So lucky to have the fabulous Keara Stewart doing portraits of all the creators for the pages of Tempo Lush Tales.
Here’s Keara herself!
And here’s me!
You can also see lots of Keara’s wonderful, lively line drawings in her ‘On the Escalator’ solo exhibition in Hackney…
Proper Old, 173 Dalston Lane, Hackney, E8 1AL
2nd Oct-18th Oct 2014
Private view – Thursday 2nd October from 6pm-8.30pm
Here’s a couple of pages of Sally-Anne Hickman‘s lovely art from Bang! Crash! Whizz!
Whatever could be making that noise?
Perhaps it’s me and Sally preparing some Bang! Crash! Whizz! related music for Friday’s launch!
The book should go on sale online next week!
Not a bad backdrop to be running comic workshops with the fabulous Gary Northfield in Rochester yesterday…
Armed with some fantastic worksheets provided by the Phoenix Comic, I was helping Gary out in the Cartoon Creation Corner as part of the Big Picnic, itself part of the Fuse Festival.
Gary is an incredible comic creator, responsible for (amongst other things) Derek the Sheep from the Beano, Gary’s Garden from the Phoenix, the all ages graphic novel Teenytinysaurs and the upcoming book Julius Zebra, which I’m looking forward to reading to my boy when it’s out in 2015!
We got asked to draw all sorts of odd creatures and things for the steady stream of kids and their parents that came to join in the comic making fun. Here’s some of my efforts…
I drew this owl at the request of a young girl, to put up on her wall. Afterwards she politely told me she’d wanted a barn owl and I’d drawn a long eared owl.
Felt such a fool. 
One popular worksheet showed visitors how to draw the Evil Cat character from Laura Ellen Anderson‘s Phoenix Comic strip: Evil Emperor Penguin…
People also created strips from scratch including this one about a cactus who blows up a rival plant food shop…
Lots of great work was laminated and hung out to view in a pop up gallery…
Did you spot a Porsche, Scooby-Doo and One Direction?
I’ve done a half dozen or so MCM Comic Cons now and still enjoy them.
Always nice to see old friends, meet new folk and draw portraits, plus I’m still touched that anyone wants to buy my comics and prints! The most gratifying thing is when people have already bought something at a previous show and liked it enough to come back and buy something else!
Here’s some pics, starting with with my table spread…
It was bigger than in previous years – no wonder some people come for 3 days…
My lovely table buds Francesca Dare (check the feathers) and Van Nim…
Van surprised me with a lovely sketch of Grace Park as Sharon from Battlestar Galactica…
My comic creator friend Karen Rubins treated me to these beautiful things…
Amazing how quick the weekend goes but I made the most of my table and found time to work on upcoming Lucy the Octopus strips…
Speaking of Lucy I’ll leave you with some of the Lucy the Octopus style portraits I was commissioned to do over the weekend…
This next one is my friend and soon to be collaborator, Manga artist Chie Kutsuwada…
Looking forward to my next con…
London Film and Comic Con 2014
Earls Court 2, Old Brompton Road SW5 9TA
Friday 11 – Sunday 13 July 2014
Had a great time yesterday traveling to the lovely town of Ashburton in Devon.
I find long train journies great to work on, and had time to finish a script Paul Shinn will be drawing for the upcoming Tempo Lush Tales, plus some work on a project for Titan Comics and then a blog about the making of Lucy the Octopus. All coming soon!
Anyway, the real reason for the trip was to run a couple of comics workshops at Gnash Comics, an absolutely fantastic shop with a great set up and mix of goodies.
Pleased to say that Tempo Lush comics are now on sale there too!
The first workshop saw a wonderful bunch of local kids developing fabulous story ideas, like this…
The second workshop saw the turn of the grown-ups! Some of them pictured below – Maybe there are signs I worked them too hard.
We did some fun work on story development and thumb-nailing towards finished comic pages. There was a lot of talent on show…
One of the most satisfying parts of the trip was the fact that adult workshoppers made plans to meet regularly and talk comic making. Hope big things grow from that!
There were some fantastically skilled kids in my workshop at The Institute in North London on Saturday. Warming up with a bit of quick character doodling…
Then designing characters hinting at their personality and backstory…
They came up with some fantastic possible endings to a three panel strip...
Then came the point in the workshop where I asked them what they’d like me to draw peeping over the top of a box. “A not very well drawn tiger-cub!” they all cried. Nailed it.
I like to use my collaborator’s work as samples of comic making. Here are some early Rosie and Jacinda designs by the great Zarina Liew…
The kids picked up ideas of character design, story crafting and thumbnailing really well…
And finished up the day making some fantastic comics…
So happy when the kids really get into their work!
A number of groovy artist types have contributed pin-ups for Rachael Smith‘s upcoming House Party Graphic Novel published by Great Beast Comics, including Paul Shinn (see his here) and John Cei Douglas (check his out here).
If anyone’s around London on Friday 13 June 2014, I’ll be at the House Party official launch at Orbital Comics!
Here’s my finished pin-up effort…
And here’s the colours planned out before adding texture and tone.
And here’s the inks before I coloured it.
And here’s the pencils from before I inked it.
So there.
I had such a great day on Saturday taking part in a comic making workshop as part of the Secret Agent Themed Season at Discover Children’s Story Centre in Stratford, East London on Saturday.
Sunday would see the skills of Sarah McIntyre, Gary Northfield and Alex Milway assisting any kids up to the mission of making fantastic comics and characters. Saturday however, the crack team of agents consisted of (left – right) myself, David O’Connell (who organised the day perfectly and created some brilliant worksheets), Laura Ellen Anderson and Jamie Littler.
David (above) drew a fantastically evil scientist (below). My secret agent was called upon to sort him out! 
Here’s Laura wowing kids with her drawing talents…
This was definitely a highlight of the day for me – Laura and David having an improptu Tadpole Attack Squad draw off. It was a fierce battle!
When I heard that Laura had an octopus character in her Phoenix comic strip Evil Emperor Penguin, we had to have an Octopus draw off too! Was amazed at Laura’s unplanned linework – so good!
Some more Secret Agent themed art by Laura, myself and visitors to Discover…
Jamie did a mind-blowingly good take on the evil inventor including a Laser Shark!
Hmmm… Well, you try drawing Scooby-Doo without any reference then! I had to explain to the girl who asked for this who Scrappy-Doo is. Kids today, eh?!
Finally here’s a secret message, written using David O’Connell’s secret code!
So good to work with David, Laura and Jamie and especially at such a special place as Discover!
Today (Friday 8 N0vember 2013) is the launch party of the print collection of John Miers’ amazing Score & Script project, taking place at Gosh Comics (1 Berwick Street, London W1F 0DR). Launching alongside two other fine comic anthologies, Comix Reader and The Strumpet.
You can see more details and pics from last year’s exhibition of the Score & Script at the Centre for Recent Drawing by clicking here!
Over 30 artists including myself took part in the project, creating comic pages either based on an unusual script or a mysterious score, both originated by John.
Here are some panels from my attempt to interpret the score, working in ink line and watercolours.
It’s a beautiful collection. Here’s my effort in it on the right, proudly sitting next to a page by the very talented Woodrow Phoenix. Aside from the launch, John will be selling the collection at Thought Bubble in Leeds later this year and no doubt in some fine comic shops too.
I had a great time giving a watercolour presentation at Process at Gosh Comics last night.
Before it kicked off I prepared an ink drawing to add colour to later…
Process is organised by the fantastic Steve Walsh (below, far right). There was a great turn out yesterday.
Andy Poyiadgi talked brilliantly about putting together his exhibition for The Lakes comics festival and how the festival involved the local community, similar to the French Angouleme Festival.
Next up the brilliant Lorenzo Fiorini talked through the process of laying out panels and story telling as told to him by artist Eduardo Risso (100 Bullets, Batman: Noir). 
Then it was over to me to babble away while painting. Two pics below by Lily Withycombe.
It was good to hear further watercolour suggestions and ideas from many of the experienced creators gathered around, including Rosie Polet, Francesca Dare and Maartje Schalkx.
Two pics below by Francesca.
So here was the piece by the end of the presentation…
And here it is after I added some more layers of watercolour.
I added some additional texture on the wood, ground and bushes. I also gave some of the other areas richer and more defined tones.
After scanning it, I cleaned up the speech bubble a bit on Photoshop.
There you go. Thanks very much to Steve for asking me to come along!
