scarygoround

Cattywampus 10: THE BOSUN REVEALED!

If the rumours in this episode of Cattywampus are true, things are going to get a lot more interesting in Tredregyn! Whether Des will be around to see them is another matter altogether.

Check out previous Cattywampus instalments!

2020-10-24 11:20:26 +0000 UTC View Post

Mrs Clovis' sitting room

More 3D modelling for Mrs Clovis' house in Steeple. Her house is a traditional Cornish cottage, I've been in a few and the key thing to remember is that after you concuss yourself the first time on a door frame, you should try not to do it again for another half an hour to avoid permanent brain damage. I usually hit my head once every seven minutes on average in one of these dwellings. I'm 5'11. Cornish fishermen of the 18th and 19th century were usually 4ft tall. 

On Rightmove I w...

Quick Lottie sketches

A few quick sketches from this week. I'm contemplating a little fill-in Charlotte Grote story for the new year. It has to be right though, it may collapse in the writing. I'm not sure what website I would put it on. I have too many URLs. Maybe I'll just watch the leaves fall instead. &c.

The Clovis kitchen

Upcoming pages require me to draw Mrs Clovis' kitchen over and over again, sometimes from mad angles. So I modelled it in Sketchup from photo reference. It's taken me a long time to get to grips with Sketchup but with practice, I'm improving. I don't need anything perfect, just a good sense of dimensions and props, and a few depth cues.

I got the original cottage from Rightmove - always my first stop for character homes. Maybe you live in one of my characters' houses and you do not even...

Steeple: Secret Sentai pages 34-44

Here's the final batch of Secret Sentai pages. I hope you've enjoyed this story. There's one more 22-page Steeple story to go this year, then it's back to the drawing board to work out what comes next. 

>A few orbs and a squiggle

I don't often share full pencils ahead of time but these give little away and feature a lot of fun faces that can never be quite as zesty in the final inks. As you can see, my pencils are still relatively loose. But in the digital age, there are plenty looser than me. I know people who can get away with a few orbs and a squiggle. You'd never tell from the finished page.

Cattywampus 9

All right shag! Don't ask me what spurred this week's bout of extra-curricular creativity. But here's a third comic in as many days that puts a lie to the notion that one needs to think carefully before sitting down to draw a world-beating sequential masterpiece.

The saga of the Bosun will return... when time allows.

Cattywampus 8

The title of this post reminds me of Japanese football club, Grampus 8. The comic itself has little to do with the pride of Nagoya but they could be used together in a piece of rhyming verse. One to tuck away.

Yesterday's comic had a 45-day gestation. This one arrives like lightning. These things are hard to predict.

2020-10-08 14:16:31 +0000 UTC View Post

Cattywampus 7

I started this comic in mid-August and something went wrong, don't ask me what, I have no idea. I threw away the failed drawing on the file and redid it today, it's now 100% perfect. No one could find fault with this work.

Check out previous Cattywampus instalments! 

Wicked Things #6 sneak preview

Some previews are sneakier than others. With 25 days until the final issue of Wicked Things comes out, this one qualifies as "upper-medium sneaky". 

And with issue 6, the first arc comes to an end. I am not sure when a second will emerge - circumstances have not been on our side in 2020 to say the least, but I hope you'll be there on October 28th for what will be the final Wicked Things for now. A collection of the six issues follows next year.  

Writer/variant cover - M...

Inking the greats 3: John Byrne's "X-Men Elsewhen"

John Byrne is another one of my childhood favourites - Alpha Flight, She-Hulk, X-Men (I think I read those issues in Classic X-Men). I asked my friend R Stevens who I should attempt to ink next and he suggested one of JB's "X-Men Elsewhen" pencil pages that he puts up on his Byrne Robotics forums. 

Inking Byrne is a real adventure. The X-Men Elsewhen pages are quirky, to say the least - they're very tightly pencille...

Inking the greats 2: Marc Silvestri

Marc Silvestri's art on Uncanny X-Men was so exciting when I was 11. The costume designs in Inferno were racy and doubtless damaged me and many other pre-teen boys forever. These were lurid comics but within the framework of the Comics Code, a tension that I always think makes things better. I admire the nod toward equal opportunities in these comics; Havok endures a ripped-costume loin cloth that all but ensures that everyone in the late 80s X-family has seen his junk.

I inked this pag...

Inking John Romita Jr

I'm taking a few weeks off drawing Steeple (and other projects) to rest and also do something I almost never do - practice. I've been inking some of my favourite artists to try to improve my lines, but also because it's educational and therapeutic. It's like a museum tour of their decisions.

The first artist I tried was John Romita Jr. I got  the artwork I used from an art-for-sale site, so I don't know the provenance of this Spidey page. The original inks were by Scott Hanna. I do...

Sketch dump

Sketches have been thin on the ground of late, hopefully once I get my new glasses this week, I'll be able to resume sketchbook fun. But here are some digital warmups from the last couple of months. A lot of these pages build up over the course of days before I head into drawing. If I don't warm up, I feel the pain later. 

1. A load of Steeple stuff

2. A Lottie, maybe a Wicked Things Lottie

3. More Steeple beasts

4. 80s detectives "and more"

5. "Adam Cadwell...

Steeple: Secret Sentai pages 23-33

Here's the third quarter of Steeple: Secret Sentai, exclusively for Patreon members.

Wicked Things #5 preview

Here's a 6-page preview of issue 5 of Wicked Things, out on Wednesday.  Written by me, art by MAX SARIN, colours by WHITNEY COGAR, letters by JIM CAMPBELL.

Lottie attempts to solve a series of casino heists, while Little Claire attempts to solve Kendo Miyamoto's attempted murder. One of these people has their eye on the ball. The other one is getting carried away with themself. You decide who.

Millionaire

Desmond Fishman is desperate to go on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, but he won't go on with Jeremy Clarkson, he says it "has to be Chris Tarrant, the original millionaire".

Dust Bowl Desmond

Few are aware of Desmond Fishman's vanity film projects, designed to paint him in the best possible light as a working classic hero. The one that came closest to general release until its eventual derailment by the Freemasons was "DUST BOWL DESMOND". Rated 'U' - unsuitable for all.

I will answer any questions you have about "Chappy" Fishman.

Sketch trash/treasure

Sorry about the lack of new sketches on Patreon. I do most of my sketching watching TV, but due to the onset of short-sightedness as I enter middle age, I can't look at the TV and my sketchbook at the same time. Hopefully I can fix this with either bifocals or by sitting six inches from the TV, though I think it will have to be the former, as sitting with your nose pressed against the the TV is the sort of thing your mum tells you off for when you're seven.

The other place I sketch is o...

2011 pencil-only recreations

Nine years ago I was very well-drilled with my sketchbook work and had a go at redrawing old comics with no inks, just pencil, in my looser sketchbook style. 

I managed these five wild looking recreations of some 2003/4 comics. But I could never make this style work when I applied it to something new. I really had to hold my nerve because a. I had to press down quite hard with the pencil so it would scan properly and b. mistakes, even if I erased them on paper, required a lot of cl...

Steeple: Secret Sentai pages 12-22

Here's the second quarter of Steeple: Secret Sentai, exclusively for Patreon members.

Gardt

I have a special place in my heart for my "awful" characters. Desmond Fishman is the king of awful characters, a terrible green boy in the world. Dean Thompson in Giant Days is another, reprehensible but magnetic in his own way. For By Night, I wanted a character who was a kind of cross between Snarf from Thundercats and the Dungeon Master from the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon. In my i...

Wicked Things issue 4 preview

Wicked Things issue 4 is available in comic shops (and digitally on Comixology) on August 26th. 

Lottie must prove she is more than just a highly efficient tea and coffee maker in order to thwart the genius heist plan of two twin brothers. Plus: Detective Bohle gets a new face! A rare chance to see Ben Bishop, founder of ...