Drawing Business » Illustration

Moving the furniture

Administrator — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:33:28 +0000

I’ve been doing a little bit of housekeeping on my site, and have now placed the links to my RedBubble store front and centre on the home page, along with samples of the artwork I currently have for sale.

I’ve also added my FutureQuake Cover to the Comics section of my portfolio. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to get around to it. I’ll try and put up the pages from the Regrets, Rules and Jellied Eels strip soon, too.

Science Kitteh is reviewing a fascinating paper

Administrator — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 22:30:00 +0000

The newest in my on-going series of science and skepticism kitteh designs for t-shirts, hoodies, stickers and iPhone cases is available now on my RedBubble store.

Science Kitteh

If you own a cat, you’ll probably be aware of their habit of sitting on any pieces of paper that you place on the floor, so to juxtapose this with the idea of reviewing published scientific papers seemed an obvious gag. I was given permission by Jerry Coyne to use the title of his 1992 paper “Genetics and speciation” as Science Kitteh’s chosen reading material. I thought this would be a nice insider reference, as Jerry has been kind enough to publicise these designs on his site.

New! Skeptical Kitteh clothing and phone cases

Administrator — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 21:59:55 +0000

Are you skeptical? Do you demand evidence? Do you like kittehs? Then this may be the perfect present for you. Skeptical Kitteh is available now on my RedBubble Shop page as clothing or on cases for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S. Skeptical Kitteh is available in two designs, one for light clothing, and a modified version for dark clothing. Here’s a (watermarked) sample of the dark variation:

Skeptical Kitteh

Finally, something new…

Administrator — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:00:36 +0000

I’ve had to move my computer into a new room now that my daughter needs my old space, and I’ve not really had the time to do any drawing since her birth 5 months ago. My new location means that I don’t have space for a drawing board or a scanner either, so I’ve been forced into an all-digital workflow for the first time at home.

Tonight though, I found a few hours to sit down and start sketching a character for a book idea that I’m tentatively working on with a friend. I’m finding sketching using just my Intuos tablet quite challenging at the moment. It’s not as direct or natural as using pencil and paper, or the Cintiq I use at work. I’m getting the hang of it, but I find I’m much slower using the tablet, and can’t hack away with the stylus as I do with a pencil. But hopefully, if I persevere with it, hopefully the fluidity will return.

Here’s my first sketch. Hopefully I’ll get to add some colour soon.

Character Sketch

Review of FutureQuake #17

Administrator — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:27:51 +0000

Following the birth of my beautiful daughter at the end of March, I rather forgot to pay attention to any coverage of the launch of FutureQuake #17, so I had completely overlooked this rather nice review by Chris Denton. In it, he has some very nice things to say about my artwork (which is always good):

It’s a great cover by Richard Smith and leads straight into the first strip, Regrets, Rules and Jellied Eeels, scripted by Neil Merrett. The art is crisp and clear, Smith’s background in computer games is evident and that’s no bad thing at all. I really enjoyed the story too, the twist is pretty funny.

Cover Up

Administrator — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 14:56:22 +0000

FutureQuake Issue 17

Issue 17 of FutureQuake is on sale now! Go and buy a copy now (£3.50 + £1.00 P+P), or there will be… trouble.

The Future is Nearly Here

Administrator — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:25:31 +0000

The very nice folks at FutureQuake Press have posted a teaser image of my forthcoming comic strip. It’s the lead strip in issue 17 of the Multiple Eagle Award nominated flagship FutureQuake comic. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy when it comes out later this month.

Testing Times

Administrator — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 22:20:36 +0000

Below is a timed sketch that I produced last week for an art test. I decided to include my slightly rubbish initial sketches, just to show the process more clearly. No word on the outcome as yet. Click the image for a bigger version.

Art Test Illustration

Getting it covered

Administrator — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 20:02:21 +0000

I’ve been working fairly intensively on the cover artwork for my FutureQuake story, and it’s getting close to completion now. Just the background to paint, and a few tweaks to make to the character. Here’s a sample of the work in progress (I’ve just slapped in a masthead from a previous edition to help with the layout):

FutureQuake Cover Art in Progress

Let me know what you think.

Back to the Future

Administrator — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 22:06:00 +0000

Or more accurately, back to the FutureQuake. For the last few weeks, I’ve been beavering away on the finished artwork for my strip; all five pages are now inked, and have the flat tone applied to them. I’ve also completed the shading on page one. You can see a sample of the finished result below:

Extract from the finished first page

I wish I had time to revisit some of the panels that I’m not so happy with, but it’s difficult enough to grab time in the evenings and weekends to work on it. My workload has been increased even further by the editor asking me to paint the cover for the next issue, something that I’m very thrilled to be doing.

I’ve completed the initial sketch for the cover image (below), and will be getting on with painting it as soon as I’ve sorted out my damned tax return. The cover is full colour, full bleed, so it will be an interesting challenge.