Freak Show #2 finished

Well, i have to finish lettering it, but otherwise, it's in the bag. Took me way too long to do this issue, about the same amount of time as #1. I should be working faster than i am. On the other hand, i did have to put it on hold to do the short story for the Judge Dredd Megazine.

Anyhoo, here's a look at some more of #2......






















Dec

Dublin City Comic Con 06

Yes indeed, back from the convention in Dublin last weekend. Had a great time. Met a lot of faces both old and new and got a great reception all round, so if you bought a copy of Hero Killers, thanks a lot, and i hope you're happy with your sketch. Even got asked to do an interview (see below). Yes, i know it's a Fisher-Price tape recorder, but i was assured the interview was valid.

















I have ONE photo of the convention and i'm upstaged by a kid's toy. Typical.

Big thanks to John Hendrick at The 3rd Place and everyone involved with the convention. Great show. Really lookin forward to next year.

I met up with Ian Whelan and Alan Nolan, creators of Sancho: Twisted tales of horror www.20000-leagues.com at the con, gave them a Sancho pin-up, just wanted to contribute something to an Irish-made book. They liked it so much, they want to use it as their next cover, which of course, i was very flattered by. Here's the pencils and inks. Since the guys want it as a cover, i'll have to colour it.




You can see i kept the pencils quite loose, just laid down the figure, where i wanted my blacks and whatnot. Even the rendering on the wastcoat is pretty loose, usually i have a very clear pencil line that shows where the black ends, but not this time. Wanted to keep it loose, so i could play around with the inks a bit.








.....and the inks. Here i rendered the waistcoat, the nearer zombie and added detail to the headstone in the foreground. I also decided to leave out some of the branches i'd pencilled in, decided it was getting too busy up there, and i was going for a simple-looking image, nothing too fancy.

Well that's it. Really happy with it, especially as the Sancho lads seem to really like it. I'll put up the colours once they're done





Dec.

Superman/Batman

Howdy.

Me and my mate Will Sliney over at http://irishcomics.blogspot.com try to meet up every now and then and work on our comics, like working in a studio environment. Here's a Superman/Batman piece we did the summer of last year, and the one we did last week, beside it. Vast improverment.















Won't be posting again till next week. Getting everything ready for the Dublin City Comic Con being held in the Temple Bar Music Centre on Sat 25th. That's this saturday. Many BIG names will be there. See www.irishcoimicshop.com for details. There will also be a host of irish talent, Bob Byrne, creator of Mbleh and the Shiznit, Stephen Mooney(CSI/Angel) and Stephen Thompson(Buckaroo Banzai), who are also the previous Freak Show artists, Alan Nolan of Sancho fame and also .........................well, me. I'll be there too. So come along. I'll have the original art of pretty much all the work you're seen on this blog and more to boot.

Hope to see you there,

Dec.

Inks

Here's the inks to one of the panels i posted last week. You can see i added a few heads in the background, finished the foreground character and added details in the faces and soforth.




















Dec.

More Rough pencils

Here's a couple more panels. The bigger scene is still unfinished, have to work out the black lady in the foreground, and some small details like faces and headscarves, etc. But this is the bones of it anyway.
I generally don't tighten my pencils too much, cuz i know i'm inking them myself and i've gotten looser in my inking approach in the last few months. Saying that, there's nothing worse than going to ink a face and realising i haven't pencilled it in at all. It's easy to miss details like that when you've pencil lines all over the place and no solid blacks.























Dec.

Huzzzah!

I can finally reveal thet the afore mentioned Freak Show short story is to be published in the Judge Dredd Megazine!!! I didn't want to say anything before i knew for sure, but it has to be confirmed. The story will be published in the meg's Small Press section. I'm really happy about this, it's a great wat to get he word out about Freak Show, and of course, to have something printed by 2000AD is a great honour. Once i know the whens and wheres, i'll spread the word.

Have had to take on some work to tide some money issues over, so there may be less postings for the next few weeks, but will definately have at least one a week up.

Dec.

Rough Pencils.

Back at work on the regular Freak Show book after putting it on hold for the short story. Here's some rough pencils to one of the new pages. Generally, i tighten details before inking, but don't think i need to in this case, i'll just work out some background detail and hit it with some ink.























Dec

Freak Show Short Story

Just finished a short story featuring Jack. If all goes according to plan it'll see print before issue one. Here's the first 2 pages, just to give a taste. Once i know what's happening for sure, i'll post details.

Enjoy

























Dec

Artwork for Music Single.

Was commissioned to do the artwork for a music single coming out from a Limerick DJ.
Here's the fruits of my labours























With a catchy title like that, who wouldn't buy it?

Dec.

Commissions

From time to time i do the auld commissioned illustrations. Did some last week. Here's my favourite two so far.






















It can be tough doing these on top of Freak Show, but they give me a chance to step out of the 1950s backdrop of FS, and draw something i normally wouldn't draw.

That's all for now.

Dec