Scrampire


Halloween is just around the corner, hiding like a sneaky old ghost in a bin, ready to jump out and shout "Boo" or something equally spine chilling.

So to celebrate, and by celebrate I mean "cash in", I thought I'd share some spooky images of an ebook I did a couple of years ago with Julia Dweck. I haven't shared these images before so its like they're fresh out of the grave.




I also put together this horrifying trailer to promote the book. That's "horrifying" in a good way of course. The book is available for Kindle, but if you don't own a Kindle, Mr Apple has obliged with an App so you can pretend you have a Kindle. Genius!

You can buy the book at a ghastly low price here and if you feel like writing a nice review, that all helps with the Amazon rankings apparently.



Have a horrible halloween everyone 

WoooOOooOoooooooooOooooOoooOoo!

Ready Set PO!


Here's my Dreamworks piece for the Oz comics weekly challenge. I tried to work fast with this one, focusing on lighting and energy and not getting too Fussy McFusspants about how clean it was.

Didn't have to think too long about which movie I chose either. I love Kung Fu Panda, especially that rich colour palette. Hmmmm

So anyway, sometimes I get asked about how I work on stuff. So I thought I'd share a few steps with this one. First up like most people in this game, I use a drawing program and a tablet. My personal choices are Photoshop and a Wacom Cintiq. There are cheaper alternatives out there, so its not like this is essential. Basically any program that allows you to work in layers and draw with your hand is pretty much all you need.

So here's a few stages of how I build up the image layer by layer...
Rough sketch

Tighter line work and refining pose

Block in colour

Shadows and highlights

Extra line detail

BG colours and gradients

Additional lighting and textures

Looking back I may have slightly gone too far with the glows and whatnot on the final image. But I'll leave it the way it is.........for now :)

Train poses


So I've been trying to make my journeys into Melbourne a little more productive recently. To do this I've been plugging in my weeny Bamboo tablet into my laptop and attempting to do some sketches in Photoshop. 

Space is at a premium on a moving train. Probably the equivalent of an aeroplane toilet during turbulence (and fractionally nicer smelling).

Anyway its probably good practice drawing under these circumstances, it certainly makes you focus on all the important lines and the odd wobble doesn't harm the sketchy process too much. 


Again I've been experimenting with some cool brushes from Kyle T Webster. I've included this close up image so you can get a better view of the ink pen and wash brushes he's created. I like em. I like em a lot.

Free Hugs

I just brought a lovely set of Gouache Photoshop brushes from Kyle T Webster for a bargain $5! That's right $5!!

Anyway I was mucking around with them and came up with this little guy. I thought I was being terribly clever and witty by coming up with this, but a belated google image search, proved that many MANY other people had come up with it first. Sigh.......

Anyway I my head it was an original thought and that's all that matters. Right? RIGHT?!

Major Arnold Toht

Over on The Book of Face there's an interesting new challenge called "Villain of the Week". This week it's that naughty ole Nazi Major Arnold Tolt from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Here he is reading the instructions for some soothing skin lotion, after foolishly allowing the Ark of the Covenant to be opened and making his face go all runny. I imagine its still a little bit tender, so I hope he followed them correctly. Silly Billy!

"Rocket to the moon"

Life's been so busy lately I haven't had time to scratch myself. What with the relentless work on "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" and some other top secret stuff, I hardly ever seem to find the time to do stuff for "fun".

Over on the Facebook, however, good friend and fellow "Psychobummer" James Hart runs a regular Random sketch group called RANDOMDAYNESS.

I always promised I'd find the time one day to join in. Today was that day.

Baby's got back...ache

"pre-posture-ous"

2 days back at work and I already feel like a hoard of evil pixies have been jabbing at my spine with knitting needles. Perhaps its got something to do with the fact that I hunch over my desk like Quasimodo  trying to crouch under a coffee table.

Remember to keep stretching kids.

Family portrait

Light news from Blogington of late. In fact if Blogington were a real place then it would be seriously struggling to maintain a community. The video store has gone out of business, the post office has let several staff go and the local pub has seen a significant downturn in clientele. I'm not sure where I'm going with this analogy, so I might just end it there, if it's OK with you. Let's face it, you probably stopped reading this after I said "Bloginton".

Anyway my day job on the propostorous posterior show "The Day My Butt Went Psycho!" has been gobbling up all my time over the past year and has been a major drain on my personal creative juices. Sorry that sounds unpleasant.

But then the truth often is.

Still, in that time I managed to eek out enough juice, to put this commissioned piece together. Now, the people involved know how long this took to accomplish and I can only apologise and hope that the end result was worth it.

For the record I'm very happy with the final prints . Hope you like em too.


30 Day Drawing Challenge - Day 4: A famous character had they aged in real time


OK so with the best intentions in the world I began this drawing challenge. What started off as a 30 day challenge is now looking more like a 30 week challenge. But what are you gonna do? Bills have to be paid and fun little distractions like this will always have to take a back seat.

So here then is little Charlie Bucket all grown up. I imagine that shortly after winning Wonka's factory, Charlie began gorging himself silly on chocolate, grossly overcompensating for his meagre and poverty stricken upbringing. 

As time marched relentlessly on, Charlie found himself sinking deeper and deeper into an endless shame spiral. Feeding his guilt with more and more chocolate, until his family and Oompa Loompas abandoned him.

"I wish I never got that $*%^%$*# ticket" sobbed Charlie as he tucked into his 15th Scrumdidlyumptious bar for the day.

30 Day Drawing Challenge - Day 3: Scary Movie


When I was a kid, like a really small kid, my babysitter was watching The Exorcist downstairs. When I came down to see what he was watching, I was confronted with the most terrifying thing I'd ever seen in my life. I'm not sure how long I watched it for, but it scared me for a long long time afterwards.

So I thought for today's challenge I'd combine it with something I loved as a kid (and still do actually), Garbage Pail Kids. Let's call it "therapy".