New comic page

Glub glub glub? Blup Blup Blup?

Very happy with the hand, not so keen on the water.

Splash image for Lost Lemuria comic

I finally bought a really fine brush and have been practicing inking in the professional style using a pot of India Ink (courtesy of Grointhief!). This is my first attempt. The greys are done with watercolours.

New comic page

The mysterious Reichelt vest in action. About as successful as the real one.

Fantastic Interview with Guillermo del Toro

Seen at the New Yorker website.

Contents include del Toro's awesome mansion filled with horror movie props and related artwork, sad musings on The Hobbit movies as he was planning to do them, and exciting ramblings about the forthcoming At the Mountains of Madness movie.

One exciting note (to me at least) is that one of my favourite comic book artists, Guy Davis (BPRD, The Marquis) is involved in the concepts for the creatures in this film.

Possible replacement for middle panel on page 3 of Lost Lemuria comic

Above is a redesign of the long middle panel from the third page of a thus far untitled comic I'm working on. I will probably paint it tonight and post it tomorrow if it turns out well.

Some things that aren't evident in the black and white draft:

The floor is going to be a big union jack.

Behind Mr Fort is the London skyline - very rough and blurry at the moment.

Hopefully it is apparent that we are looking at the back of someone sitting in a chair addressing Mr Fort.

Thanks to Chris for his input!

EDITED to include the newly coloured panel and the adjusted page. I'm pretty happy with it so long as you avoid the glaring inconsistency. I hope there's only one glaring inconsistency anyway!

All Time great comic book sequences

One of my favourite sequences in a comic, and one that I think is remarkable for a couple of reasons, comes from BPRD: Plague of Frogs #5. It is a creepy sequence of Abe Sapien (the mysterious fish-man who first appeared in Hellboy, and who is now a major character in the spin-off BPRD comics) having a near-death experience and getting a glimpse of his own strange past as a scientist/conspirator/Victorian dude.

The most obvious thing about this lengthy sequence (a couple of panels of which I have presented above entirely without permission) is that it has almost no dialogue.

The big panels and limited palette of sympathetic colours give a dreamy quality to the whole thing, and it goes for several pages, showing Abe, or Abe's astral form perhaps, floating amongst Cyclopean ruins which are straight out of Lovecraft.

The art is by Guy Davis, whose work I initially didn't like but now absolutely love. Anyway, it is a fine piece of art I read and re-read and you might like it too.

Comic Page 3

Looking at these last three posts together, it seems to me that they are getting progressively worse (not that I'm not generally happy with them all).

In trying to analyse why the first page posted works better than these others, I've noticed how striking the really large panel is. I do like the close-ups on this third page, but the wide middle panels on both this and the 2nd page bug me. Both panels try to show a room and have a lot of things to see in them – perhaps they would work better to show off important, single items? The abundant space should impart importance to the contents of the panel. At least that's what all that stuff about white space in graphic design suggests.

I also wonder if the scraps of Fort's diary that serve as indicators of time and place in the first panels wouldn't work better condensed into one in the first panel alone. It seems weird having the second panel saying they are at Crystal Palace when the first panel is of Crystal Palace.

Comic Page 2

Comic concept - "Lost Lemuria"

Water colours and markers.

Yet another explorer of Lost Lemuria

Not completely convinced by the colours, particularly the stone hand, but pretty happy with the guy's seedy expression and the animals, and his Greg Broadmore inspired weapon.

Tattoo design coloured

A design I did a few weeks ago in pen and pencil and only just got around to colouring with watercolours last night. This image has been touched up a little in Photoshop, mostly just increased saturation.

The pencil and paintbrush motif is just a reflection of my love of the "tools of the trade" (although I really prefer a mechanical pencil). The skull, roses and squid tentacles are just for coolness though.

Lemurian Mushroom Forest

A HerMES (Her Majesty's Esoteric Society) agent investigates an unnatural profusion of fungal growth with extreme prejudice.

Lemuria, 1900 AD.

Lemurian Fish Temple

Even more Lost Lemuria!

I got some watercolours on Friday and experimented with them over the weekend. I think the bottom image of Charles Fort works the best, probably due to the limited colour palette.

I also like the blue stone relic Marie Curie is resting on, and some of the plants in the foreground in the picture of the explorer facing an ominous stone doorway.

More explorers of Lost Lemuria

Featuring Charles Fort and (reanimated) Sir Walter Raleigh as you've never seen them before!

Wyrm Tamer

Extremely poor photo of a painting I've recently finished.

Indian Ink, Spraypaint (both courtesy of Gronthief!) and markers on a salvaged cabinet door.

Lemurian Explorers

I've been working on a few images of retro-futuristic/steampunk intrepid adventurers exploring (formerly) Lost Lemuria. Had some fun using coloured pens and pencils too. Inspired by Greg Broadmore, Lovecraft and Mike Mignola.