Inspiring Words

Felt like drawing this after seeing a comment on facebook:

Todays Update

Things feel a little bit difficult at the moment, although, it also feels slightly positive. Its not unbearable being at home, I have a few small comissions and my own personal projects to be working on and I've had plenty of interest and amazing feedback from some pretty well respected companies and agencies- I'm still managing to make at least a few small drawings a day (I've just been a bit lazy scanning them all.)

I'm looking forward to seeing how some of my christmas cards I made will turn out later this week!

Some scribbles

I've almost finished the hohum drawings and trying to give a magazine cover a try but my meeting with walker books pushed me a little more into wanting to start some of my other projects- things which I've been meaning to do. I don't know how well this works as a story.

Page 1:

I am struggling to sleep due to the bright and noisy stars outside my window.  I manage to cover the bright star which shines outside my window with my duvet and something unexpected happens.

Pirate Cats are in my bathroom. So impressed with my thieving skills of swiping up one of the ‘shiny gems that glitter in the sky’ they immedietly recruit me into their gang and we sail out into the ocean, taking away the stars from the sky, the stars will make us rich. Quite why nobody had stolen them before was a mystery to me. 

The ship is now too heavy, we sink beneath the ocean. I am separated from the cat pirates and I am sucked into a whirlpool. I must travel for seemingly hours before I finally end in a fancy fountain. I discover that I have ended up in a place called ‘Glad Town’ Though I am refused entry by an enormous gorilla who guards the entrance. 

But to my luck, the stars followed me. Like a faithful dog and I was their master. Stars were greatly sought after in Glad Town and I spent one to gain entrance into the city, an elevator slowly taking me through lower and lower through the town a variety of different places. I couldn’t help but resist on spending a few more.

I was now a rich and highly successful. I could afford to spend a few stars on enjoying the high life. I went to go see the newest show in town at the grand Sly Theatre ‘One Hundred Kings’

After the show had finished, I met one of the cat pirates who had survived. He was now dressed in prisoner garments and was quick to blame me for the theft of the stars- he had led several officers here to arrest me. I tried to outrun them. 

Eventually the hour came for when I was called to appear before the great hall of Justice. I stood atop an atlas globe where I was judged a guilty verdict. Since I was only a seemingly innocent young boy, the jury decided they must turn me into a much more monsterous looking figure, I was given the look of a ‘classic villain’ with top hat and a large twisting moustache.

The jury no longer had any reason to sentence me to my fate- to be eaten by an enormous dragon. I landed inside its stomach where I discovered several knights had turned the dragons stomach into a Jacuzzi and led a relaxing life. Fortunately, my Moustache spead out from my face like wings and I was able to escape from the dragon, landing in a dense forest. 

Portfolio meeting

I'm looking forward to my portfolio meeting with Walker Books tommorow, I'm not sure what to expect really... I hope I'm not bringing too much stuff.

Thats two A3 sketch pads, two 50 page a6 pads, one A5 pad, my portfollio, 60 or so little napkin drawings of character designs and two concertina books and two unpublished commision stories I've worked on...

A6 pads

I'm looking forward to my portfollio interview next thursday, I've been trying to get a few more drawings done before then:

Still drawing on napkins and I've got quite a large collection of them which I'm currently keeping in a  amazon cardboard box (hopefully I'll find something better to put it in soon.) I wrote Der Struwwelpeter because the drawing reminded me of the book of the same name. Don't know why.

I'm coming to the end of my 50 page A6 sketchpad I've had since the start of the year. I've been working on  and  off making up stuff like this since back in Jaunary. Its getting a bit difficult to draw in the last page because its starting to fall apart (I've been keeping it in my pocket.)

Another page from my pad... some sort of dragon guy? I don't know.  Feels like I was forcing myself to make drawings which probably isn't the best way, so I did stop drawing for a bit after I made this one.

Did try making a few colour versions of some  of my older drawings. I'm not really feeling this one though.  Maybe its just the paper type I'm using but I'm not really very satisfied with some of the colour drawings I've tried making in my pads. I've been trying to think what exactly I should be calling this recurring characters, its one of the regulars I seemed to keep re-drawing over and over (its fun making different poses for him.) and it has been called 'Jumping Jack' for now. I suppose theres been Samurai Jack and Jack & the Beanstalk, but Jumping Jack sounds a little bit boring to me... maybe I'll change my mind though.

I've started drawing in a much nicer A6 pad I  bought from Southampton a few  months ago. Got at least three  drawings so far and the paper quality does seem a lot better. Too bad its only 25 pages instead of 50 but maybe I'll keep using these for now.

My meeting is on thursday next week at 3pm! 

Fantasy World Napkins

I've been meaning to scan some of these in for a while now- some of my finished drawings I made just after looking at the original cover for Fantasy World Dizzy, I used to own it on my Atari ST.

I drew these all on little napkins I  stole from Costa Coffee.  Perhaps not the best drawings I've made (and one of them is based on a character design I made a long time ago.) but it is interesting to see that I can at least finish ten small drawings within a couple of days- theres still a few more I haven't quite finished yet so I'll post more maybe sometime later. 

And this is probably what inspired the last ten drawings I've posted. I grew up on this sort of thing. 

Roy Moss

Thought I should also mention that talented writer Roy Moss has updated his new website featuring some of my illustrations that I made for his Poem, the Owl tree.
http://royjamesmoss.com/

The Owl tree seems like a popular image. I've already sold a print and its also been featured in the 'Design Week' magazine. Check out the website if you have the time.