MOOSE! MOOSE!

Issue 3 of Jamie Smart's joyously silly kids comic Moose Kid is out now at http://www.moosekidcomics.com .  Featuring a  strip by yours truly about Napoleon and his trusty Velociraptor!  Read em while their fresh.

Moose Kid 2 is out

Issue 2 of the brilliant Jamie Smart edited all ages comic Moose Kid is now ready to read at moosekidcomics.com.  The comic features the work of 50 odd artists (including me) all giving our work away for free to hopefully entertain some young readers.

Issue 2 contains some of this

and this

(pic credit: Rick Eades)

a little bit of that

(pic credit: Jess Bradley)

some kids doing this:

(pic credit: Dan Gaynor)

these

(pic credit: Andrew Waugh)

A seal pup

(pic credit: Rachael Smith)

A green thing in a shower cap

(pic credit: Andreas Schuster)

the promise of gold, jewels and custard

(pic credit: Chris Garbutt)

and a crazy amount more.

Oh and this:

(pic credit: Rikke Asbjorn)

ELCAF and Moose Kid

I had a great time at ELCAF this weekend meeting loads of interesting and talented people, learning some new skills and buying far more comics than I can afford.  Good times!  It's definitely the best comic event I've ever been to.  If you're in to comics I would totally recommend going and taking part in their masterclasses and events next year.

In other news, this amphibious, androgynous fella will be resurfacing in the next couple of weeks....

Putting together a page of Sunshine Bay

Here's a little summery of how I put together pages for Sunshine Bay.  I experimented with a few different ways of getting the same effect, but for this page I did it in layers on Photoshop, meaning that I can pull it apart and show you how it's done.

First up, the sketch.  My sketches are generally a lot more rough than this, but I originally used it as part of a pitch to children's comic The Phoenix (the page is A4 here to fit their dimensions)

The Phoenix showed some initial interest but in the end it didn't come together so I decided to self publish.  I liked the idea of making the book look like a postcard to I cut the pages in half to make them landscape format.  This meant quite a bit of tweaking to get the page turn right but I'm really glad I did, I think it made it in to a nice little object.

I've lined this in Pentel Brush Pen and dip pen:

I then colour some of the lines on Photoshop (for any cartoonists who don't know how to do this: change to document to greyscale, use the channels window to select all the grey, select > inverse, make a new layer, add a mask using the circle in a square icon at the bottom of the layers panel and fill in the layer with any colour you want your lines to be)

I then used the lines as a guide for a watercolour paining:

And finally I put it all together!

It's a bit of a roundabout process and sometimes I found it much quicker to just do it all on paper and scan it at the end.  The main advantage is that you can have coloured lines, and indeed much more control over the lines generally.  I hope that's of some help to someone, and (brazen plug approaching) please do go and buy Sunshine Bay from any branch of Traveling Man, or from my website.

Broken Frontier covers Moose Kid and a few sketches

This morning Andy Oliver posted an interesting interview with Jamie Smart about Moose Kid Comics.  Check it out at Broken Frontier: http://www.brokenfrontier.com/small-press-spotlight-on-moose-kid-comics-with-jamie-smart/

In other news, here's some sketches:

First off, a dismembered head frowns at a pole being held by a man in a hat:

Man playing iPad game at Oldfield Park station

Moose Kid Comics has launched upon the high seas of t'interwebs

 The Moose has landed.  Or blasted off in to the air if you want to use the visual metaphor on the cover.  Either way,  Moose Kid Comics is now officially online.  And it's apparently been getting loads of interest (7000 visitors in the first 22 hours).

Moose Kid is an anthology comic aimed at younger readers devised and edited by Jamie Smart.  The basic premise is to help re-ignite enthusiasm for UK kids comics and provide a showcase for creators.

I was lucky enough to get a couple of strips in there: Gurber and a mini calibration with Messur Smart himself, called Mr Plops.  It's a real privilege to have been a part of this and the standard of the comics is inspiring. Hope you enjoy it!

Broken Frontier + bank holiday travel sketches

Sunshine Bay is Andy Oliver's Broken Frontier pick of the day! Check out the write up here

Also, here are a few sketches from my traveling up to mid wales to see the folks over the bank hols.  Hope you had a great bit of bank holidayness!

Sunshine Bay review on Down the Tubes

I'm really chuffed with this review of sunshine bay on one of my favourite comic blogs http://downthetubes.net/?p=14223 .  Also a few bits on some upcoming projects

Another story from the same pitch as the previous two posts

One of the unfinished comics from the Sunshine Bay pitch (see previous post)

Sunshine Bay

Today I'm working on a micro comic to give away at Thought Bubble festival next month. It's going to be two mini stories based in the fictional seaside town of Sunshine Bay. 

I originally sketched the stories as part of a pitch to the mighty Phoenix comic in spring last year and here's one of the drawings from that pitch (used as postcard on which I wrote my covering letter).

Oxford Monster drawing workshop

I had a rather brilliant time at the inaugural Oxford Children's Comic Festival the other day. If you didn't make it you can get a decent idea of some of the many goings on virtuoso-dino-drawing-type Neill Cameron's blog , or on the organiser's blog.  It was such a sucess it looks like they may organize another similar event before long, I'll be sure to mention it on this blog if they do.

My contribution to the day was a monster drawing workshop, one part of which entailed making enormous monster consequences drawings.  Here are a few of my faves:

The Oxford Children's Comic Festival and commuters from this week

I'm really rather chuffed to have been invited to do a workshop at this upcoming children's comic festival.  Should be lots of fun!  More details here

Commuters from the week:

This guy on the right announced early on in the train journey that he "wasn't a supporter of Thatcher by any means" and then launched in to a seemly endless diatribe about how great she was and how everyone who ever criticized her was wrong.  His traveling companion didn't get a word in edgeways.  I liked her classic "touching mouth because I've got something to say but I'm holding it back" pose.