Recent stuff! Orwell, DROWSE and workshops

Hello! I realise I haven’t written here for a while. So like, what have I be doing? Well…

Sean and I have been working hard to promote our Orwell adaptation, Such, Such Were the Joys. There have been various workshops and talks, including a lovely book launch evening with the Orwell Society, where we were introduced by Orwell’s son, Richard Blair! I also got to speak about our friend George at the recent Street Noise Draw The Line UK book launch at the Cartoon Museum in London. You can always follow me on Twitter to get the latest on these events as they happen.

I’ve also been working on another project with Sean and economist Michael Albert called Next American Revolution - can’t tell you much more than that for now but here is a peek at one of the pages…

Alongside that, I’ve been illustrating the lo-fi supernatural crime series DROWSE, with Frank Verano, Nick Klinger, Taylor Esposito and Kevin Ketner. We’re really proud of what we’ve achieved so far and the amazing thing is that you can read it all online for FREE! I’d love to hear what you think. Chapter 4 Part 2 is currently in the works and will also be available to read soon. It’s the final instalment of the current story arc - so expect some dramatic scenes!

Finally, I had a lovely afternoon recently running a comics workshop at The Comic Shop, Crawley for Creative Crawley and their Enliven/’Give it a Go’ series of events. Got to meet so many talented young artists from the local area! A massive thank you to Louise and Sam from Creative Crawley, the WORDfest Crawley team, the fantastic staff at The Comic Shop and all the lovely participants!

Here is a sample of some of the fantastic works created:

New things coming...

Two new projects happening in 2018. One hasn't quite started yet, the other I've been doing some character sketches for, a few of which are above.

I'm really excited about both of them, can't say much yet although they're both a far cry from G Bear and Jammo (as you might guess from the pics)! Anyway, watch this space for more work in progress, rough visuals and process shots in general... exciting times.

Draw The Line

Here's a section of an illustration I've just finished for Draw The Line, where over 100 comic artists have been invited to illustrate positive political actions anyone can take. Initiated by Myfanwy Tristram, the project will initially take the form of a website followed by a book. There are some big names involved - can't wait to see it all collected together!

In other news, my first newsletter is due to go out sometime next week - so if you haven't signed up already do it now! Especially as I will be treating my subscribers to an exclusive peek at a brand new web comic I'm working on..

.. c'mon, you know you wanna.

2016 over and out.

Happy New Year! So that was 2016. Despite all the awful stuff that happened, I still managed to enjoy some great creative projects and am looking forward to what 2017 may bring. I just might not watch the news as much. Anyway, here's a round up of what I've been doing over the past twelve months..

First there was the Graphic Shakespeare competition. I didn't win but I really enjoyed making my little Macbeth piece, which you can read in full by clicking the image above! I also got to create a nice fold-out comic from it, that went down really well at comics fairs. Yuss.

Next I adapted a segment of John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold for Russ Kick's Graphic Canon of Crime and Mystery, to be published soon by Seven Stories Press. Drawing a spy comic was quite a new thing for me but I really enjoyed having a go at "noir" and you can see some of the pages by clicking the car image above. Let me know what you think, I'd be interested to hear what people make of it!

Following on from this, some more work for the University of Sussex. They wanted me to create friendly and inviting images for their Research Hive, a total contrast to spies in Cold War Berlin. Still, they were fun to draw - simplicity can give you lots of creative freedom.

A large proportion of the year was then spent doing workshops, including B.fest's Graphic Novel in a Day, Phil Viner's All Night Write and Little Green Pig's Little Green Pop Up. Plus I got to be part of the Drawing Parade at the Fall Comica Comiket!

On top of this I made a two page comic especially for Brighton zine fair The Rose Tinted Spectacular, which featured in their publication Tune Zine - a book all about musical epiphanies.

To finish off, I also managed to do another comic strip workshop for Little Green Pig, speak about Think Like Churchill at Graphic Brighton 2016 and pay another couple of visits to the Creative Media Production students at City College Brighton & Hove! Phew.

Whilst all this has been going on I've been beavering away at a top secret project, which I'm hoping to reveal in early 2017. Here's a sneaky preview below.. but hey, why don't you sign up to my soon to be launched quarterly newsletter so you can find out more?

Here's to a bright and fun-filled year ahead.
Cheers.

All Night Write - this Saturday 18th June!

Hey, just a quick plug for a writing event I'll be attending this Saturday 18th June at 88 London Road theatre bar, Brighton. Organised by Dark & Stormy, it's called All Night Write and yes, that's exactly what it is - an all night writing session from 10pm to 6am Sunday morning! So if you're a budding writer (be it comics, novels, film, TV, theatre, music, whatever!) and want to take the opportunity to write alongside some professionals then this is for you. There will be a series of exciting talks throughout the night and the writers listed above will also be on hand to give hints, tips and one-to-one advice! Top names attending include Brighton crime writer P.D. Viner and comics extraordinaires Hannah Berry and Ian Williams. Plus I'll be mooching in the corner working on something or other...

The shape of things to come

Oh dear, I seem to have left this web presence thing slip again. Sorry about that. Pretty busy working on lots of projects, including contributing to an anthology and designing characters for an animation start-up, more of which I will reveal in good time. In the meantime here's a panel from a recent competition piece.. more about that too once the judging is done and dusted. Speak soon, stay frosty.

New sequence for Makers of Monsters! Plus more Afanc & Thought Bubble this weekend!

Writer Mark Pembrey and I have been busy putting together a new 6 page sequence for Makers of Monsters (formerly Better Beasts), our graphic novel in progress! And you can see it all by clicking the pic above... There's even some new character studies up there too. You can read a little bit more about the project over on Mark's website here. I'll try and post the full synopsis at some point soon.

There's also been some new Afanc activity over afanc-comic.tumblr.com! There are new characters and everything, including a dog called Mr Cuddles..

And what are you up to this weekend? Going to Leeds perchance? Then do swing by the always fantastic Thought Bubble Comic Arts Festival and say hi! I'll be selling my wares on table 41a in the Royal Armouries Hall. See you there!

Robot drawing - step by step

STAGE 1 - I created a new A3 document in Manga Studio. Using a sketchbook doodle as reference, I roughed in the robot's pose using a blue line first and then darkened and defined the basic shape of its body with a grey pencil.

STAGE 2 - still pencilling with the darker line, I've started to add more definition to its various joints, fingers, body cavity, etc. Also dropped in a background, which was a bit of an afterthought (not always the best practice!). Thanks to the blue line I'm able to see what I'm doing pretty clearly and am saved from making the page a grey mess as I work things out. The soft eraser tool in Manga Studio also helps me keep things clean. I tend to be quite a messy penciller and a bit of a hard presser so blue line definitely works for me.

STAGE 3 - Inks. Using the G-Pen nib in Manga Studio I draw in the basic outlines. I then pluck up the courage to put in the heavy black areas. Some zip-tone was then dropped in loosely for the mid tone areas. The brush droplet tool was used together with white paint to get some of those dented FX and also push back the mountain range. The upper legs and arms were a bit of a struggle here - I tried to draw those tube rings in a way that wasn't too mechanical but also not too sloppy. Not entirely happy with the result but time to push on with....

STAGE 4 - Colour! For this stage it's time to export to Photoshop. I then block in the basic flat colours on a new layer and add a custom pattern effect to get that watercolour paper look. The darker areas are added on a separate layer using a brush with 'wet edges'. Adjustment layers are then added to some of the line work to push the background further back. Finally I dropped in some highlights, again with a wet edged brush set to 'luminosity'. Done!

Next stage? Possibly getting this bad boy made into a print for the shop?

My other place (Tumblr)...

 

So here's a selection of sketches, doodles and scribbles that you can see over on my Tumblr site, called Jaime's Other Place. I'm currently mulling over making it my main news feed and linking directly to it from this site's main menu...we'll see. Anyway, do take a look - hope you enjoy!

More Beasts and another work in progress...

 

Unfortunately Better Beasts didn't make the Myriad shortlist but Mark and I were still chuffed to get as far as we did. So onwards and upwards -  and in the meantime here are some more sneak peeks, plus another work-in-progress I'm in the middle of at the moment...

Exciting news for Better Beasts

Good news for Better Beasts, we've been longlisted for the Myriad First Graphic Novel Prize 2014! So here are some more randomly chosen panels to celebrate...

Better Beasts

 

Remember I said I'd been working hard? Well here are some sneak peeks at Better Beasts, a graphic novel I'm currently working on with Mark Pembrey. It's all about the first palaeontologists and the bitter rivalry between them, in particular Gideon Mantell and Richard Owen. More pics and info to come soon. Oh, and as you might've already guessed, the stuff in pencil is yet to be inked but you get the idea!

Concept drawings...(new project alert)

 

Some concept sketches for an exciting new Victorian period project I'm working on with the super talented Mark Pembrey (with his writing hat on). Won't say anymore for now except that there will be beasties in it...