

Flashback - The Battle of Brick Lane
This is really one of my personal favourites. After I'd done the Old Vic Tunnels piece, I definitely wanted to have another go at integrating my illustrations with my photography. This is the photo I ended up using, after one of my many trips to Brick Lane. I think it was one of a few I'd considered, but I found it worked best with the characters, and it's a great piece. I definitely had a few influences with the female character, mostly from Marvel. By now, everyone knows th

Mechanical Text - 4
Bolder colours than I've used for a lot of these, but the contrast can't be a bad thing. I did start off unsure how I wanted to structure my 4. In the end, the slanted version is a clearer silhouette, so it made sense to go with that. I think some of the features I ended up using in the design were quite tool-like. There's even a catch from my son's pram in there. So, number 4. I finished this just in time to use it to announce my 40th birthday, which is a bit egotistical, bu

Flashback - L'ermitage
I think this was the last picture I made before I left London for Sydney. L'ete had made me feel that my Art Nouveau / robot idea was a good one, but I didn't think I'd completely nailed it. When I found this Paul Emile Berthon image, I knew it would be a better image to appropriate, as all of the framing and decoration had great potential for being updated. Also, it's just a fantastic image. This was, as you can imagine, a very long pencilling stage. I really wanted to appro

Mechanical Text - 3
I keep looking at number 3 and being reminded of a scorpion's tail. Looks like it would be a fun one to animate... I'm trying to make more use of the design tools I have at the sketching stage, which you can see in the original sketch. So here we go, we'll have enough to count on one hand soon. #pencils #lettering #letters #inking #typography #scifi #finishedart

Flashback - Refugees "The Builders"
You've seen this piece in the Portals section of my site, and I did already post up the images for this before, but I hadn't really broken down the process like I've been doing in the other flashback posts. Here's the description from the original post back in 2015. This is my first entry for Artwork of Fantasy and Imagination, the next exhibition that I'll be doing with the group I did the Sydney Comic Art & Drawing Exhibition with. The show will run from 17th - 24th Decembe

Mechanical Text - 2
Still going with the numbers, now I'm up to number 2. I thought I'd go for some brighter colours, to keep the variety up. The sketch ended up using some piston and visor action going on. I was really happy with this one, and there's more to come. #pencils #inking #finishedart #scifi #letters #lettering #typography


I Consume Media - MOSAIC and the question of identity (part 1)
I've known Geoffrey Thorne for years now, and I got a special kick out of reading a Big 2 (Marvel or DC) comic by someone I know. It was especially interesting, as I know Geoff has never viewed getting a job with the Big 2 as being the ultimate dream-job. He's always been much more interested in doing his own thing, and producing great work along the way. That said, producing good work brought him to Marvel's attention, where he's now written 2 series, and is the current exec