New comic and another new blog

I did another comic the other day. This is intended to be the first of many one-off mini comics in a series called "Explorers" featuring characters and events that neatly fit in with the theme of exploration, be it of strange alien cities, or of  deep sea trenches, and lots in between. While these will all be independent mini comics, they will often have connections with each other and with other projects I am working on. Think of it as establishing a mythology. Really it's just a way for me to practice drawing comics without getting too bogged down in a single epic narrative. The first one is quite Lovecraftian. 

So here is Explorers 1:

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It was my first time tackling a wintery scene with the watercolours. I was going for the whole "quiet mystery" thing with this, and probably will for many more to come too. I hope you enjoy it!

The other thing is I have set up a Tumblr account. I did this because it seemed to suit my needs more than Blogger. i will continue to post pretty much the same stuff on here as I do on Tumblr for now, but if it suits you, you should probably just go here.

Thanks!

Will

A short comic and a birthday present

Today I mowed the lawn and something a little bit funny happened. I noticed that there were three slugs sitting happily on top of the lawnmower. I guess they must have crawled on from the trees as I was cutting the grass. I thought rather morbidly that while they may be thinking as true stowaways, hitching a ride to an easy meal, they were actually headed straight to the shed where we keep the lawnmower. So as I was mowing the lawn and thinking about these stowaways I thought it would be fun to draw a one page comic about it. So I did, here it is:

I'm really pleased with it! I need to practice shorter comics like these as I can see good results faster than if I slave away at a comic for ages and it eventually doesn't get finished. I can also now reveal a painting I did a while ago for my good friend Alison's birthday! We're both huge Alan Partridge fans so I thought it would be funny to paint a memorable scene from the very first episode of "I'm Alan Partridge". It went down very well indeed!

-Will

Spooky trees

Straight from the moors in the centre of Ireland's most unsettling fictitious island, here are a couple of paintings for my laboriously and yet lovingly ongoing project, Terra Mecha.

I'm pretty pleased with the way these trees look. I'll probably continue to draw them that way. I had a bit of trouble with drawing pine trees in the past. Which was a big problem, considering my adoration of spooky trees. Yes, I could go on for hours about the merits of spooky trees. 

I was looking today out the rear window of my house, looking down across the farden and over a field to my favourite spooky trees. There are three or four of them in a row, and there's nothing behind them so they are always silhouetted in a marvellously spooky way. It was sort of raining and that makes the atmosphere even better, I think. sometimes when I'm not feeling very inspired I just go down the garden to stand on the wall and gaze at them for a while. Invariably I get the urge to draw, paint, play music, whatever! There's something powerful about those trees, some kind of unearthly draw they have on me. Pulling me in, fascinating me and inviting me into other planes of existence. That's when I realise that in spite of most people's comments about this country, I have a lot to thank the irish countryside and weather for in terms of inspiration.

I wouldn't change it for the world!

Will

Old Castles

My parents just came back from Westport. There was a car boot sale going on there. Apparently they take place on the first sunday of every month. In any case, they brought back a crumbling old german book published in 1922, called Gates, Towers and Fountains from German Past Times. They got it for my girlfriend Niamh for reasons which are two-fold: She is fluent in german and deeply interested in all that old architechture. We both found the book immensely interesting. It's brimming with photographs of gates, towers and fountains (who'd have guessed?). Anyway I too am interested in all that old architecture. But in a much less educated, haphazard way. I don't REALLY know anything about it, and I'm no architect. I can't stand technical drawing. but I know a cool weird looking tower when I see one, and this book has plenty. Some of you may know about that comic I'm working on, The Tower, about a prisoner escaping from a strange castle. With that fresh in my mind, I felt in the mood to do some drawing.

So I did a fairly quick painting/drawing (I don't know what to call them, as they are about 50% of both) loosely based on one of the pictures in the book: The town wall in Rothenburg ODT (Der stadtmauer im Rothenburg ob der Tauber). Here it is:

Apart from that, I'm hard at work on various other projects, and in my free time I'm struggling away at Resident Evil 4 on professional mode!

Will

The Tower preview

I finished the first page of my first true comic book last night. I just wanted to give a taste of what this will be like so I am showing this page, and for the rest you will have to wait until it's finished! I felt kind of uninspired recently. It's because I have at least three big projects to work on, and I constantly want to dive in and do huge productions with them. That's all well and good, but if the story isn't prepared enough before you start doing big things like comics or animations, you will run into problems.

To combat this block I decided I would just write up the stories behind the main projects. In the meantime I would work on much smaller, simpler stories for practising my technical skills. Honing them before I can give the bigger projects true justice. So that's where this idea came from. Of course, it doesn't always work out that way and I found myself spending hours thinking about character and set designs for this comic.

Also, I realised that I usually make these projects set in the real universe. No matter how bizarre or extreme they may be, there is a hint of realism. Not so for this project. I decided to let all that go. This will be a no-holds-barred experience of surreal whimsy, largely inspired by the work of Mateusz Skutnik and also some of the short films by Jan Svankmajer. I really hope you like where this is going!

As you can see, I've been honing my watercolours. I'm very happy with them so far. Definitely my kind of thing. Let me know what you think! Maybe one day you'll see this sort of thing by me in nice fancy books in the shops!

Will

A foray into comic strips, and Teacupfaery update

I have been productive lately!!

Here is a quick little experimental comic strip I did the other day. I'm very interested in drawing comic books. This particular one is lifted from a project I'm working on with my friend Calvin. I just felt like using it as the basis for my first foray into watercolour comics. What do you think? I think it's pretty cool.

 I have also been doing a little bit of work for my sister Jane (Over at  noneuclideanquilting) She asked me to design a logo of sorts for her quilt labels. here is the work in progress so far:

I'm pretty sure the finished thing is going to be in watercolours and pen, as above. But as you can see it's a work in progress.

I've decided I'm going to try to devote about an hour a day to my own personal projects. And I don't mean thinking about them, I mean actual tangible work. That way I might actually get some serious work done over the approaching summer holiday.

I think there's hope for the future of this blog afterall!

Will

New Watercolours

Here are those watercolours I mentioned last night, plus a new one. Very happy with the way these things are working out!

If it's not too much trouble, keep an eye out, because hopefully there'll be more to come soon.

Will