Bit of ongoing development for something that will hopefully be ready to show soon!

Was looking through a massive pile of drawings, idle doodles, things without a purpose or reason behind them and thought it a shame that they would never see the light of day. So presented here for you today is a collection of rogue characters! Yes, I did go a bit overboard on the colouring, but it was fun. The colours appear even brighter and more ridiculous being viewed online, they lose some subtlety (like the difference between the two light blue backgrounds). Enjoy the headache and/or portraits.

Might even do another set of these, I scanned in over a hundred old doodles and there are still more.

Click to embiggen.

Keep meaning to scan in and collate all the birthday cards I make for people. Just found this image of a card from last year, the only one I have remembered to copy thus far! Had completely forgotten about it... which is why I should really keep a record.

(In the end we went to the same pub as always).

Been a while since I posted any sketchbook stuff, so here are some dwarves (dwarfs?). Particularly like the energy of some of the fight scenes and the Siberian-looking dwarfs (dwarves?) at the bottom left.

Would like to develop a story about dwarves (ok now I have stared at that word too long and they both look wrong), their pragmatism and industry is to be admired, and the idea of underground cities stirs something deep in the subconscious.

Note: I have not seen either of the Hobbit films yet, am more inspired by this guy's mad project.

Last year I worked on a teen fiction book for Oxford University Press, which has now been published. Which means I get to post images from it here! The book is called The Ugh Factor and it's about emo teenagers struggling against the soulless and creatively dead pop music industry, something I feel we can all relate to.

I'm especially pleased with how the cover illustration turned out, considering I had no idea what I was doing when I began them. Inky brush textures save the day once again...

It also has a dog in.

And here are some of the interior illustrations!

Some character development for an ongoing project. Emo teenagers! Disgruntled mutts!

One of the dudes also has the best character description ever: 'an unpleasant Graham Norton'.

A homage to my local comics retailer, Megacity Comics!

It was fun playing with a more conventional, mainstream layout, while retaining the kinds of elements I like most in comics. Couple of rough design choices due to the speed at which it was produced, but there are also lots of experimental bits which I really like.