was so close to d-day.

I've spent the last two months working seven days a week. I'm looking forward to the weekend. In fact, tomorrow morning, I'm having the day off. Yay! Something I rarely do.

I'm going to find it pretty weird not working on Dorian again. I'm going to miss the old devil.

'Lover's to bed, tis almost fairy time. I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn ...'

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Well, according to the good people at Self Made Hero and their imprint Eye Classics, this is that graphic novel I've been working on for the past few months now. ;-)

I can't show any of the work I've done on it here just yet, but you can see from the sidebar of the article one of the paintings I did of Dorian. Only the most famous fictional paintings there is. No pressure. No siree.

Click the title to see the page.

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

A Graphic Adaptation of Oscar Wilde's Novel

“If it were I who was to be forever young and the picture that was to grow old!
...I would give my soul for that!”

This graphic novel rejuvenates Oscar Wilde’s classic The Picture of Dorian Gray, the story of a man who, exhilarated by his friends’ praise of his youth and beauty, asks to be able to retain them eternally. When he discovers that his wish has been granted and that the portrait painted by his friend Basil will age instead of him, Dorian’s naivety turns into narcissism and a feeling of invulnerability. Influenced by the decadent aristocrat Lord Henry, he soon embarks upon a career of selfish hedonism, breaking several lives on the way. But while Dorian thinks himself unaccountable for his sins, the portrait shows him the true darkness of his soul. Ultimately, Dorian will find out that although you can ignore your conscience for a while, it always catches up with you... In this dark tale, the master of provocation Oscar Wilde gives a modern turn to the Gothic genre, fusing the Faustian theme with moral ambiguity and dandy attitude.

In other news, we took a trip a few weeks ago to visit my mother in London. I found stashed away in a cupboard two packs of photocopy paper I used to draw on way back when I used to live at my mum's, so this will be my late teens as I was out by 19 .... so a good chunk of years ago. And it was the very best drawing paper. I've not really been able to find any with quite the same bite. So I was really pleased. Back in the day I used to get through so many 500 sheet packs in like a matter of weeks that trees would quake in fear when I walked past them.
I'm in drawing heaven right now, drawing on these pages with my old Col-Erase 20044 Blue pencils (my weapon of choice). Bliss.

ALMOST THERE!!

Well, I'm almost at a point where I can spill the beans and say what I've been working on for the past few months and why I've not been posting artwork of late. All I can say is it's a graphic novel, Ian Edginton has written it, and it'll be out in the autumn. I can't show any sketches from it, or pages or anything yet. It's been a real education working on the book, it really has, and I hope to be sharing some of that education real soon.

In the meantime, here's an elephant painting a self portrait.



Now all I need to find is a chimpanzee using photoshop.

Oh, wait...

SO, WHAT DO YOU DO FOR A LIVING?

I would love to just once be able to say, "I'm a beatboxing flutist".

WHO KILLED ROUND ROBIN? (from pencils to finished art)

The Round Robin keeps going. Three entries in this week in quick succession so go check it out. My latest entry I decided to keep some semblance of a work-in-progress thing to show how a plate of this Round Robin looks in various states of undress. I turned this one around in about two, maybe three hours. Of the three stages, the coloring took the longest. I love getting to the coloring, it's the point in the work where you sit there trying all manner of combinations, like I'm picking out which tie goes with which shirt. It's a lot of fun (especially for a guy who doesn't wear ties). Anyway, back to the process starting at the beginning.

First up. Pencils. I call it pencils cause it's rough, obviously there's no lead involved because I'm drawing straight into a graphics tablet but it serves the same purpose as pencils so... I work really really loosely when its me that's going to be inking it. In fact, its fair to say I divide up the artworking process between the pencils and the inks. I sort of know the pencils ain't the be all and end all as nobody but me (and now you) is going to see them. And working this way drives me because it spurs me on to get to the second part of the process, the inking. Kind of like dangling a carrot. And then I'm spurred on in the inking because it's getting ever closer to the coloring. And so on.

Note how in the pencils you have the Captain's pipe sticking out of his yapper. Well, by the inking stage I've decided he's not smoking his pipe, he's holding it. I draw that straight in in inks. I ink in Manga Studio. Which I have to say is the best bit of comics software I've ever come across where inking is concerned. You can calibrate the weight of your line in Manga studio, just as you would a brush pen. And you can turn the page. It's glorious. Is as close to using a brush pen on paper as you can get.

Once I get the inking done then it's goodbye pencils and I'm moving onto colors. I export my inks out of Manga Studio as a photoshop document. Then I create a layer under the inks and fill it grayscale (my export is set to grayscale mode when I first open it up in photoshop). Okay, so in Manga Studio there's two stages, the pencils and the inks. Well, the photoshop part of the job is broken up into two stages also. Tone and color. So I start in grayscale, I put down a tone of mid gray. Under this layer there's a white fill. I then rub out parts of the mid tone and lay down darker tones until I basically end up with a tonal image. I then switch modes. Straight to RGB. I isolate areas for coloring and then using image=adjustment=photofilter I turn the gray areas into color. It's a very quick way to color. Very quick. I mix and match various combinations till I have what I want. Basically window shopping. What this effectively does is turn photoshop into your own personal shopper. Rather than trying to find something quite nebulous (ie: coming up with swatches out of the blue), it gets photoshop to show you quite quickly what it's got). And then it's just a case of mixing and matching. The trick here once you have your basic colors is to then ensure you have some consistency. So what I do is I take the whole thing roughly colored and then wash them through with the photofilter again. So all the colors then have a consistent palette to them. Like throwing in a red sock into a white wash I guess. It actually simplifies the color palette quite nicely. Then you can add stark areas of color, like yellow eyes for example, and they really stand out. If this doesn't make much sense I'll make sure I save off the stages of the color process and with my next entry I'll do an in depth spot on color.

I then apply texture. Texture can actually be quite forgiving. It like another wash through but this time it pulls the color together. In this instance I used a parchment texture and ran that through the whole thing. incredibly subtle but it makes a world of difference I make the layer a Soft Light layer so it's only very subtle and tweak the opacity. Again, picking out ties. And then using red and yellow selected in my color boxes I create another layer and filter=render=cloud and then pixelate color halftone to get that ziptone effect. I gradient it out so it fades towards the top and "Overlay" it on the empty background so it only effects the colors of the background. Overlay makes the colors quite stark in contrast. I love Overlay and Soft Light. They work best in RGB because thy really punch out the color. I then merge these into the color layer and I'm done.

Last thing I do is lettering and that's it. Done and done.

WHO KILLED ROUND ROBIN? EAGLE AWARD NOMINATIONS!

Who Killed Round Robin? has been shortlisted for a nomination for an Eagle Award for Best Web-based Comic. To those who may not be aware, the Eagle is to the Bafta's what the Eisner is to the Oscars. So please do go and vote for our webcomic by visiting the Eagle Awards voting page and vote for us!

DIONYSOS - ANIMATED VIDEOS

I discovered Dionysos through their animated videos. Check out this post from almost a year ago. Here's two more rather splendid offerings.

WHO KILLED ROUND ROBIN? CONTINUES

If you haven't been already, go check it out.

SERVICE WITH A SMILE

My local comic shop closed today. Which is no big deal, right? I mean there's another two comic shops in town, I can always buy books there. Or I can be really hip and get my comics mailed to me from some online authority on comics.

But it is a big deal. One made all too clear to me when Dark Horse published my stuff back in 2006 in the New Recruits anthology. You see, getting published is, I learned, relatively easy compared to actually selling your comics, getting people to actually read your stuff. You can, after all, publish yourself. Not a problem. But selling your stuff - reaching the readers... well, this is where the comic shop comes in. But a comic shop isn't just four walls, a roof and a bunch of spinner racks where you get your weekly fix. A comic shop is people. You see, my local comic shop closed today and it is a big deal for two very good reasons. David Smith and Matt McGowan. These two guys could 'sell' comics. They were very fine salesman and yeah, I'd often walk out of their store with a little more than I initially went in to buy. Which is great. It's great for the customer because the customer ultimately discovers new and exciting things that way, and more importantly it's great for the artists and the writers because their material is reaching audiences that never would have normally given their work a second glance.

Always friendly, always polite and always eager to help their customers - the real shame isn't just that my local comic shop closed today, it's that as of tomorrow David and Matt won't be selling people comics anymore.

I wish them every success in the future in whatever they decide to do.

Ce qui sera, sera.

WHO KILLED ROUND ROBIN?

What better way to start the New Year than with a round robin? At the stroke of midnight last night, while fireworks were going off and a tsunami of celebration flooded from the east to the west across the globe (are we all in 2008 yet?), I posted the first panel of the first page of an online round robin comic called "Who Killed Round Robin?"

The other contributors are Colin Fawcett, Craig Conlan, D'Israeli, Dave Taylor, Nigel Parkinson and Woodrow Phoenix. Click the link in the banner below to find yourself magically there.

It will (with any luck) get updated regularly if all goes according to plan, so keep checking back for updates. Dave Taylor's next up.

Happy New Year!

UPDATE: Dave Taylor has posted his contribution. Colin Fawcett is up next. Keep checking the round robin for updates.

BAH, HUMBUG!

WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?

Haven't put any of my own work up in a while so here goes. The Joker. Tis the season to be jolly.

WEDNESDAY'S CHILD IS FULL OF WOE!

But I was born on a Friday, which makes me loving and giving - but not according to the 1887 original version which had Wednesday's child bestowed with such fortune and Friday's child saddled with woe. Which brings me to another bit of Trivia. Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family took her name from 'Wednesday's child is full of woe". Her middle name was 'Friday'. All bases covered.

It's actually the early hours of the morning here in Blighty. I'm up working late and evidently talking gibberish so here's some music instead.

WHERE HAVE I BEEN ALL YOUR LIFE & GOODBYE TO THE NORMALS

I moseyed on over to the BBC's film network today completely by chance and found, much to my delight, the work of writer George Kay and director Jim Field Smith. The first is a film called "Where Have I Been All Your Life?":

A young man's personal search unlocks a series of revelations and recriminations that escalate from the emotional, via the darkly comic to the plain farcical.

And the second is "Goodbye to the Normals" which can also be seen on youtube and concerns a young boy leaving home.

'TWAS THE DARK KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS ...

DOCTOR WHO: VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED TRAILER

It's almost that time of year again ... no, not Christmas, the other thing ...

THE GOLDEN COMPASS

Took my niece to see The Golden Compass at the weekend (finally got my weekends back). The cinema experience when going to see films with children is sort of akin to Christmas being reinvigorated with magic once again now my wife and I have a son.

I have to confess, in hindsight I thought the film was okay, but at the time I thoroughly enjoyed it (fueled somewhat by the novelty). Whilst wonderfully realized visually I wasn't too certain it had been wonderfully executed in terms of adaptation, but for the most part performances were fine, the casting fitting almost perfectly with how I had imagined the book. I was however perplexed by the film's ending (in contrast to the book), and shocked by a certain fight scene for it's moment of startling but bloodless gore. I had to explain to my niece there was going to be another film as the fade to black prompted her to ask "is that it?". After the film an in depth conversation ensued concerning Daemon's (the familiars in the film) as we waited in the lobby for my sister to come and collect us. I picked a hare after Lee Scoresby's Daemon - Hester the Hare (I was particularly fond of its ears) and my niece rather impractically picked a Killer Whale. That said though, it had been raining rather heavily all day so I suppose it wasn't so impractical after all.

FAREWELL NOVEMBER 2007

It's been a hectic month. I could almost write the whole of November off as one long endurance test. And the fun is far from over yet. I haven't had a weekend free since the beginning of November. I've been working on three commercials back to back and a comic book (more info on that as soon as I'm allowed to tell). Been looking forward to December as the next couple of months is all comic book work which makes for a nice change of pace. Oh, and I get my weekends back. Yay!

Now for a little music. Two tracks from the outstandingly excellent Akira soundtrack. Never mind that it's an amazing manga and an incredible anime, listen to the score!

TO DAYS TO COME, ALL MY LOVE TO LONG AGO.

A change of desktop theme indeed. A touch of nostalgia from Doctor Who in this special for Children in Need. Note how the score changes to the eighties style fifth Doctor era midway through. Great stuff.

BAF 07

It's been a while since I last posted. I've had my head beneath the parapet and have been working hard on three commercials back to back. I've not got any weekends off for the whole of November. Needs must when the devil drives! Looking forward to December when things slow down a pace and I get my weekends back. On top of all these commercials I managed to prepare a powerpoint presentation of my storyboard work and comic book work for the Bradford Animation Festival. Jim Walker hosted a panel which consisted of Ginger Gibbons, Kevin Baldwin and myself.

It was my first ever presentation/talk so in the days leading up to it, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm so busy at the moment and thinking about half a dozen other things at once, I would most likely have been quite nervous, but I just didn't have time to be nervous. So I just got on with it. I arrived about 45 mins before the talk and had to leave 45 mins after I'd finished because I had to get back to HQ. Busy busy busy. As it was it all ran smoothly. The staff at BAF 07 where lovely and incredibly helpful, the Q&A with the audience went great with people asking interesting questions; the whole thing went off without a hitch and I had a thoroughly good time. Oh, and Bob Godfrey was in the audience (even more reason to be nervous, talking in front of such a luminary of the animation industry).

ZUDA GO FOR LAUNCH!

Zuda comics launched today and already there's some pretty interesting entries plus a rather stunning winner in Jeremy Love's 'Bayou'. Zuda Comics is DC comics' web comics site where people on a monthly basis compete to win a year long contract producing a weekly comic for the site. I've been following news on this eagerly since June as it's an excellent opportunity for anyone who doesn't have the chance to attend the US comic cons and DC folio reviews to stick their work under DC's nose and say 'how do you like them apples?' They have rolling submissions 24/7 which is excellent news, and with each pitch/submission creative teams provide 8 pages of art. I'm going to go for it.

BEBOP ALULA

Haven't updated this blog much of late as I have been frantically busy. I'm currently working with Ian Edginton on something special, more about that much later. I'm also going to be submitting six pages of story and art to Zuda.com as soon as its doors open so I've been preparing for that. And I have three commercials on my plate to boot. Oh, and I'm going to be making an appearance at the Bradford Animation Festival this year in a panel discussion to do with storyboarding, which I've just read has sold out! eek!

So, busy busy busy.

'OVER THE HILL' WON BEST ANIMATED SHORT AT THE AUSTIN FILM FESTIVAL

More great news for 'Over The Hill'. We won best animated short.

THE REAL DAREDEVIL - via Major Spoilers

Spotted this over at the Major Spoilers, where Stephen Schleicher calls this kid "The Real Daredevil". Seems Marvel need to rethink Matt Murdoch. He doesn't need radioactive substances, just good old fashioned echo location.

Best Video Of The Year - video powered by Metacafe

BITENECK BEATNIKS TEASER TRAILER ON YOUTUBE

Now in glorious YouTube-O-Vision

HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE PAINTER X

I have some possible comic book work on the horizon and have been experimenting with painter cross platforming with photoshop and it's been fun. The way I'm working is starting projects in photoshop (which I'm familiar with), blocking out colors, and then opening psd files in Painter and hopping between the two. What I love about Painter isn't so much the brushes, although the brushes in Painter are many and fantastic, rather it's the extended possibilities of manipulation and the palette for mixing up paints (taking me back to mixing up paints on a tile at art college).

I used a little bit of Painter in Grimmwood, but only for the canopy. I hope to use more.

INDIANA JONES AND THE CRYSTAL SKULL!

The title for the new Indiana Jones movie has been revealed. More info about the Crystal Skull itself can be found in the above clip from Arthur C Clarke Mysterious World episode.

As is traditionally the case with Indiana Jones, the MacGuffin is the artifact. What the Crystal Skull is reportedly said to be able to do could be an indication of the movie's plot:

The Maya people said it was used to will death or to heal. And if like an older medicine man or witchdoctor was getting too old to perform a ceremony a young man was chosen and both laid in front of the alter and the high priest would perform a ceremony and the old man's knowledge would go into this young boy and the old man would pass away peacefully and this young boy would get up as a very knowledgeable young man. This crystal skull has tremendous power, but it also gives you a warning that something's going to happen.

Which is all pretty interesting stuff. Could Labeouf be the young man? And could John Hurt, allegedly playing Indy's mentor, Abner Ravenwood, be the old man and via this method passes on his knowledge to young Labeouf? Face it, John Hurt dies in practically every movie he's been in.

BITENECK BEATNIKS TEASER TRAILER!

Here's some of the background art I recently produced for the new Biteneck Beatniks teaser trailer which can be seen over at the Sardine website.

Sardine Productions in Canada did a fantastic job of combining Curtis Jobling's character designs with my background designs. Sardine not only put in some terrific work but an incredible amount of enthusiasm and love for the project so it was a lot of fun to work on.

GRIMMWOOD UPDATED

Now these blogs have labels, I am considering whether to shift all the stuff I have over on the Grimmwood blog (what little of it there is) to here, given how intermittently I work on that project. Anyway, here's 15 seconds of Grimmwood, just to show there's life in the old girl yet.

The wolves are what I call 'spider-weasels' due to the way they move. Their legs move like spider legs and their bodies slink like weasels.

No audio.

Here also are the full backgrounds from the segment ...
Grimmwood and all production work is © 2006-2007, Ian Culbard, All rights Reserved.

SONG FOR JEDI

OVER THE HILL WINS THE McLAREN AWARD AT EDINBURGH!!!!

The animated film I recently produced, 'Over The Hill', won the McLaren Award for New British Animation this evening at the Edinburgh Festival. I AM ECSTATIC!!! Peter Baynton, the film's director, traveled up to Edinburgh this evening to pick up the award!

I'M NOT THERE

Staggeringly, this is Cate Blanchett dressed up as Bob Dylan for the film 'I'm Not There', which is on my 'must see' list. The film, directed by Todd Haynes, focuses on six different stages of Dylan's life and for each of these stages he's played by six different actors, including Marcus Carl Franklin, Ben Whishaw, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale and Richard Gere. The film also features David Cross, Julianne Moore, Michelle Williams and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Here's a 2 minute clip from the upcoming film which I managed to find floating around on YouTube.

ALIENS ON LIFE WITHOUT THE SOPRANOS!

AtomFilms.com: Funny Videos | Funny Cartoons | Comedy Central

MORE DOCTOR WHO CASTING RUMOURS *SPOILERS AHOY*

News of the World have reported that Joan Collins is set to appear as The Rani, and The Sun claims that Ben Kingsley is going to be playing Davros. I shall eat humble hat if any of this turns out to be true, however, there is an intriguing rumor flying about that the Fifth Doctor, Peter Davison, is going to appear in Series 4 in a Multi-Doctor episode.

EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK

VS.

MIKE WIERIGNO

Sadly comic book artist, Mike Wieringo, passed away this Sunday of a sudden heart attack. Wieringo was 44 years old.

John Siuntres of the excellent World Balloon has posted a tribute to the life and career of Wieringo, an interview from 2005.

ANIMATION TREASURES!

Drop what you're doing and go check this amazing blog out.

THE SELFISH GIANT

I love how the selfish giant's castle is sign posted! Thanks to Colin Fawcett for pointing me in the direction of this gem. I rather like the background art and snow and frost and the Wagnerian accompaniment to the arrival of the north wind and hail.... in short, lovely stuff.

THE LITTLE MATCHGIRL

The Little Match Girl was the last film made by Disney to use CAPS,Disney's digital ink & paint system. The film was supposed to be a part of Fantasia 2006 (The Music Project) which was canceled.

It also features the glorious music of Alexander Borodin (String Quartet No. 2 in D Major: Third Movement: Notturno, Andante).

JUSTICE LEAGUE: NEW FRONTIER ANIMATED PREVIEW

Justice League: New Frontier Animated Preview. Very much looking forward to seeing this. Thanks to Will Kane for the heads up.

A NEW DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE? *HERE BE SPOILERS* (UPDATED)

Rumor has it, via The Sun (which, while not particularly reliable for any other sort of news, has proved to be right on more than one occasion regarding the new series of Doctor Who) says that James Nesbitt is the next shoe-in for the role of The Doctor in BBC's Doctor Who.

James Nesbitt currently appears in BBC's Jekyl, which I've managed to completely miss (but my sister assures me that she'll be getting me it on DVD for my Birthday), which is written by Doctor Who writer (and one of the best writers of the show) Steve Moffat. Interesting. I've not really seen James Nesbitt in anything but Cold Feet and Yellow Pages commercials so we shall see, but it certainly seems to make sense to me. I wonder if all planets have a County Antrim also and Nesbitt will be keeping his accent? David Tennent is expected to leave at the end of season 4 as is, rumor has it, Russel T Davies who will apparently stand down as show runner, and Moffat is rumored to be taking over the reigns (which, given how terrific "Empty Child", "Girl in the Fireplace" and "Blink" have been can only be a good thing).

UPDATE: According to Outpost Gallifrey, Steve Moffat has chimed in on the discussion forum there, saying:

The James Nesbitt story is a total fabrication. Made up. A fantasy. Just a guy sitting at a desk and just inventing stuff.

I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm getting embarrassed for the deeply wonderful Jimmy Nesbitt. So tell everyone please, cos it's getting very silly.

Steven Moffat

So, the James Nesbitt story has been denied, but I notice no denial of Steve Moffat taking over as show runner! Could it be?

OVER THE HILL AT RUSHES SOHO SHORTS FESTIVAL

“Over The Hill” is appearing in its first festival; Rushes Soho Shorts which takes place in and around Soho cinemas and venues this week. We heard yesterday that the film is a finalist in the Animation category, which is excellent news. The film will also be showing at the Edinburgh festival later this month.

THE END OF THE WORLD IS NIGH!!!!

We're laughing now, but ... please tell me people have heeded the warnings from films like Terminator, The Matrix and I Robot?

HE'S BACK - INDIANA JONES AT COMIC-CON 2007

MOON

This weeks Illustration Friday Topic is "Moon".

D'ISRAELI

Met up with comic artist Matt Brooker (D'Israeli) for elevenses yesterday at the Malt Cross. Great to meet up with him at long last. Daleks did crop up in conversation. Go check out his wonderful blog. He often posts about his work process, and if you scroll down the sidebar you'll notice he has an indispensable section called "Tools, Materials & Resources". Go check it out now.

FISCHERKOESEN FEST

A while back I posted about Hans Fisherkoesen's Verwitterte Melodie (Weather-beaten Melody), well here's some more from Hans Fisherkoesen. The first film here is The Snowman which again shows off some very early 3D techniques as Verwitterte Melodie did.

And here are some of FisherKoesen's commercial, from which the Philips light bulb commercial is perhaps my favorite. Enjoy!

YOU'RE GOING TO HELL!

Hell is the second song from The Tiger Lillies album "Births, Marriages and Deaths". The Tiger Lillies are the greatest. My wife and I were fortunate enough to catch "Shockheaded Peter" when it was on at Drury Lane. An amazing spectacle it was too. They're a three piece from London who cite Gypsy music, Russian music, Greek folk, Blues, Italian Opera, Kurt Weil, 30's Berlin cabaret, French chanson, Flamenco as their influences. Their songs are about blasphemy, murder, criminals, prostitution etc, all delivered with darkly comedic aplomb.

THE NEW FRONTIER

The New York Times has the first image from "The New Frontier", a straight to DVD animated adaptation of Darwyn Cooke's funny book mini series of the same name. Due to be released in February 2008 and previewed at the up coming San Diego Comic-con.

According to the original article neither Wonder Woman nor Lois Lane (who make prominent appearances in the comic) were in the first three drafts of the adaptation. So the above image is somewhat reassuring, as is the following from Mister Cooke himself.

“It’s much more complete than I would have thought,” Mr. Cooke said. “Even things we dropped, we reference in scenes. It won’t interrupt the story for people who don’t know, but for someone who has read the book, it’ll hit that trigger and be there for them.”

Lucy Lawless stars as Wonder Woman, Steven Blum as Batman, David Boreanaz as Hal Jordan/Green Lantern, Kyle MacLachlan as Clark Kent/Superman.

Superman: Doomsday, the first of three straight to DVD animated adaptations (of which "The New Frontier" is the second) is due out in September 2007 and features the voices of Adam Baldwin as Clark Kent/Superman, Anne Heche as Lois Lane and James Marsters as Lex Luthor.

The third film in the line "Teen Titans: The Judas Contract" is set for a 2008 release.

COCKED, LOCKED, AND READY TO ROCK!

I am back after a week long holiday with my wife and son by the Norfolk coast. We managed to catch some sun! Feeling slightly shattered now after driving through torrential rain. It's good to be home.

INDIANA JONES AND THE T-SHIRT JAKe DESIGNED

First thing this morning I thought I'd stroll by the Indiana Jones front desk to check out any stirrings and sure enough, they've posted a clip of Harrison Ford as Doctor Jones. All tremendously exciting stuff, naturally, seeing Harrison Ford donning the hat again, but much more exciting than any of that, and something that had me spitting out my cereal in surprise was to see George Lucas wearing a Han Solo t-shirt designed by JAKe Steel!! A "Han Shot First" t-shirt no less!

MOOMINS - OPOWIADANIA MUMINKÓW

Often referred to as the 'fuzzy felt Moomins', this was the third production of five to make it to TV screens. It was made in Poland (Opowiadania Muminków) by Film Polski for Polish, Austrian and German television and later sold to the UK (among other places) where I think it really benefited from another integral ingredient, the voice of Richard Murdoch.

The series has been collected onto DVD. There are a 100 English episodes in all, edited down into 5 minute episodes from their original 78 x 30 minute episodes but you can watch the original episodes also (in German and sans Richard Murdoch's wonderful voice).

For more on Tove Jansson's Moomins I recommend you visit Brian Sibley's Ex Libris blog where he's written a wonderful piece about the books and their author.

THE LITTLE STORY ON THE BIG STORY

The Big Story. This brilliant short film was carried with the screening of Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction upon its theatrical release in the UK.

Tim Watts (one of the directors and animators of the film) , a fellow Kingstonian alumni, came back to Kingston when I was studying there and gave a talk about his work, which included The Big Story. We even got to see pencil tests for the film which you can view by clicking this link.

Tim told us that originally they'd tried to contact Kirk Douglas himself to get him to do the voices but eventually got through to one of Kirk's sons (I cannot recall which) who said Kirk wasn't available to do the voice, but all was not lost. Tim and David where advised by one of Kirk's sons to get hold of Frank Gorshin and get him to do it because apparently, according to them Frank Gorshin could do a better Kirk Douglas than Kirk Douglas. As was testimony in a short clip Tim showed us of one of Gorshin's impersonation routines where he pretends to be both Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas. For an example of Gorshin's talents outside of playing the Riddler in the Batman TV series watch the following clip.

ETHAN HAAS WAS RIGHT (UPDATED)

Right now, the internet is abuzz with news of JJ. Abrams monster movie Cloverfield, a Blue Harvest smoke screen title for a movie barely anyone knows anything about. The movie has an estimated budget of $30 million and began filming last month in New York. A teaser trailer appeared before Transformers and a viral campaign is under way in order to build hype. There's also a puzzle website which presents you with 5 puzzles that unlock a series of video messages and then leaves you with a code you can use on August 1st when I'm guessing more stuff will be revealed (the puzzles are all relatively easy, it's just the interface makes it all look like hard work).

The teaser trailer is a heck of a tease, showing a group of people at a party when a thunderous roar outside halts celebrations. News channels are seen reporting the disturbance. Revelers spill out onto the street and see a large rolling ball of flame down town and the statue of liberty's severed head lands in the street as people scatter. It's noted on some sites that the ball of flame is an explosion but to me it looks like a rolling ball of flame, like an abstract monster from H. P. Lovecraft's mythos (there's a lot of talk that this all has something to do with Great Cthulhu, but he wasn't available for comment when I called). That's the great thing about this teaser, you don't really see a great deal of detail, and really you're at the mercy of the panicked camera operator given as the whole teaser appears to have been filmed on a mobile phone-camera. So you're left to fill in a lot of the gaps and that's the best bit. It's terrific.

There's also this site (click the link), which is basically the film's release date, and it has snap shots from what I can only assume is the party in the teaser. I read somewhere online that someone had checked the registration for the site and it belongs to the Freemasons and one Albert Pike. Which sounds like the people in charge of this campaign are either incredibly clever and that there's a wealth of information if anyone cares to dig deep enough, or people are reading too much into what little information there is out there. Some people have even taken the photo of the two frightened young women that appears on the 1-18-08 site and spliced their faces together in the hope that this is some sort of clue, and others are seeing the devil's face inbetween the two women. I think its more of a coincidental simulcrum myself, but it goes to show what an effect this pre-movie buzz campaign is having.

The problem with a lot of stuff like this is that the 'mystery' can often be greater than the truth. And it's largely because people build in their own conclusions. They imagine a far greater payload than the initial idea can deliver and so when the initial idea reveals its payload it usually doesn't reach spec. VAL LEWTON WAS RIGHT. Never show the payload (or in Lewton's case, never show the cat people). The mystery is the monster.

UPDATE: You can watch the teaser trailer here (click for the link). Seeing the severed head of the statue of Liberty really does evoke memories of "Escape from New York".

Yet another 'interpreted' rumor going around now is that the monster of the movie (which has been referred to as "the Parasite"), is in fact a Lion. If you listen carefully, just after the scene on the staircase as people spill out onto the street, you'll hear someone say, very quickly "I saw it, it's alive, it's huge". At least that's how I hear it. But some people are hearing the words "a Lion" in place of "a live", and drawing the conclusion that the monster is some sort of lion.

"Nice thinkin', Ray."

UPDATE PART DEUX: The rumor mill concerning JJ Abrams' untitled film thunders on. This time in JJ Abrams drops Harry Knowles a line over at Aintitcool.

So according to JJ Abrams, the Ethan Haas puzzle site has nothing to do with his film. The Ethan Haas puzzle site certainly has all the trappings of a video game. At one point I even suspected it might be the launch for a new MMORPG as the mysterious video message guy says "What role you will play, and how you live or die, is completely up to you." Time will tell.

UPDATE PART III: Ethan Haas Was Right, it turns out, really isn't marketing for JJ Abrams Cloverfield. It's marketing for a game called Alpha Omega by Mindstorm labs, which is an RPG. So there you have it.

With regard to JJ Abrams Cloverfield, it's also been said that it is not "a sequel or a remake". Which rules out "Zombie Kong"!

LITTLE NEZHA

I love this film. I saw this film when it was on the BBC many MANY years ago. Cannot recall precisely how old I was at the time (though I'm guessing it was the early eighties given when the film was dubbed into English by the BBC, so I would have been about ten or eleven years old) but it left an indelible impression upon me. I no longer own a video player, so I've not seen this film for a few years). From time to time (once or twice a month) I've been logging in to You Tube and searching for this just to see if anyone would post this, and bingo, here it is at long last. I've also since found that it is available on DVD from China (with English subtitles), so this is one I will definitely be adding to my reference library.

A THING OF BEAUTY!!

Spotted this over at Drawn! Just had to post this here because it is just too beautiful to miss. The great thing about this morphing technique is how there appears to be a constant in motion, as though all these faces were just one woman turning her head from side to side whilst shaking off thinly veiled disguises (though it does get considerably more abstract towards the end). The amount of emotion conveyed is simply wonderful. It's a work of art in itself. Enjoy.