FRANKENSTEIN INKS.

Greetings.

Been pretty busy on Frankenstein pencils this week. I'd post a bit every day, but then you'd see nearly the whole book, and i want you to buy the bleedin' thing after all. Just finished inking this panel. Some people passing through the studio really like this panel in particular, so i thought i'd share it with the rest of you mugs.




















Dec.

FRANKENSTEIN PENCILS



















Here's the pencils for yesterday's layouts. I was asked to flip the view horizontaly on the main panel, which works better, i think. This hasn't been approved yet, so i may still have to change it. I also can't decide whether or not to blacken the white area (marked with an 'X' to be blackened) just left of his face. My first instinct is to leave it white, but it may look too bare if i do.

Dec.

FRANKENSTEIN LAYOUT CHANGES

While starting a page of Frankenstein yesterday, i realised i really wasn't happy with the layout i was going to use. It calls for Victor remembering back to his childhood. Below is the approved layout....




















I drew this layout as it was called for in the script. The top two panels, i was happy with, but the large third panel was bugging me. Thing is, i'm not mad aout these kinds of shots. Like circular 'insert' panels, they feel too 'comic-booky' me. Not that i don't think they're useful, i'm not putting those techniques down, i just don't feel comfortable doing them myself, is all.




















So, i suggested a layout like the above one, where the transition moves down the page. I much preferred this, but my art director felt it would work better for the monster, rather than Victor, and suggests a different way of doing it...




















So taking his thoughts into consideration, i came up with this. More of an Alan Davis-esque technique. I've never tried it before, so i hope the end result turns out okay.


Dec .

MORE SUSAN



















Because none of you demanded it, here's another panel of Susan, from a Freak Show page i just finished.

Dec.

FRANKENSTEIN PANEL













This is my favourite panel from my first batch of Frankenstein pages.
I wanted the charecter to be looking toughtfully out at the sea and think i achieved that.


Dec.

FRANKENSTEIN, STEP BY STEP.

Well, thought i might finally show something from Frankenstein. Here's a step by step process of how a page gets made.




First of all, i do a small thumbnail after having read the script. Here, i roughly work out the panel layout, keeping in mind who's talking, in what order they speak in, and what importance each panel plays. This is the first page where we see Victor Frankenstein, so i knew the panel where we first see him properly would have to be bigger in order to focus on him. The script also called for panel one to be big, so taking in those important points i decided on the appropriate layout. I initially thought of adding a panel before panel 1, but then decided against it.





Next was the more defined layout, drawn about 7" high. I used a grey tone marker just so i could loosely render the page without getting caught up in specific detail. Best not to get too detailed at this stage as that can distract from concentrating on the storytelling. Here, i also manage to get a rough idea of how i'll spot my blacks. Since they're in an icy landscape, there isn't much black, so i decided to use black panel borders to balance the page, and also, to heighten the contrast of the panel borders and the stark, cold landscape. I find white looks a lot whiter once there's some black next to it. This page was approved but it was suggested i change panel 3.





Next comes the pencils. I lay out my page reasonably quickly, since most of the decision-making was already taken care of in the more-realised layouts. I changed panel 3 as i was asked, and scanned the page only realising afterwards that i forgot the dead dogs in panel one (sometimes these things slip by you, you have to be careful of silly things like that). The pencils were approved, but my art director, Jon Haward, pointed out that The Master's (2nd character, panel 2) fingers were a bit too long in Panel 2 and to fix them before i started inking (he was dead right, they were way too long).






Then finally, the inks. All corrections have been made, so i just knuckle down with my pen, brush and eraser, and finish the page. Voila!













One down, One-hundred and ten or so pages to go.......

Dec.

YOUR ROUND REVIEW

Greetings.

Another Your Round review today, this time on the Silver Bullet Comic Books website.

Make with the clickmaking here.

The reviewer makes note of how i've improved since Hero Killers, which was sound of him. It got 3 and a half bullets, so it did better than Amazing Spider-man, worse than X-Factor and as well as Immortal Iron Fist.

I can live with that.

It's described as "A series of entertaining and evocative stories that are well worth a read," which is pretty class. My baby's made me so proud.... sniff....

Dec.

PORTFOLIO SITE

Greetings.

Guh. I'm tired. Good week's work tho. Couple of commissions, 10 pages of Frankenstein layouts, 5 pencilled Frankenstein pages, 4 pencilled and inked Your Round pages and ...well ... that's it. If i keep this up, maybe i can die soon. The above workload explains the lack of posting the last couple of days.

Here's another panel from Your Round, with the scruffy, loose style i'm getting quite fond of....







Also, Declan's got a Portfolio website! He's so pleased he's speaking about himself in the third person, apparently. The site was all made possible by an old college buddy, Nina Lyons. Thanks Nina!

I've been meaning to sort a site out for myself for ages. Nothing mad, but if somebody wants to check out my work, their only option is to search through a years worth of material on this blog. And let's face it; they won't. The regular posts are great and all, but they're generally snippets of pages, rather than finished pieces. So now, i have a site where people can see my best stuff, such as it is. The webspace is part of a group of artists/illustrators/designers, etc. It's nice to be included with such a high caliber of talent. Check out the group site for some really nice work.

RiseCreatives

Also, click here for stuff you've all probably seen before on this blog.

Dec

SUSAN



Ms. Susan White from Freak Show. The script called for her to look really sexy, so i spent a fair while trying to get this pose right.

I call this type of panel, the "Mooney-shot," in honor of Stephen Mooney, who likes to draw the sexy ladies......










Dec.

YOUR ROUND REVIEW

The ever-handsome MoonDog pointed me onto this today, another review for Your Round: Tequila. Make with the clicking here

It's a really positive review i'm happy to say.

"The black and white art by Declan Shalvey is reminiscent of Cully Hammer and Tony Harris, with heavy darks highlighting simplistic details and facial expressions."

Particularly happy with that comment, seeing as i love both those artist's works. Big time.

Dec.

YOUR ROUND: STOUT




















Got a start on a short story for the next Your Round book, this one titled Stout. Since this is my book and i can do pretty much what i want, i decided to step up the loose, drybrush-heavy approach another bit. So much so, in this panel, the only time i used a pen was the facial hair and panel borders. The borders are even done freehand, rather than with a ruler. The great thing about having your own book is you can try techniques that you can't with work-for-hire stuff. Trying to not be too precious, and embrace any unexpected results. Drybrush can really backfire on you if you're not careful. Enjoying it so far, hopefully i won't mess it up.

Too much.

Dec.

MIKE WIERINGO REMEMBERED

I listen to a lot of podcasts these days, they're great to have on while i draw away all day. One podcast i listen to is the Around Comics Podcast. Its really entertaining, highly recommended by the Decster.

That's me.

Anyway, this week, they dedicated their show to the recently deceased artist Mike Wieringo. They share their thoughts on hearing the sad news of his passing and look over his dazzling career. Listen here.

Dec.

FRANKENSTEIN THUMBNAILS
















Right so, here we go. I sat down yesterday with the Frankenstein script and started doing thumbnails. Here's where i figure out the rough layout of each page, where characters need to be on the page, where speech bubbles will go, and what reference i'll need. From these, i'll do more finished layouts where i'll get a more specific idea of what reference i'll need exactly, work out light sources, spot blacks, etc. Then, eventually, i'll get to pencilling the page ....at some stage.

If you can make any sense out of this, fair flay to yeh. I understand it, but at this stage, i'm the only one who needs to. I'll scribble down little details, in case i had an idea of what i'd like to add to a scene and i'm scared i'll forget it.

Dec.

FRANKENSTEIN BEGINS....



















Hello all. Today i officially start on the Frankenstein graphic novel. It's a very different job than i'm used to working on. Normally, on any other job, i do extremely rough layouts. They're almost abstract, but i understand what's going on with them, so that's all that matters. Then i do my pencils and inks, scan, letter and then i'm done. With Frankenstein, i have to do more finished layouts, then wait for approval from my art director, Mr. Jon Haward, do pencils after feedback is gotten on the layouts, then send off the pancils and do inks when i've gotten feedback on the pencils. So, it's a slower process in a way, but as long as i plan things out well enough, and am constantly working on an aspect of the art, i should have no problems.

May not have anything worth showing for the next few days as a lot of the work i'm doing at first is a lot of planning, layouts and working out what referance i'll need, etc. Ah, sure, i'll probably stick up the odd doodle.

Check out the Classical Comics website for the pages i did as a way of securing the project and of course, see all the other books they have coming out over the coming year.

Dec.

ESSENTIAL READING




















Keen eyes might spot some of my favourite books here.....

Dec.

PUSH IT TO THE LIMIT....




















.....LIMIIIIIIT!
What a great tune. Anyway, Here's a layout i did for the Mac Daddy of my heart, Bob Byrne. He's doing a new "Bob Byrne's Twisted Tales" for 2000ad. He's drafted me in to help him woth some layouts. To be fair, he's laid it all out perfectly, i'm just polishing them up, or 'knocking it up a notch,' as the kids say. Click here to see him go through the process of the initial layouts, then using my layouts to 'knock' it up another 'notch'.

Dec.

HEY KIDS, SMOKING MAKES YOU LOOK COOL!



A new panel from Freak Show. I'm trying out a rougher inking technique while trying to retain the graphic, high contrast way i illustrate my pages. I'll either get better at it of just give up in the end, but so far, i'm reasonably happy with my progress.










Dec.

MIKE WIERINGO, RIP





















I was very saddened to hear of the passing of artist Mike Wieringo today. I didn't know him, but i was a big fan of his work. My tastes have always lent towards artists with a more 'realistic' style, but when i was younger, Wieringo's work blew me away.

On Sensational Spider-man, he was drawing these great, breezy, entertaining Spidey stories. I picked up the Modern Masters book dedicated to him last year, and from it, it was clear he really enjoyed fun drawing comics that anyone could read and wasn't fond of the trend of angst filled, dark heroes. It's a shame his return to Spider-man last year was a story that led in that direction, and didn't take advantage of the great work he could have done with the right type of story.

I suppose at least he left us so much amazing work for us to remember him by.

Dec.

CLASSICAL SHALVEY

Hey kiddies.

Right, close mates know all about this already, but, y'know, i don't have a lot of close mates, so this post is for the rest of ye.

For the last few months i've been doing some extra work in an attempt to get a new job. Not an easy task, when also drawing Freak Show every day, but it seems to have worked out in the end. Now, i've hinted to side projects a few times on this blog. Some have developed, some haven't. But this is not one of them. I haven't hinted to this job once for fear of it falling apart and blowing up in my face.

I've just been hired to illustrate a graphic novel. It's an adaptation of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Yep, Frankenstein. The proper one. No futuristic crazy gun toting Frankenstein, this is the original, misunderstood creature. It's part of a series of graphic novels coming out from Classical Comics. They've other books coming out, such as Macbeth, Great Expectations and Romeo and Juliet by other artists like Jon Haward, John M Burns and Gary Erksine. What can I say? I'm thrilled to be working on a project that puts me in such esteemed company. For this book i have an editor, an art director, a colourist and everything! The script is adapted by writer Jason Cobley, writer of Bulldog Empire
Here's one of the finished pages i've done so far.





















So, that means i've 4 different projects on the go:

The Frankenstein graphic novel,
The Freak Show Volume 2 series, with writer Rod Curley
A project called Tim Skinner: Total Scumbag, with writer Andy Winter
And my self published project Your Round, (with anyone who'll pitch in)

So i'm going to be a verrrry busy bunny.....

Not that i wasn't before, but now, i'll be even busier.

Dec.

EDINBURGH REPORT

Well, i've had an interesting couple of days. Was supposed to meet a couple of friends from home in Edinburgh, but unfortunately, they missed their flight, so i was left to my own devices.

Spent a lot of it just wandering the city, NOT going to any shows, cuz i was on my own and would have felt ridiculously awkward going to shows on my own. Everyone there seemed to know what they were doing, and i was walking around like the awkward, difficult eejit i am. I did see one show, mind, but i knew the fella performing it, so it was okay. It was Kev F Sutherland's show, The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, and it was very funny. If you're at the fringe, definitely go see it. Popped out with Kev afterwards also, so big shout out to him for lettin me tag along, and a huge shout out to illustrator Andy Hepworth, who was kind enough to give me a place to stay when i was really stuck. Thanks again Andy!

I also got to go for some drinks with some good folk i'd met at comic conventions and proceeded to talk comics all night, which was just fine by me! I'd done some sketches for them at cons before, so this time, they returned the favour! Check them out...











































Also, just found this today. Established writing duo Leah Moore and John Reppion, writers of Albion and Raise the Dead mentioned Your Round on their blog, just click here and scroll down a bit. They say "Drunken pub stories in comic book form is really a genius concept." Well, who am i to argue with them......? Thanks guys!

Dec

INKS














Here's the inks to yesterdays panel. Off to Edinburgh for a couple of days to see what all this festival malarky is about. I fave a feeling there's gonna be a rake of hippies about. I hate hippies.......

Dec.

SPLAT!












Rough pencils from yet-another-one of my side projects. It has an ickle bit of violence in it.

Dec.

PORTRAIT



Artist Kev Sutherland (The Beano) did a signing here in Aberdeen this weekend. Since i can't really show any work i've done the past few days i thought i might as well stick up this; a portrait Kev drew of me. I gotta admit, it's pretty accurate!

Dec

BIRDS OF PREY

A commission i finished yesterday. Got a group of commission requests a while ago. This was the second request i received, but unfortunately, the last to get done. This is my 3rd pass at the image; i tried two different compositions, but they just weren't working. Pretty happy with it now .....eventually








Dec.

COVER PROPOSAL

Rob (Freak Show writer/ creator) asked if i'd like to do an alternate cover for Book 2. Of course, i was very happy to be asked. As much as i liked Sean Phillips' and Stephen Mooney's covers for Book 1, i would have liked to have done a cover for a book which i'd drawn 60 story pages for. So i'm really happy i'm getting a chance to do a cover for my own book.






This is a rough sketch for my proposal. I had a previous idea, but Rob suggested i show characters from this new story arc, which i had no problem with.

Dec.

JAMES


















Here's a couple of panels from a new Freak Show page. It shows James. I'm 80 pages in to my run and i'm only drawing James, one of the main characters, now! So i'm not as used to drawing him as much as the other characters, but so far, so good.


Dec.

Monkey Business
















Gah! Was slowed down yesterday cuz i had to draw some monkeys in the new Freak Show story. Which is fine, but i had never drawn a monkey before. Tried to fluff it on the page, but twas pretty obvious i didn't know what i was doing, so i looked for some reference and practiced drawing monkeys for a while. Here's the rough sketches. Once i felt more comfortable, i got back to the page and had much better results.


Dec

MORE LIFE DRAWING



































































Had another life drawing class yesterday. Again, really enjoyed it. Instead of concentrating on doing two, proper finished drawings, i instead concentrated on getting as much poses and angles as i could. Did a couple of pencil sketches, but then pulled out the auld pen and brush and went to town. I wasn't bothered about getting all the proportions right, i was more concerned with figuring out all the muscles and shadows.
That was the last class, so it sucks i won't be able to do this again for a while, but pretty happy i got to do this for a couple of days.


Dec.

STAR WARS COMMISSION


I did this piece on Friday. Didn't get a decent scan of it, so this photo will have to do. It's a wedding present a friend asked me to illustrate of the bide and groom as a Jedi and Han Solo-type characters, with two friends as a Wookie and a bounty hunter. All the greywashes took me a while, but quite happy wuth the result. I may try this technique again with an upcomming Freak Show cover.




Dec.

YOUR ROUND: TEQUILA

Don't know how i missed this.

Your Round got a mention on silverbulletcomicbooks.com on the All The Rage column.

And a first review here.

Yay!

Dec.

SUB-CON POSTER

Rob asked me to illustrate a poster for his Sub-Con event in September. He said i could use a character of my choice, so i went with good old reliable Batman. I wanted to do something moody and eye-catching, rather than a big, complicated image. I had Batman: Year One, and the logo from Batman: The Animated Series in mind here. Maybe i should have used the opportunity to do some off the wall character that i haven't drawn before, but c'mon ....it's Batman.


Dec.

FREAK SHOW / ATOMIC ROCKET GROUP 66


Phew! This fella took me 2 whole days to figure out and draw. It's a vertical double page spread of Robert Curley's Freak Show and Atomic Rocket Group 66 characters, the latter group designed by Will Sliney. This was a lot of fun to draw, i must say, but still tough. It's nice to do a big f**k-off pin up every now and then, to break up the grind of doing sequential pages. Saying that, i love sequential pages, but they're so labour-intensive. Not like pin-ups, which are more show-y anyway.



Dec.

LIFE DRAWING

Hey kids. Did something i've been dying to do for ages on Sunday and went to a life drawing class. It was great, i haven't attended a proper drawing class since art college, four years ago. Just to look at a real life model again and to try learn from it was a great experience, considering all the referance i get these days is from photos or 3D programs. They're great of course, but nothing beats the real thing. The teacher was giving pointers to others, which reminded me of all the techniques i've learned but am so used to now, i take for granted. When i concentrated on those techniques, i ended up doing bad drawings cuz i was forcing my drawing needlessly. It was cool to do a finished pencilled drawing too, with shading and everything. When i pencil a page, it's only basic information i put down, leaving the rendering for the inks, but it was refreshing to do a proper pencil drawing for once. I did some sketches and stuff, but i'm too lazy to scan today, so here's photos of the two 'finished' pieces i got done on the day.



An ink drawing. I was also testing out some new Pentel Colour brushes i got in London with some nice results.

















And the pencil drawing. Even though it's shaded i can see how i still block different areas of shade, much like i do with my black and white work.











Dec.

IM BACK AND I'M BLACK

Well, i'm not black, but i do wear a lot of black, so that kinda counts ....right? But one thing's for sure, i'm definately back. Had a great time in London meeting up with some old friends, and some new ones too. Will probably stick up some photos when i can be bothered.

DRUNKEN HILARITY

In the meantime, he's some drunken endevours i produced while on holiday with the help of my good pal Will Sliney. In the pub, i had some pens on me, got some paper and we got scribbling.
Ignoring the bar which was more and more becomming full of attractive girls, Will and i resisted our carnal urges and instead geeked out on old cartoons and came up with a couple of themes for us to draw from. The first theme we came up with was characters from the old X-men cartoon. Y'know, the one where Rogue had a really sexy voice, and Wolverine sounded bad-ass. I came up with what character Will had to draw, and vice versa.




















We came up with another theme for the second one: Villains from the old Batman animated series. Man, i loved that show.



















Once we finished a sheet, we each did a portrait of each other. Pretty much flawless in every way, they were. Will definately summed me up pretty well.

More crap soon.


Dec.

***HAPPY BIRTHDAY BLOG***

Hello all, no art or nothin' today, i just wanted to mention that this blog is a whole year old as of today.

Seems wierd that i'm so used to posting now. I originally started it just so i could leave abuse over on Bob Byrne's website. He told me i should start posting but i dismissed the idea since the internet scared and confused me. Also, it required effort, and i wasn't so hot about that either. However, i was soon heading to San Diego (unlike this year) and reckoned giving my art some net presence couldn't hurt in case there was any interest in me at Comic-con. As it happens, i still don't have a website (in the process of startin one up tho) and i'm pretty sure no editor stateside has been stalking me since.

However, i've been getting into a good habit of getting work done, just so i have something to show for myself every couple of days. Also, i suppose it's worth mentioning since i started this blog, i have:

Gotten a proper job drawing comics,
Moved to a different country,
Gotten my own studio,
Done a handful of signings,
Did a couple of covers for other folks,
Created my own self-published comic,
Won an Eagle Award,
Gotten fatter,
And made a few friends on the way....

A lot has changed in a year.

So, Happy Birthday blog, 'tis been a year since i first posted on thee.....

Since it's been a year, and as far as i know, 4 people actually read this blog, so if you do check this blog the odd time, do me a favor and post a comment, to wish my blog a happy birthday, or just to curse my name and tell me how much you hate me. At least i'll know how many people read this. And hate me...

Dec.

BLOOD PSI























Hey kiddies, not many posts in the last couple of days and there's about to be a hell of a lot less! Been real busy the last couple of days, and i'm taking a week or so off. Visting mates back home and in London for the next week so don't expect much bloggin till i'm back..


Big news is that Andy Winter's new book came out this week. Blood Psi, is a new comic coming out under Andy's One-shot Club line, which also included Hero Killers. It's illustrated by the very talented Keith Burns and features a cover by myself. I'm quite happy with how the cover image came out and that's it's hitting the stands and being seen. I actually did a post on this blog where i showed how i put it together step-by-step. That post is now a feature in the back of the book, which i'm also chuffed about.


The book has gotten great reviews all round. Go to http://www.moonfacepress.com/ for links to all the reviews, and http://www.bloodpsi.com/ for more info on the book.

Then go BUY IT!

Dec.

JACK

A quick pen and drybrush test of Jack from Freak Show on watercolour paper.
















Dec.

TEEN-AGE RIOT

The title of one of my favourite Sonic Youth tracks, and also, an appropriate way of describing this panel.






















Also, my main man Will Sliney found a small article on Blood Psi, Eagle award winning writer Andy Winter's new book, out this month i believe. Gets a nice little mention and even complements the cover i did for it. Nice one! Click here and scroll down for the article.


Dec.

BIRMINGHAN INTERNATIONAL COMICS SHOW 2007











Just found out my name has been added to the guest list for the
Birmingham International Comics Show. Although i was technically a guest at last years con and the Bristol con just gone, this is the first time i've actually been officially listed on the website, along with all the other professionals. I am of course, thrilled to be listed with such high caliber talent, some of which are HUGE influences of mine.

My name is just four names away from Mike Mignola, three from Kevin Nowlan, two from Sean Phillips and twenty-four away from Alan Davis! Well, twenty-four away from Alan Davis isn't a huge deal, but still...


Dec.

PREACHER






















A pencilled piece of Jesse from Preacher. Man, i loved that book. I started reading it at just the right time. I guess i must have been fourteen or fifteen, kinda growing out of superhero comics, when i started reading this. Not that i don't like the superhero stuff (i'm still a sucker for that stuff), but by that age, i was lookin' for somethin' different. Man, did i find it. Plus, it had irish characters, with one story featuring the 1916 Rising! It was like the book was written just for me.

Was a lotta fun to draw Jesse....

Dec.

FREAK SHOW PENCILS










Dec.