Screaming for a Narrative

I'm rather glad I went to London on tuesday this week, we managed to have a look at the pick me up gallery show which showcased the works of various illustrators from the UK, I didn't really recognise any of the names unfortunately asides from the works of Tom Gauld which I have read a couple of his comics before, I must admitt I wasn't totally blown away by most of the work but I did find a few rather inspiring and I bought at least two books.

I liked this print by Andrew Rae. Not necesserily the image but the general idea. A giant A1 print of different figures- Perhaps this is something I could make one day.

not a huge fan of stuff like Le-Gun or the NoBrow magazines, two printed publications which offer a neat collection of different illustrators work. Most of the time theres only one or two images I seem to like in the entire book. Sounds a bit snooty actually. I did however like this particular cover a lot.

I also brought this fascinating book:

A bestiary of monsters, A bento box of them (which I believe is some sort of japanese food stuff???), its basically a book of monsters. Got me thinking a little bit about my own project again.
I've started to really enjoy drawing up my own characters and then a background and I decided that perhaps this could be a step in the right direction for my project.I looked through my designs and tried to think up a backgrounds, places or scenarios for them to be in and . For example, this rabbit again:

Could perhaps live somewhere deep dark and underground, an underground hall or castle safe from monsters.

This tin cowboy character,

Could visit a frankenstein monster labratory. (Not all cowboys have to go to the wild west obviously.)

And theres plenty more ideas.

A little house for someone to live in.

A futuristic style city for my sci-fi style characters

A monster that guards treasure

No idea. A bridge?

I've already got about twelve pages of rough background designs. But the project still needs a more solid or obvious connection, like the bestiary is. And I also need to get cracking. I can come up with at least one or two character designs a day still and it roughly takes me about two or three days a week to design one background. I want to see how far I can push myself with this.

Perhaps this could chronicle the boy characters adventures of the strange worlds and characters he meets? I really love coming up with different poses for this guy- I need to do more.

Rough
I don't feel like the most confident person in the world and I'm highly critical of the work I make, not to sound too big headed but I'm constantly having my artwork being reffered to as amazing' when I only see them as just drawings. I've being trying to keep my scraps and things I don't consider as that interesting (but other people seem to like):

Drew this in the cafe when I wasn't thinking at all. I think its a bowler!

Drew this on the paper bag my book came with. Just felt like drawing on it for some reason.