Hulk vs Thor

Here's the finished painting...I intended to show more stages but lost the photos somewhere...so there's a big jump from the last time I posted images of it!

INFLUENCES CHAPTER FOUR: MIKE GRELL

Mike Grell, what a nice guy. I think Longbow Hunters was the first time I became aware of painted comic books. I remember I was blown away by the...not realism, but the movement, the physique of the figures, their anatomy. They weren't massive or bulky, or stylised. I liked that.

But at that point, I'd been aware of, and loved, Grell's art for a long time. The first time I saw his work was in the pages of Superboy and the Legion 206...I picked it up a few months into my comic reading life at a secondhand bookstore. It cost me 8p. From that moment on Mike Grell became my favourite Legion artist. Still is.

A cool page from issue 206. Love the pose of Invisible Kid in the last panel

 I love Cockrum's designs, the look of his 30th Century (inspired by Star Trek in many cases, never a bad thing). The Adventure covers Neal Adams did, awesome. Swan, Giffen, Sprouse, Sherman, Adam Hughes, Barry Kitson, Coipel, all great...and Steve Lightle, massive, massive fan of his work, some of my favourite images of the Legion were drawn by him...but Mike Grell is my favourite.

SLSH 210, signed by Mike Grell at LSCC 2014. 

Looking at issue 206...I think the way he drew the anatomy was different from other artists. I know, he was heavily influenced by Neal Adams, but Grell's figures were more lithe, more athletic maybe.

An action page from issue 208...panel 2 is probably the best Lightning Lad vs Lightning Lord image there is.

 I really liked how he drew figures lounging about, there was something in the weight of the figures he drew that worked for me.

The Legion of Super Villains chilling out. 

 It may not have been totally correct anatomically, maybe some of the backgrounds were a little sparse. But I love the vision he brought to the Legion.

He used a lot of facial expressions, his Legion were teens, but older teens, not generic youths as many artists depicted teens at the time.

Another great page from Legion #208

I've run through a lot of different styles in the way I draw. I guess I get a little obsessed about an artist and then I move on. But, Mike Grell, and especially his Legion work, is something I've always looked to for inspiration.

Looking through all these old issues to find the images I've posted on this blog...I think the way the figures lean whilst standing, the posture,  it's a great look, I think it's something I need to consider more in my work...

He defines the look of a fair few Legion members, in my opinion...Ultra Boy, Lightning Lad, Princess Projectra, Karate Kid, Invisible Kid for sure, Tyroc, Shrinking Violet, love his Brainiac Five...I do really like the way he draws Superboy. But Neal Adams draws the best Superboy. Heck, Grell does the best Ferro Lad too. Spider Girl is another...

No-one can draw Invisible Kid like Grell

And you know, the unitard Cosmic Boy is the one I grew up with, I kinda like it. I think a lot of fans hate it...I don't.

As I touched on in my LSCC Postscript Blog...I got to meet Mike at the con. He's a really great guy. He was doing some awesome sketches. I'd love to see him draw the Legion again...

Adventure Comics #13: The ongoing adventures of Ultra Boy and the Legion of Crime

Adventure Comics #13

Here's the next installment in the commission series. Unfortunately I've not had chance to colour this piece yet. The storyline is still following the Earth 3 version of the team. As you can see from the cover, thing have gotten a lot more complicated...

...obviously the cover is based on the cover to Superboy and the Legion #257!

I'll try and update the site a little more regularly. Been bogged down with catching up after the London Film and Comic Con. And, if you're going to be at the NICE con next month and want a commission, don't leave it too late...

HULK vs THOR

Thought I'd post a few 'work in progress' pics of a commission I'm working on...it's a pretty big piece, 30" in height. Anyway, here's the first 3 pics!

 Step one is the underpainting wth the background, a basic summer day blue painted in...

 Here you can see the stonework being painted in...I mix all the colours, I think the variety of changes across the background will give it a little more realism than using the colours straight out of the tube.

And the background before I paint the main figures. I need to add in some motion blurs and ore bits of rock but I'll do that when the Hulk has been painted in. I'll be better able to see where needs it then...

NICE 2014, 13th/14th September 2014

I'll be sketching and signing stuff at NICE. For free. So, if you want to get on my list then come on over early on the Saturday to avoid disappointment. They take a while so I won't be doing loads of them.

Quick head sketches are different as they don't take long, I can usually fit those in.

If you want a pre-con commission then get in touch. Prices are, as always, £40 for an A4 sized piece and £80 for an A3 piece. All done in Copic markers. Here are some examples of ones I did either as commissions or as art I took to sell actually at the con

...As you can see, I also do movie and TV sketches now (they were pretty popular at the LFCC last weekend)

I know I posted some of these pieces last week...but it makes it easier for them to be here in the NICE blog. I have a few more that I'll try and remember to scan this week...

LONDON FILM AND COMIC CON: LFCC POSTSCRIPT

This isn't going to be a blog about Stan Lee or any issues people may have had with the queues...there are plenty of places online to discuss these things. What you're going to read here is my experience of the weekend.

I travelled, once again, with Russell Payne and a friend, Darrell, who was there to help Russ with his Kirby panel. 

The journey itself, after some inexplicable stoppages on the M6, was ok. We got to the hotel before the beginning of the con (I was meant to be there at 6pm Friday, there was a preview night) despite me forgetting the address of the hotel we were staying at (it was the Ibis in Shepherd's Bush by the way, it was a really nice hotel, clean with helpful staff, a car park attached that was very reasonable pricewise)

The con itself was at Earls Court. About 1.5 miles away according to Google Maps. So we figured we'd ask some people how to get there and walk, we had time and not too much to carry. The first person Russ approached flinched and looked like she was going to throw herself off the bridge to our right. The next person recommended the bus. C1...stop just across the road, £1.35. He told us not to walk, it'll take ages...Ok, cool...We waited for 15 minutes, the bus came. Apparently you can't pay in cash on buses in London anymore...

So we walked. 

The con was pretty quiet in the comics section on Friday evening. I should explain here, the con was split between Earls Court One and Earls Court Two. The film and TV people, all the retailers (including all the comics retailers), the Young People Book bit were in Earls Court One. The comic creators and the talk stage were in Earls Court two. 

Me signing some Son of M comics for a fan on the Friday night

So, it was pretty quiet. I set up, filled up most of my sketch list for the weekend and met some people who actually read and enjoy this blog. Also, Brendan McCarthy came over, I'd never met Brendan before, nice man as well as being a great artist. 

Whilst waiting for the car to take us back the the hotel I bumped into Mike Mayhew. I've always liked his work and had a great chat about different artists we like, Marvel, the industry, the usual stuff really. I spent the rest of the weekend bumping into Mike in the hotel bar and the pubs and streets in the surrounding area. He was working, I think, for 48 hours straight to fulfill his commission list...

I was up for pretty much 48 hours over the weekend too. But I wasn't working. I was kept awake by Russ and his monstrous snoring. His wife had a great weekend at home. 

Saturday. Missed breakfast, the con started at 9. Very early for a con. I tried to take it a bit easier with the number of sketches I did this time and I did ok in that respect, I actually finished the ones on my list for a change. I met a lot of fans from different European countries, Hungary, Spain, Italy, France, Finland, Norway...and so I saw a variety of foreign language collections of comics with my covers on them that I've never seen before. 

Also, I signed a number of copies of hardbacks from Marvel's Classics Series, the Son of M edition. 

I'd not heard of it before. And a lot of the people I signed it for were sent over to me by David Hine, the writer of the series, who was a couple of tables down. People didn't know I'd done the covers on the collection as I'm not credited anywhere in the book. I'm used to not getting a copy of anything my work appears on, or in, from Marvel, but it'd be nice to have my name in there really.

I sold pretty much all the film or TV based sketches I'd done for the con (in fact the only ones I have left are a Quinto Spock and a Capaldi Dr Who that Russ insisted I draw 'because people will go crazy over a Capaldi sketch')

To the left of me all weekend was a guy called Mr Garcin. He was selling posters of some comic based collages he'd done. He wore a wrestler mask all weekend. And the odd thing is, I didn't find it that odd. We had an interesting chat about football (him being French and me having a Schweinsteiger Germany shirt with me we touched on the France/Germany game), the state of the French and English teams and who we thought would win the final...he must have been pretty hot in the mask though.

Now I wanted to accomplish only a couple of things at the con. I wanted to sell some art. And I wanted to get authors Charlie Higson and Holly Smale to sign a couple of books for my daughter Maia (and, if possible, get a quick video message for her). She's 10 and is fanatical about reading and it's something I encourage, obviously.

So, being very busy with sketching, I sent Russ and Darrell over to the other building with a short script to meet Charlie Higson for me. I regret not going myself...but anyway, they returned nearly 2 hours later with a signed book and a video message. What a nice guy Charlie Higson is. 

Charlie Higson, Comedy Legend, Author and a great guy!

Russ and Darrell had queued for over an hour in searing heat amidst what seemed like a million people to fulfill my demands. I was thankful and at the same time, felt pretty bad having put them through that.

Actually they'd had and awesome time using their guest passes to take photos of themselves with movie stars. Also, Russ bumped into Robert Rankin in the book section. Turns out Rankin had read (or heard of*) Russ' book. So his massive ego, usually under wraps, was running free again...

*I've not heard Russ tell the story the same way twice yet...in one telling Rankin had plagiarised Russ' book...

I had a cold all weekend so decided to take it easy and get a reasonably early night, not the usual 4am affair. Forgot to take into account the snoring horror next to me in the room. It was exponentially worse on the Saturday, probably Robert Rankins' fault for inflating his ego...

Sunday AM, leaving the hotel car park on our way to the con. 

Sunday was a bit quieter. Upon entering I shared the lift with Chewbacca, he was shouting and making a plethora of Chewie style noises. Probably died later in the day from heat prostration...

Sketching on the Sunday morning. 

After the experience Russ and Darrell had over in Earls court 1 the previous day I thought I'd check it out myself and get the kids some presents. It was busy. Crazy busy. After wandering about for a bit looking at all the retail stuff Russ had a plan. He was going to the VIP green room to see if an actor (Milo, he was in Heroes, I've never seen it) was there (it was logical as he was on his dinner break from signing) as his daughter Rosie is obsessed with him. 

I wasn't that bothered and continued my search for gifts. I bought motion and sound activated Tribbles in the end. Awesome. Russ sauntered into the room having flashed his badge and sat down with Milo, had a nice chat. Milo said he'd call Rosie and say hi. But she was at work* so he let Russ film a video message.

 *He didn't know her number. 

Russ had another great experience. Darrell went after we relieved him from guarding the tables and met a whole different set of people!

I went back myself, but that was to meet Holly Smale for Maia, she's her favourite author. Again, really pleasant, very approachable, and I have a lovely video message too.

Holly Smale, author of the Geek Girl series

They were the only breaks I had over the con. But, as I've said already, I got all my sketches finished. 

Just before we left at the end of the day David Roach pointed at my t-shirt and said it looked like a Bob Oksner cover (I had a t-shirt of my Star Trek Binky' Buddies #1 cover printed and was wearing it). Turns out he's a big fan of Oksner. At the next con we're both at I hope to be able to talk more in depth about Oksner with David. 

The plan afterwards was to eat in a pub and watch the World Cup Final. It'd mean getting home at about 2am...and since Russ and Darrell both detest football I figured we should just go and I could watch it the next morning having avoided the score. Thankfully, that happened!

A couple of people I want to mention. Ben Le Foe. I've met Ben many times at cons over the years. He's a big Legion fan and we like a lot of the same artists. What I didn't know about Ben, until the weekend, was that he's in a band,  A Body of People Ben asked me to give the band a 'like' on Facebook (if I liked the album he kindly gave me) but I'm not on Facebook, so check out the link. They're pretty good! And if you live nearby, go and watch the band live! I'll do a seperate blog about the band sometime soon. For now, my initial thoughts were that it was going to be West Coast Psychadelia in vibe, which it is...but there's an element of Folk and also Punk in there too!

And, I want to mention Posetastic. I had an interesting chat with a guy called Mark at the con who's developed an app that allows you to pose accurate digital figures. You can control the camera angle and also the lighting. The perspective looks authentic. It goes live in a few weeks. It's something I think will make my life easier, check out the link above....I need to buy an Ipad now.

The next con I'll be attending will be NICE in September. It's the third year and it's well worth going to. I'll be sketching. I'm supposed to begin charging for sketches...but I'll be doing them for free again. I will have some more finished pieces for sale though!

Another example of a movie based pre con commission I did for LFCC

LFCC Sketches for Sale

Trying something a little different for the con next weekend. As well as the sketches of comic book characters that I usually have for sale at cons I've drawn portraits of different actors and actresses. Here are some examples...

They're all drawn in a mix of pencil, ink and Copic marker and are A4 in size and will be available to buy at the con.