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.

The Dizzy game

I've been told a couple of times how people think my style of drawing would lend itself well to a game, something similiar to the online downloadable releases on the newer consoles such as Braid.

To me, videogames are still inspiring. Honestly, I remember wanting to make videogames much more badly than wanting to draw for a career- (though I don't have a clue or any interest in programming.) and I did used to draw out tons of my own level designs and instruction booklets on how to play my imaginary games. I'm not uploading any of those of course- its embarassing.

Just ended up sitting in costas daydreaming about how I wanted to make my own 'Dizzy' videogame.

I still remember getting my dad to buy this for me on my Atari ST from Whsmiths in Staines. What I liked so much about videogames is the often absurd logic behind them and that the concept behind a lot of videogames could be about anything. Such as the main character being an egg- or uprooting a vegetable from the ground only to discover its a rocket that takes you to some distant castle in the sky.

Or just playing as a monkey who avoids landing into the lava pits below by jumping on top of crocodile heads who don't seem particularily bothered by lava at all.

Theres something a little bit more quirky and charming about the british made videogames (two of which are pictured above.) which seems to have been lost in todays games- at least for me. With that in mind, I just made a bunch of doodles for what I wanted to be in my game.

I've also found a pack of blank envelopes I found while clearing out my cupboard. Seems like a nice idea to draw on one and send it to someone.

also, I've been meaning to find a reason to post this. I recieved some great cards  for my birthday last month and some nice congratulation cards for my First award from finishing University- but I think this is the nicest one I've been given so far. Its all hand made from a friend of mine in indonesia- Its hard to throw away a nice hand made card like this (which is why I think I'll keep it.

Thank you!

Mini Projects

Have been feeling a frustrating mood of wanting to draw, but not really feeling like doing so lately. When I'm not whinging about it to my parents though (sorry), I have managed to keep going with my mini-projects which are almost done.

I've almost drawn on every paper napkin I've stolen from the Art House cafe in Southampton. It makes quite an impact if you bunch all the drawings together but heres the few I've been trying to work on lately.

Second mini project- Finish 50 small drawings like this. So far I'm up to 41. Thought I'd try another pose of the dancing boy character, only try adding colour to it this time.

I also drew something for my dads birthday.

And after drawing on napkins, I finally wondered if I could draw on  a canvas. Bought some really small canvas (smaller than a6 size) to see if I could perhaps give it a try. Not sure what to think of this just yet though- this is actually my second canvas attempt which turned out a little better than the first.