The Blues, They Run The Game

Sometimes I feel the need to animate something. The problem is, I'm not a writer and I don't have many good ideas. More often than not I opt for creating a music video. I'm a big fan of old folk singer Jackson C. Frank and Blues Run The Game is one of my favorite songs, so naturally I selected it for an animated film. I didn't get very far, just these few character concepts for the man himself... But I never really settled for them and didn't believe I could fill the length of the song with anything good.

The same happened again with The Cure's 'Burn' for the film The Crow. I loved the book, and share that feeling with the first movie. So of course it inspired these drawings for yet another abandoned music video...

Here's the 2 seconds of animation I actually got around to (story-boarded above).

RIP Grandad Steve - I love you x 

Another ghost story...

Here's a sketch I did late one night, up watching shows on the paranormal.
This particular night, the story focused on artist Robert Eugene Otto who was given a doll as a child that was supposedly cursed or possessed.

Neighbors claimed to see the doll moving from window to window when the family was out. The Otto family swore that sometimes the doll would emit a terrifying giggle and that they caught glimpses of it running from room to room. In the night Eugene would scream, and when his parents ran to the room they would find furniture knocked over and Eugene in bed, looking incredibly scared, telling them that "Robert did it!".


So here's my quick sketch of 'Robert the doll'. At the time I was fascinated by the story, but having been unable to actually find any real information on Robert Eugene Otto or anything other than the doll story I'm quick to say it is pure myth,


Text taken from 'Robert the Doll' - Wiki (Link).

Just another random mess!

I don't know why I'm sticking these all in one post, I guess just to get them out of the way... Plus it'd be a shame not to share, wouldn't it?

Starting with the Batman above, if you aspire to be a comic book artist, it should come as no surprise that one of your biggest influences be Jim Lee - there's a reason he's one of the best!

A fan of Cowboy Bebop I attempted to draw the show's main character Spike Spiegal.

Spike Spiegal

From left to right: Brooklyn (Gargoyles). Gargoyles was a damn fine show and Disney should never have closed the doors on it! Lara Croft (Tomb Raider). This is a drawing of Jill De Jong, one of the many Lara models promoting the games. Finally, an adult Prince Talmit, in the style of Akira Toriyama from one of my favorite Mega-Drive games Talmit's Adventure (or Marvel Land as it's known in America).

An a van, which my Dad asked me to do for some one at his work place, I forget why, but I don't think anything ever came of it.

'The Law'

A few years ago, 2000AD comics had a little contest to design and create a back-story for a new Judge Dredd villain. The winner would see their character appear in print. This is another case of me being young and hopeful...  I created a character who typically started out as a mad scientist and became a sort of supernatural ghost-like creature call The Elemental and started taking the law into his own hands... I can't remember the details, but I refused to submit it when I had finished most likely due to a lack of confidence.

... And the final image I would have submitted had I bothered...

Judgement Night

DragonBall Z!

I cannot begin to describe my original hatred of all things Dragonball. It all changed however after being forced by Nathan (the artist formerly known as NAJ) to sit through an episode. It was one of the better edited episodes, and needless to say; I was impressed. The quality of the animation and the designs of the characters were intriguing and completely won me over. I now call myself a fan of the franchise, and in particular of Akira Toriyama (Creator/Writer/Artist) who's style and works never cease to amaze me.

Above and below are some of the drawings I was able to dig up, and here's a link to another on my deviant-art page: Perfect Cell

Discovering Talent (Or Lack Of...)

As I've said before, growing up my dream career was that of a comic book artist and I would later realize that I wasn't at all cut out for it. I know you shouldn't give up but keep trying, but this was me at 15 having contacted a small British comic book publisher looking for a job. Not knowing my age or anything, they sent me a sample script to work off of, and away I went... The following is what came of it, and looking on it now, I don't honestly know why on Earth I thought that they would ever, in a million years accept my submission but hey, I was young.

Here is the first two completed page layouts I did but didn't have the balls to submit (probably a good thing considering the state of it).

And randomly, some sketched I did of a vampire super-hero character (Blade inspired) I found with the submission art.

Marvel Merriness, Part 3

Above you can see my first ever mouse/Photoshop attempt at coloring an image! I still hadn't embraced Illustrator at this point so it's not as clean cut as it could have been, but it's still progression.

As you might tell, I was a huge fan of Joe Madureira's art on various X-Men comics, and this Wolverine was influenced/copied directly from his work on Marvel Vs. Capcom.

Wolverine as a character was never my favorite of the mutants, that's not to say I disliked him, I just didn't quite get the way some, or most, writer's approached him.  I always found him interesting to draw though. He was a short hairy little man with a temper and like with drawing the Hulk, the expressions of rage were always fun to experiment with.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, I struggled to find my own style, but I still experimented with the way the characters looked a lot. To my surprise though, I've realized a little something. If you look on the image above, to the right (just above Toad) is my version of Sabretooth, dark haired and and shaven head... Me and Charlotte both agree that this sketch of him looks the spitting image of Liev Schreiber's portrayal of Victor Creed in the Wolverine: Origins movie (2009).

And speaking of the movies...

Sometimes I can be lazy with my drawings, and the first of these proves it, in fact I think it looks more like Ron Perlman than it does Hugh Jackman, heh. Anyways, the second is the original sketch of the last image, which I was truly pleased to have turn out so well, I think it looks just like him in character - It's not often than I am happy with the outcome of my doodling.

A digitally colored version can be seen here: The Wolverine

This post wouldn't be complete without some pics of my favorite X-Man, Gambit!

Over the years there were millions of drawings of him, sadly I can't locate most of them so these will have to do for now, the last image must have been a comic I had planned to do starring him, which like most of the others, didn't quite take off.

Some random X-Men characters again, Sabretooth and Storm were taken out of an old school sketchbook of mine (Storm is dated 2001, so I was 15 again). Both of the Cyclops pictures came later on, on inspired by Steven E. Gordon (X-Men: Evolution) and the other I think copied from an X-Men manga book I once found online.

Marvel Merriness, Part 2

Spider-Man was without a doubt my favorite super-hero. Like every other geek on the planet I too felt that I could relate to Peter Parker, the outcast who despite everything going wrong in his life still managed to be a nice guy. Spider-Man had such a massive impact on my life, at one time there wasn't a single thing I couldn't tell you about his life, friends and foes (I'm sure I spent many hours proving that to disinterested parties over the years as well!)

Funnily enough though, I never used to draw him so much as his rogues gallery, who in my honest opinion are also some of the greatest characters of the Marvel U (many even have, or had, their own books).

Sometimes my influences were clear, other times they weren't. For example, Black Cat (above) is drawn like Terry Dodson's version, and the rest I think are based off toys that I owned... Shocker in the lower-right corner is however my attempt at recreating his costume a little bit.

My favorite of the rogues however was Venom. I'm talking about the 90's Eddie Brock anti-hero character here. I loved the concept that Spider-Man's suit would turn out to be an alien life form, and that it would give all of his secrets to somebody out there who hated him. Above you can see some of my Venom pics, including Eddie caught in a web (which will appear digitally colored on a later post), a redesign I did for Eddie with Venom stood over him, an idea for a comic book cover image (though hardly an original one), and a Venom I believe that I copied from 'Carnage Unleashed'. To the right, you can see the same Eddie design in ink, a mid-transformation Venom, and a couple of random Venom's. Each one drawn in a different style... And below, an idea I had for another redesign - the final image, colored digitally will also appear on a later blog. I loved the idea that Eddie's shadow was actually the symbiote watching over him.

Finally, a redesign I did for Cletus Kasaday/Carnage - the idea being that he was a mental patient (much like the original) who had lost his arm in one of his many adventures in younger life. I had an idea that the alien symbiote (the offspring of the Venom symbiote) would improvise and come up with creatively violent ways to ghost-limb (like how Carnage could form weapons from it's cell structure).

Marvel Merriness, Part 1

I've always been a Marvel boy. Sure DC has some pretty big, ultra iconic characters, but I always felt like Marvel characters had all the fun. Not so much anymore, both are a bit too serious and it turns out that DC do a better job with it (even without all the characters I grew up loving).

So, to start I have The Punisher; One picture of him and I guess the start of a strip I must have felt inspired to do. I was never a big reader of Frank Castle's vigilante adventures, but every now and again a new artist or writer would find a way to pull me in.

Next is the Incredible Hulk, a character I love, but one that I didn't take a full interest in until later life. At this point I was toying with creating my own artistic style, though I was never satisfied with it. The best thing about drawing Hulk is his expressions, he has to be this explosion of rage, but also be the gentle giant. Finding ways to achieve that is near impossible, but I'm not entirely unhappy with my attempts.

Of course Captain America has to make an appearance somewhere. Though he is not a character I had much interest in, I always loved the way that other Marvel characters looked up to Cap.

Lastly for this post, like any imaginative child, I of course felt like I could create my own compelling story using many of the Marvel universe's more exciting characters. 'Unforgiven Sin' was a story featuring the X-Men, Spider-Man, Captain America, The Punisher and quite a few more! You can see below that I had started designing covers for issues, and had tried to plan out a story...

Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3, which will focus on my many Spider-Man and X-Men drawings from over the years!

Black Shuck

"An American airman was staying in a lonely old house by Walberswick Marsh in Suffolk. Suddenly, he heard a terrible crashing outside. Looking out, he saw a huge, black dog, fiery foam dripping from it's jaws, hurling itself repeatedly at the door. The dogs battering continued all night. But at dawn, it disappeared. Had the airman seen Black Shuck, the phantom dog?"

Fascinated by the paranormal, I remember taking an interest in the myth of Black Shuck, the one-eyed ghost dog. This was mostly due to the text above (written by Anne Civardi in the Pocket Rocket book Phantoms, 1993) which inspired this 'monstrous' illustration by an 8 year old me. 

Paint, Brawls, Sharks, Slayers and Robot Hedgehogs!

This character is based on a Real Ghostbusters toy, as a kid I loved the idea of Werewolves (back in a time when they weren't buddied up with sparkly homosexual vampires...). I think that his head was based off of one of the wolves from the snowy woods scene in Disney's Beauty & The Beast where the Beast protects Belle and collapses after the fight...

Rex, was probably my first serious attempt at ever drawing one.

Below are some pictures I drew using a mouse and Paint (yep, no Photoshop or Illustrator back then!)

Nothing special, but it helped pass the time before the internet became a big hit! 

The Jungle Book is © Disney

And a random picture of a street (not mine) that I found, I imagine I had just learnt about perspective...

As a kid, me and my younger Brother's weekly treat was an issue of Sonic The Comic, so naturally I tried my hand at drawing the blue blur and co. Most of my Sonic pics will appear in a later entry, but I found StC's Metal Sonic which I must have copied. I always thought he looked pretty darn cool!  With him, of course is Lord Vader from Star Wars. I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, but I did have my fair share of toys and memorabilia at one time. 

In 1995, Street Sharks started appearing on toy shelves everywhere, and like a lamb to the slaughter I found myself in possession of one, it's name was Ripster and it looked pretty awesome. My Brother had one wearing in-line skates called Blade, which was a tiger-shark (Ripster was a great white), and I tried my hand at drawing the toys...

Finally for today, some video game fan-art! Some old, not very good fan-art... But fan-art none the less!

Firstly, Tekken. Possibly the only fighting game I ever took a shine to, though I'm completely lost with it now, I did at one time love everything about it, so here's pics I drew with the release of the third and fourth titles in the series (which even now is going back a bit).

I've already posted some of Devil May Cry's Dante, and here's two more below!